Chapter XLVII: Appendix: I

General Fock's Memorandum _re_ the Surrender of Fort No. 2. [Chi-kuan-shan.]

In order that General Fock's motives may not be misunderstood, the Memorandum written by him, in which he essayed to clear himself of the charge of wrongfully abandoning Fort No. 2, is reproduced. It needs, however some elucidation, both for the sake of clearness and accuracy. Those who are not well acquainted with Fock's proceedings in Port Arthur, both as a General and as an individual, and with all the circumstances of the defence, might possibly misunderstand this document, as the authors possessed a great power of persuasion, both with pen and speech, and even now has a considerable number of adherents and advocates.

Memorandum.

'Fort No. 2 was abandoned on December 18, 1904, with General
Stössel's permission and by my order. Next day I had a conversation
on the subject with General Smirnoff, who said:

'"Why did you surrender the fort? I would have sent you as many
reinforcements as you wanted; I have some 30,000 in the Fortress. By
abandoning it you have undermined the root of my principle--that no
fort should pass into the enemy's hands except after the death of all
its defenders."'

In saying this General Smirnoff was quite in the right. Fock did not reinforce the garrison either in time or sufficiently, although quite able so to do. The whole essence of the defence at the end consisted in the use of mobile reserves for the reinforcement of threatened points. It was by his intelligent anticipation of Nogi's tactics and his skillfull movement and employment of reserves that Smirnoff was able so long to check the attack.

' ... Later, when giving evidence before General Roop's Commission, I
was asked:

'"Did you take any steps to prevent the example of Fort No. 2 being
followed, and to ensure that the principle that a garrison should
resist to the last should not be forgotten?"

'I was amazed at such a question, and that a principle, of which I
had never before heard and which is not to be found in any text-book
on tactics or field-service manual, should be assumed by the
Commission to be an irrefutable axiom, to ignore which was a crime.

'But I was still more astonished a short time ago when, in a paper
submitted by General Smirnoff to the War Minister and circulated
amongst officials and other educated men, I saw the following:

'"The surrender of Fort No. 2 struck at the root of the principle
that a fort 'dies, but does not surrender'--a principle preached and
reiterated by myself and all those in command. By the example of the
surrender of this fort the garrisons of the others were shaken in
their belief that forts are 'holies of holies,' only to be captured
after the death of the whole garrison defending them, and were led
to consider them as just ordinary fortified positions which can be
freely abandoned as soon as their defence becomes difficult. This was
proved by the abandonment within ten days of Fort No. 3."

'Only when I became aware of this Note of General Smirnoff's did I
understand the drift of the question put to me by the Commission;
it was not hard then to see the connexion between the two. It was
evident, therefore, that in this important question, as in those
which had preceded, the Commission was being guided more by this
memorandum of the late Commandant of the Fortress than by the desire
for an impartial inquiry into facts.'

Though well on in years, General Fock apparently did not know, and was astonished to hear, that 'forts die, but do not surrender,' that 'the bones of a regiment should surround its fallen colours,' that 'a gun must be fought till not a man is left,' etc. Fock did not know this; he had not seen it laid down in any official text-book!

Naturally he did not and could not know it. Knowledge of the sacredness of duty is not acquired by the perusal of manuals and regulations any more than an honourable feeling is acquired by reading books of a high moral tone. The duty and honour of the citizen soldier has no written code as its guide, but only the long, brilliant list of great deeds extending from far-off olden times to the present day. Upon these legends, matured by time, nations, their armies, and individuals are brought up. A sense of duty and honour is not obtained by reading, but is imbibed with the mother's milk and developed by later teaching. I doubt if there could be found in any European army (naturally not in the Japanese, where officers and generals are brought up on the ethics of the chivalrous spirit 'Bushido') a general officer who would be surprised to hear that a fort should not surrender. How could a Russian general be ignorant of it? Surely such an assertion is a stain on all the general officers of the Russian army!

