Chapter VIII: Reasons for Our Reverses (3)

My recommendations as to giving accelerated promotion to the best officers of the General Staff with me were negatived, because these gentlemen would then have passed over the heads of their contemporaries polishing office-stools in Russia. For example, Captain Kruimoff was an exceedingly capable officer of the General Staff on the staff of the 4th Siberian Corps. General Zarubaeff, his corps commander, and I several times recommended him for promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel[89] for distinguished service in the field. We were unsuccessful in our effort, but, to the amazement of myself and of the officers of the General Staff who were at the front, I ascertained that a contemporary of Zarubaeff, who was not at the war, and who was not qualified for the promotion, had been promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel. And this was only one instance of many. As regards the promotion of captains of infantry of the Line to Lieutenant-Colonel, the Headquarter Staff, I am glad to say, made no difficulty, and by this course we obtained a large number of energetic young staff officers. Some of them possessed, indeed, such brilliant military qualities that they might well have been put at once in command of regiments. I tried, in the interests of the public service, to get some officers who were personally known to me as good men appointed to the field army. Some were sent to me, others were not, the reason being given that the strength of the army was sufficient to satisfy all official needs.

To organize intelligence work successfully special experience is required. I was dissatisfied with the way this important duty was being performed, and I asked that a certain officer of the General Staff, particularly well qualified for it, should be appointed, but I received a refusal on quite insufficient grounds. Again, the Headquarter Staff paid very little attention to what they allowed to be published from the reports from the theatre of war, and gave out information containing the names of localities, units, etc., which must have made it easier for the enemy to fix the position of our troops. At the same time, though Headquarters knew the totals of our losses and the numbers of guns we had abandoned in the fights at Mukden, they for a long time did not contradict the Press reports which stated we had lost several hundreds of guns. The long absences from the army of officers commanding units compelled me frequently to ask that a time-limit should be fixed, after which, if they did not rejoin, the absentees should forfeit their appointments. This recommendation was eventually approved, and numerous general and other officers who had been for long merely officiating in command of brigades and regiments were, on the authority of the Commander-in-Chief, confirmed in their appointments. But soon afterwards demobilization began, and an order was then issued from St. Petersburg to the effect that the Commander-in-Chief was, to the prejudice of his own authority, to issue an order cancelling his previous ones making the appointments, because the “resurrected dead” thought of returning to the army, and wished to command the units from which they had so long absented themselves. It is essential that such harmful interference from Headquarters with an army in the field should be put a stop to, and that full power should be given to those in actual command on the spot.

I have not alluded to our marked inferiority to the enemy in technical troops and material. This chiefly applies to the proportion of sapper units. With each Japanese division of all arms was a strong battalion of sappers, while we had only one to each army corps. But, owing to the demand for work at one and the same time on the line of communications, and in constructing bridges and railways, only two sapper companies of the battalion were as a rule actually with our corps. In other words, each division had one company, a proportion which proved to be quite insufficient. The Japanese telegraph and telephone troops were also far more numerous than ours, and their material was better, and it was only after the Mukden battles that we were able to remedy these defects. Owing to their sea transport, the enemy were of course able to deliver with far greater ease light-railway material in the theatre of operations, as well as technical material for construction of fortifications and for the attack. It was only after Mukden that we received an adequate stock of field railways, wire, cables, explosives, and tools.

In spite of the superiority of our guns, we made a mistake in having only one type of shrapnel. We hoped, of course, that it would give good results when burst on contact[90]; but it turned out to be ineffective when used in this way, and for this we paid heavily, as we were unable properly to prepare by artillery the attack of even hastily fortified positions. When the Japanese prepared by artillery for an attack on a village held by us, they destroyed it in the most thorough manner. The instructions issued to Kuroki’s army (in October, 1904) contained the following remarks regarding our artillery:

“The enemy has apparently no common shell; his shrapnel is
ineffective, and the splinters do little damage, as the walls of
the shell are too thin.”

For a long time we possessed no mountain-guns, though we very often had to move by roads impassable by field-guns when operating in the hills. The enemy were greatly superior to us in this point. It was only for the Mukden battles that we were able to provide a few of these batteries to some of our army corps operating in the hills on the east, but even then the force under General Rennenkampf was insufficiently supplied.