No, it is not so. For General Fock's ignorance of the rudiments of military duty one must seek deeper reasons. He was, it appears, in the _Gendarmerie_--where the duties were somewhat different to those of the army--for almost five years. Their atmospheres are totally opposed: the work of the one is to fight an external foe: of the other to fight an internal enemy.

One amongst the many surprises so liberally provided for us by the old régime was Fock's sudden reappearance in the army and arrival in the Far East as Officer Commanding the gallant fighting 4th Division, as the friend and adviser of General Stössel, and, indeed, as the sole individual to work out Arthur's destiny. The defence of a fortress is soldiers' and not gendarmes' work.

'... The specific charge against me was framed as follows:

'"In that he, while in command of the Land Defences ordered the
abandonment of Fort No. 2 without obtaining the Commandant's
permission, and without even letting him know of his intention--an
act in which he exceeded his powers, and one which is legislated for
by Articles 141 and 145, Book XXII. (third edition), S.V.P., 1869."

'This charge is curiously worded. I was accused of exceeding my
powers, and yet the Commission was at the same time well aware
that I did not abandon the fort of my own free-will, but with the
permission of General Stössel, who, being senior to General Smirnoff,
had appointed me to command the Land Defences and issued orders to
me direct. Consequently there can be no question of my exceeding my
powers.'

According to the exact sense of the regulations on the subject, the Officer Commanding the Land Defences is directly subordinate to the Commandant of the Fortress, and has absolutely no right to abandon forts without his sanction, or without that of the Defence Committee. If General Stössel, having usurped the Commandant's authority, interfered with the defence, and his interference was detrimental to the defence, then Fock should not have obeyed his orders, even though proceeding from the senior officer. On the contrary, he should by every means within his power have endeavoured to counteract such detrimental influence in the same way that Kondratenko did during his lifetime: he should have consulted the Commandant with regard to everything, and have carried out his orders alone. The fact was that Stössel issued all his orders at Fock's instigation, and did nothing without him. He knew so little of what went on at the front that he would never have decided to issue any order himself, and especially such a weighty order as the abandonment of the first fort.

'... However, though the legal accusation of itself falls to the
ground, I might perhaps be considered morally guilty of abandoning
the fort. The above-quoted Articles of War might be strained, and it
might be thought something was wrong about the defence of the fort
and its abandonment.

'This prevents my confining myself merely to a straightforward answer
to the charge and compels me to ask, "Could the fort have held out
longer or not?"

'On going before the Commission for the first time, I was asked:

'"Why did you not defend the fort, and why did you abandon it without
a fight, without even waiting for General Gorbatovsky?"

'I never expected the Commission to accuse me of such a thing, and I
was so agitated that I could not reply calmly. How could I keep cool
when I heard the defenders of the fort so unjustly accused by General
Roop, the very officer whose words, twenty years ago, had been law
to me and all other combatant officers, when for hours together we
used to listen to his appreciations and criticisms of manoeuvres? He
still spoke as well as ever, weighing every word, but spoke with a
sarcastic smile; and now that I have read or heard the evidence of
all the General Officers who have been examined, I understand that it
is possible even for him to have been led astray.

'The accusation levelled by General Smirnoff against the brave
garrison was supported not only by General Officers who took no part
in the defence and had not seen it, but even by General Nickitin, to
whom the state of the fort was so well known that he refrained from
accompanying General Kondratenko along the forts after the Japanese
had mined the parapets. (It is to this that we owed his presence in
our midst.) As to General Mekhmandaroff, he even asserted that after
the explosion of three mines he could still see sentries standing by
the parapet. And General Irman, who was at the time on the western
front, based his statement on that given by Mekhmandaroff. The
evidence given by the other officers was of equal value.

'But however varied the evidence, it all pointed to one thing--that
the garrison failed to do its duty, that it did not crown the crater
in the parapet. This being so, I should point out that it is usually
the attackers who crown craters. At Sevastopol our sappers certainly
distinguished themselves by themselves crowning the craters of the
unsuccessful attack, but they had not been charged with some fifty
hundredweight of pyroxyline, as was the case in Fort No. 2.'

Thus to divert the blame on to the garrison of the fort in order to parry the blow against himself was not creditable. The men did their duty gallantly to the last; they fought till they were ordered to withdraw; they did everything possible, and were in no way to blame for the surrender and had no need of Fock to defend or praise them. If they had not been able to crown the crater by five o'clock, it was Fock alone who was to blame; firstly for having weakened the garrison, secondly for not reinforcing it in time.

'The evidence of the Generals above mentioned was, on the whole,
so absurd and so little supported by facts that it does not merit
serious attention.'

The evidence of the Generals was founded on facts. They were men who throughout the siege were rarely absent from the attacked front. They were men of honour, whose names are the pride of the army; but this is no reason for treating their evidence as undeserving of attention.

'... That of General Gorbatovsky, however, is different. According
to him he went to the fort at 11 p.m., and finding the men leaving
it, drove them back, sent for Captain Kwats, who was in command,
and threatened him with a court-martial for abandoning it on his
own responsibility, and only then found out that the withdrawal was
being carried out in accordance with orders from me. This evidence is
plausible, and upon it the charge is probably based; for how is it
possible to disbelieve the testimony of a General who was in command
of the eastern front?

'To judge from it, one would think that the abandonment of the fort
came as a complete surprise to him; that he thought it wrong, and,
that had he himself been in the fort, it would never have been
evacuated. I was unable to rebut this evidence at the time, and to
assert that the abandonment was not a surprise; besides, no one
present would have believed me. Fortunately for me, however, I was
not caught tripping. I asked to see the telephone messages referring
to that time, and in going through them came on one which I, and
doubtless General Gorbatovsky also, had forgotten. This message
clears me of his charge, and throws much light on the part taken by
him in the abandonment of the fort; it was from him to the Staff of
the Land Defences, and was dated 9.35 p.m., December 18, 1904:

'"From Fort No. 2 it is reported that heavy casualties are occurring
from grenades thrown by the enemy. We have not been able to reoccupy
the parapet. I therefore propose to avail myself of your permission
to blow up the casemates, and I have ordered the garrison to hold
out until the sappers have got the mines ready. As a precautionary
measure, and to cover the garrison during the retirement, please
move a company, temporarily, from the main reserve to the Ice-house.
I am just going myself to Colonel Glagoleff to give the necessary
instructions on the spot."

'Consequently, at 9.35 that night General Gorbatovsky was not only
not opposed to the surrender of the fort, but himself gave orders
for it to be abandoned; while at 11 p.m. he was, according to his
evidence, horrified at his own order, saw that it was wrong, and
talked of courts-martial.

'I hope that a study of all the papers similar to these produced
before the Commission will acquit me of the charges preferred against
me by General Roop's Commission.'

Quite true! That message was sent by General Gorbatovsky, but only after a telephone message had been received from Fock at 7.40 p.m. to the following effect:

'General Stössel has given orders that the casemates of Fort No. 2
are to be mined at once, and then, if the Japanese do not withdraw
from the fort--_i.e._, from the parapet--the garrison is to leave
the fort, and the casemates are to be blown up. The enemy are not
to be allowed to establish themselves on the parapet, which must
be fired on by the guns and the torpedo tube. In view of Captain
Stepanoff's report, to the effect that before sunset he and Colonel
Mekhmandaroff could see from Big Eagle's Nest only one Japanese
officer and three men on the parapet, laying sand-bags, I leave it to
you to hold on to the fort as long as you think necessary. In giving
this order, based on my report, General Stössel came to this decision
only because he thought that under present circumstances no other
course was possible. At sunset a sailor came to me and reported that
by the explosion of a bomb thrown by the enemy we had had fifteen
casualties.'