The Japanese began the war with no machine-guns. We had a few machine-gun companies attached to some of the East Siberian Rifle Divisions, and in the very first fight—at the Ya-lu—one of these companies attached to the 3rd East Siberian Rifle Division was most valuable. The Japanese were quick to profit by this experience, and, after the September fighting at Liao-yang, put in the field a great number of these guns of a light, portable type. These were of great service to them, particularly in strengthening the defence of hastily prepared positions held by small numbers of men. The supply of these guns to our army was carried out very slowly, and was, in fact, only finished by the time peace was concluded. The proportion also was too small—only eight per division.

Our four-wheeled transport carts were unsuitable both for hill-work and for the Manchurian mud; but my request that two-wheeled carts should be substituted with the troops to come from Russia was not heeded. The quantity of ammunition with the guns was found to be insufficient for continued fighting. In spite of the reserves provided, the quick-firing artillery expended nearly all its ammunition at the fights of Liao-yang, the Sha Ho, and Mukden, and replenishment after each of these great battles was a slow process. We also found the need for howitzers firing high explosive shell. One battery for the army arrived as peace was concluded. Hand grenades, which were an innovation, were locally improvised, but were not sufficiently powerful in their action.

In my memorandum, from which I have already given extracts, submitted before my departure for the front,[91] detailing what was most urgently required in order to insure success, I emphasized—

1. The necessity of ordering ninety-six mountain-guns in addition to the forty-eight already ordered on my former recommendation. This was approved, and the order placed, but it was not carried out quickly enough.

2. The necessity of despatching without delay to the Far East eight machine-guns per division already there and going out.

According to official figures, the following were ordered and delivered in 1904:

Ordered. Completed.
Pack machine-guns 246 16
Machine-guns on wheels 411 56
Mélinite shells 25,600 0
Shells for 6-inch field-mortars 18,000 0
Quick-firing howitzers 48 0
Mountain-guns 240 128

In 1905 a large number of machine-guns were ordered, amongst them being some Danish ones of inferior design; but during the period the operations lasted—up to March, 1905—we had to do as best we could with a very few machine-guns, without high explosive shell, without sufficient mountain artillery, and without howitzers. All these had been supplied, or had begun to be supplied, in 1905; but it was too late.

FOOTNOTES:

[76] [On March 10, 1905, the battle of Mukden, which had lasted for several days, ended with the retreat of the Russians and the occupation of Mukden by the Japanese. On the 16th the Japanese entered Tieh-ling, and on the 21st Chang-tu Fu. The latter represents the furthest point reached in the northerly advance of their main armies.—ED.]

[77] [General Kuropatkin’s country estate in Russia.—ED.]

[78] “Scheme for the Strategical Distribution of Troops in the Far East in the Event of War with Japan,” November 18, 1900 (Port Arthur).

[79] [Being a single-line railway, the number of trains in one direction depended on those travelling in the opposite direction; they are, therefore, alluded to in pairs. A pair of trains implies two trains, one each way.—ED.]

[80] [? Eastern Chinese Railway.—ED.]

[81] [An échelon of troops consisted of the troops from a certain number of trains. See footnote [87].—ED.]

[82] [The Eastern Chinese line was under the Minister of Finance.—ED.]

[83] [A strategic line of railway in European Russia, some 700 miles long.—ED.]

[84] [General Kuropatkin does not refer to mounted infantry.—ED.]

[85] In his report to the War Minister, dated October 19, 1906, General Soboloff, the late commander of the 6th Siberian Corps, said: “The general concentration in July, 1904, of the 55th and 72nd Divisions, which composed my corps, was by no means instructive, as the War Minister refused to let us have any artillery or cavalry. In Tamboff and Morshansk masses of infantry, 16,000 strong, manœuvred about without a single gun or squadron.”

[86] [“Three line” indicates the calibre of the rifle, a “line” being a Russian measure equal to 1/10 of an inch. Three lines = ·299 inches.—ED.]

[87] [An échelon is a collection of trains containing a unit or units despatched together. In South Africa these collections of trains were sometimes called “coveys.”—ED.]

[88] [A Russian regiment generally contains four battalions, and equals a British brigade.—ED.]

[89] [There is no rank of Major in the Russian Army.—ED.]

[90] [Presumably with a percussion-fuse.—ED.]

[91] [March 7, 1904.—ED.]

END OF VOL. I.

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