As the reader can see for himself, it was impossible to tell from this how Fock meant to act or what he meant to do. Knowing from experience that anything might be expected from him, and that directly after the explosion of the mines during the day he had called the fort lost, Gorbatovsky decided to make all arrangements for a well-organized retirement, and so to avert a possible panic and consequent dash through by the enemy. It was only for this reason that he sent the telegram quoted above by Fock, but he gave no order for the fort to be abandoned.

In reply to his message to Fock, sent at 9.35 p.m., he at once received the following from Colonel Dmitrevsky, Chief of Fock's staff, despatched at 9.40 p.m.:

'General Fock fully concurs in your opinion about Fort No. 2. He
trusts that you will see that the repairs to Kuropatkin Lunette are
energetically carried out.'

And this was immediately followed by a message to him from Lieutenant Kondrasheff, dated 9.45 p.m., December 18, 1904:

'General Fock, commanding the Land Defences, wishes you to see that
all the ammunition and other stores are carried away from Fort No. 2,
and that the bridge is destroyed.'

When General Gorbatovsky received these messages he went to the fort. Orders had already been received from General Fock to abandon it, and the withdrawal had begun before his arrival. He had gone to find out the exact state of affairs on the spot, and on reaching it after 11 p.m. he met the retreating garrison. It was such a surprise to him that he 'fell upon' Captain Kwats, threatened to have him tried by court-martial for abandoning the fort without orders, and was in reply informed that it was being left upon an order received direct from Fock.

'However, in order to give a more accurate description of the state
of affairs, I will describe the fighting just as I saw and reported
it. I described the fight in March to General Roop's Commission, but
what I said was doubted.'

Unfortunately, a knowledge of the true state of affairs at the withdrawal from the fort shows that Roop's Commission had formed a true opinion of Fock's account.

'According to General Smirnoff, I so demoralized the men, that on
December 18, when the explosion took place, no volunteer could be
found among them to crown the crater.

'... I am ashamed, not on my own account, but on account of the
gallant defenders of the fort, to read Smirnoff's slander concerning
them. For what did he take Captain Kwats, the commanding officer, and
the men? Had it been necessary for the garrison to be on the parapet,
Kwats would have had no difficulty in finding volunteers even at that
critical moment. He need only have shouted, "Follow me--advance!" and
they would have dashed after him. As I have said above, my evidence
as to the fall of the fort is considered by many to be untrue, and
more credit is attached to the evidence of General Mekhmandaroff, who
said he saw a man on the rampart after the explosion, etc.'

To say that Fock demoralized the troops would only be to repeat what has frequently been said. In Arthur no one doubted it. It is in vain that he sheds tears for the garrison; it is his own conduct that is questioned, not the gallantry of the men. That Kwats did not dash forward and take men with him to crown the craters is Fock's fault. It required much presence of mind, and the garrison was much upset.

'After the explosion, which took place at noon, the fort was
subjected to a heavy fire, and our men ran to the retrenchment and
held it. To this timely occupation of the retrenchment I ascribe the
death of many of the Japanese "forlorn hope." Having jumped up on to
the parapet and seen that we were there to meet them, they hesitated
for a moment, but this moment was long enough for them to be wafted
into eternity. They were buried under the falling débris of the
explosion. At the same time the Japanese guns opened fire on all
our near batteries; and when these were silenced, whole regiments of
the enemy stormed the parapet, but were repulsed with case shot and
rifle-fire. A few men only reached the craters, whence they began
throwing grenades, while we, from the glacis and caponier, fired
torpedo-heads and bombs.'

The storming by whole Japanese regiments is pure imagination on the part of Fock, who was at the time at least four miles from the scene of action. Mr. Norregaard,[47] who watched the attack, says that, after the destruction of the first party of stormers by the falling débris and the fire of our batteries, the Japs busied themselves clearing the approaches to the fort and did not assault till evening.

'The heroic garrison were almost all annihilated, when a reserve of
sailors was sent up to the fort. I regret that I cannot say to what
ship they belonged or what officers were with them; I can only say
that from first to last they were heroes.

'They had to go from the Chinese Wall through Kuropatkin Lunette, and
what was this lunette like by now? Stones, planks, sand-bags, corpses
were all jumbled together in the trenches, and at the entrance of
that communicating from Fort No. 2 there was not a vestige of a
parapet. These men at first ran along the trench, and then, seeing
that it was filled up, jumped out to right and left, and under a
murderous fire doubled along in the open, officers in front. They
rushed to where it entered the fort, which was full of killed and
wounded. Some crossed the bridge, others went down into the ditch,
jumping from heap to heap.

'They entered the fort in order to fill the thinned ranks of the
defenders, and seventeen of them were at once blown up by a mine.
With their arrival one might have felt confident that the fort would
not easily be seized by the Japanese; but darkness came on and the
shouts of "Banzai" could still be heard, mingling into one continuous
and increasing roar.

'The wounded now came back less frequently, but those that came told
of horrors. From what they said I understood how difficult it was
to cross the ditch, and that few would succeed in doing it; and so,
fearing that all means of access would be closed, I asked for the
bamboo ladders to be sent up, which had been taken from the enemy on
November 26, when they tried to storm Fort No. 3.

'The position of the garrison got worse and worse. To get an order
taken we had to call for volunteers and offer the Cross of St.
George to those who succeeded in carrying it. It was clear to me and
to every one else present that the fort could not be held longer
under such conditions, and so I thought it my duty to withdraw the
remnants of that gallant band at night. I reported this to General
Stössel and asked his permission to abandon the fort; he agreed.

'I then ordered Colonel Glagoleff to hold on till night, when, after
removing everything possible in the way of supplies, he was to
withdraw the men and blow up the fort.

'At 11.30 p.m. the garrison moved out of the fort, which was blown
up at 2 a.m., and retired on Kuropatkin Lunette. It had held out
for four months, despite the Japanese having seized the caponier in
October, and established themselves in the ditch. Military history
contains few instances of such a dogged and prolonged defence.

'Next day General Smirnoff had the above quoted conversation with me.
In reply to his question as to why I had surrendered the fort, etc.,
I said:

'"I did not need your men; they would only have hampered me."

'He seemed surprised at this answer and asked, "Why?"

'"Because," I said, "the men would never have reached the place, and
then what should I have done? They wouldn't have gone because they
couldn't have done it."

'"Ah, your men are wasters--runaways!" said he, and then began to
talk of them in his usual manner.

'I quoted a few instances from history to him--among them some of
Austerlitz--in order to show him that some things always had been and
always would be; and I finished my remarks by saying:

'"It was a pity that you were not taught psychology at the Academy."'

No one denies that the fort was in a very bad way, but such conditions are only to be expected in war where the path to glory is not strewn with roses. As soon as the situation became critical the garrison should have been reinforced, and this Fock did not do. He had decided during the day that the fort could not be held, and for this reason abandoned it.

In repeating his conversation with Smirnoff he perverted the facts, which were, as I have already described in detail in a foregoing chapter. Since he touched on the question of psychology, it would be interesting to know what kind of psychology he himself understood--that of police-work service or of war? Smirnoff certainly did occasionally call the men 'runaways' in conversation with his intimate friends, but he was far from thinking that the troops could be disobedient. In saying that 'the men would never have reached the place, and then what should I have done?' Fock was himself accurately describing the very demoralization of which he was accused of being the cause. During Kondratenko's life there had been no suggestion of such a spirit.

'After this I felt it was useless to attempt to persuade Smirnoff of
anything, for the simple reason that both he and Colonel Khvostoff
look upon every one who was not a General officer or an officer of
the General Staff in the same way that our great-grandmothers looked
upon their serf-handmaidens.'

What General Fock meant by this I really cannot tell.

'Our great-grandmothers said and believed that it was impossible
for Palashka to fall in love. In the same way General Smirnoff and
Colonel Khvostoff believed that the common soldier had no instinct
of self-preservation, and that such need not therefore be taken
into consideration. It need only, they thought, be reckoned with
in Generals and General Staff officers, who alone have a right to
possess it.

'Colonel Khvostoff preached this doctrine to General Nickitin in the
following words: "Officers of the General Staff are of great value to
the Empire, and they should, therefore, take care of their lives."'

'From General Smirnoff's words, "It undermined the root of the
principle which I have always insisted on," it is evident that
General Stössel did not harass General Smirnoff as much as the latter
sometimes makes out. Moreover, all who went through the siege would
like to know in what way Smirnoff insisted on the observance of this
principle. Principles can be driven into men by orders, speeches,
and examples. He did not do it in his orders, for such as he issued
were generally taken up with the transfer of nursing-sisters from
one hospital to another. And he was wise, for such orders can only
be written by leaders like Tsar Peter, Suvoroff, Napoleon, who are
well known to their men. He did not attempt it by speeches; for
where, when, and to whom could he speak? Church parades were few, and
were rarely attended by more than twenty to thirty men per regiment.
For a new, unknown man like General Smirnoff there was only one way
left--"example"; but this method was out of date, and its uselessness
was shown by Gustavus Adolphus, Nakhimoff, Korniloff, Istomin, and
therefore it did not find favour with him!

'All this proves that he did not inculcate his principle to the
garrison of Arthur, though undoubtedly future generations will know
of it through the medium of Roop's Commission.'

It is perfectly true that Smirnoff did not take to speechifying. Together with Kondratenko he worked at the fortifying of the place while General Stössel was haranguing the troops at church parades and writing long orders and detailed telegrams. This principle was not published in orders, as it was well understood by all good officers. Of this there could be no two opinions. Generals Smirnoff, Kondratenko, Gorbatovsky, Irman, and Tretiakoff, who stood at the head of their troops in Arthur, supported by their fearless example--fighting desperately for every inch of ground entrusted to them--and not by their words, this principle, which according to Fock was incomprehensible and silly.

The next generation will know through this Commission how well the garrison of Arthur lived up to that principle, and it will, at the same time, know on whom the responsibility of surrender rests.

'He reproaches the garrison of Fort No. 3 for not hurrying out of
the casemate when the explosion took place, though I, and all those
at Big Eagle's Nest, saw them fighting for a long time, throwing
hand-grenades and stones from the retrenchment.

'But it is odd that he should make such charges against anyone
when he himself not only made no haste, but did not attempt to
leave his quarters when the explosion took place in Fort No. 3 and
Fortification No. 3, and when the Chinese Wall, Rocky Ridge, and Big
Eagle's Nest were being stormed. That he did not leave his quarters
and was practically a stranger to his troops is borne out by the fact
that when, after the surrender, the Japanese were taking over the
garrison as prisoners, and he began talking to some of the men, they
made rude remarks, and were heard asking their officers "who is that
General?" As it was the first time that the majority of officers had
seen him, they had to reply: "I don't know; wait, I'll ask." Only
after inquiries were they able to tell their men, "That is General
Smirnoff, the Commandant of the Fortress."'

Fock, of all people, accused Smirnoff of staying in his quarters, and of being a stranger to the men! In the foregoing pages I have shown by facts what Smirnoff was to the Fortress, what he did for its defence, and how he was thwarted at every turn. As far as is in my power I have tried as clearly and truly as possible to draw the picture of the hopelessness of his position. Fock, suddenly appointed Officer Commanding Land Defences, was indeed the autocrat of the Fortress, for Stössel was to all intents and purposes his subordinate, and Smirnoff was ignored. Having telegraphed to the Commander-in-Chief, Smirnoff awaited the reply, and till it came he was powerless to do anything, for like a wise man he did not want to make bad worse. But had it come, and had it been favourable to him, he would soon have got everything right. Smirnoff invested with authority would have saved Arthur's honour. Very possibly so many sound men, and so many cripples, would not have returned to Russia, so many decorations would not have glittered on the breasts of officers, and the number of widows and orphans might have been greater; but there would have been no need for any Commission such as that of General Roop. The highest tribunal of the nation would have judged those responsible for the lost campaign, but Arthur would have fallen, and not been surrendered.

'I shall be now believed, perhaps, if I say that no one in Arthur
knew of the above-quoted principle, and no one heard tell of it from
Smirnoff. I only heard it at General Roop's Commission. When asked,
"Did you take any steps to prevent the example of Fort No. 2 being
followed, and to ensure that the principle that a garrison should
resist to the last should not be forgotten?" I at once understood
that the defence was degraded to the level of simple treason, and
that they were trying to mock me. Was it not mockery indeed to ask
me such a question? The Commission knew that the garrison abandoned
the fort not of their own free will but by my order. To this insult I
replied as follows:

'"No steps were taken or could be taken by me, as the fort was
abandoned by my order."

'It would have meant I was to take steps against myself--cunning
question indeed. I am satisfied with the defence of that fort; nay,
proud of what constitutes one of the most brilliant pages of the
defence, and will be quoted as an example. By it one principle was
taught, namely, that no soldier will leave his post without orders,
and that the officer in supreme command will never sacrifice lives
needlessly.

'I wrote this in February or March, before any of us had seen the
translations of the books by English authors on the siege of Port
Arthur.

'My description of the fighting does not in the least agree with that
of either Norregaard or James,[48] and no wonder, as I wrote of what
happened under my eyes, and they only wrote what they heard from
survivors of the horrors of that day. I was not credited, because
with us every one wished, and still wishes, only to believe what will
besmirch the fair name of Arthur. This was why only generals were
examined by the Commission.'

He was insulted by the question put to him by the Commission, and in his reply stated that in defending that fort he had inculcated the principle that 'no soldier will leave his post without orders, and that the officer in supreme command will never sacrifice lives needlessly'!

To teach this principle in field warfare is right and proper. But in fortress warfare, when the enemy are pressing on the line of defences, when they are storming the forts, when the fall of one fort may bring on the fall of others, and so lead to greater complications, when there is nowhere to retire to (we had the third line made by Smirnoff, but it was ignored by Fock), a fort must indeed 'die and not surrender.' Thus alone can the spirit and strength of the men in the other forts be kept up.

'But I will return once more to the discussion of General Smirnoff's
principle. This dogma could only be instilled into the fresh minds of
children, and could not be suddenly introduced during war, for, after
one fight the bravest troops in the world would refuse to believe in
it. The more experienced and braver a man is, the dearer he wants to
sell his life.

'But General Smirnoff called the troops "wasters" and "runaways"
because they did not remain in the wrecked lodgements upon an order
issued by him from his snug room, but ran into others that were
whole, and continued fighting. That commanding officer who inspires
confidence that he will allow no one to perish needlessly will alone
be loved by his officers and men, and may God spare them from feeling
that any General is sacrificing their lives for such a principle as
that for which I was called to answer.

'But it deserves to be examined that we may thoroughly understand on
what lines we are to act in the next war. If the matter is clearly
settled one way or the other it may in the future spare commanders,
who may find themselves in the same position I was in, the horror,
the torments to which I have been subjected in hearing the reproaches
levelled at me by such a weighty Commission--reproaches which did not
touch only me, but also the heroic defenders of the fort.

'My acquittal, I feel, is due to the fact that the principle was
announced by Smirnoff, and not by Suvoroff or by the Tsar Peter,
whose nature would have precluded the enunciation of anything so
vague, so abstract.

'The birth of pure theory amongst us is synchronous with the arrival
upon the scene of a certain type of General, whose influence and
work I can best describe indirectly, by quoting a remark made upon
its results: "We are ourselves to blame for everything. Where the
General was, there were no men; where the men were, there was no
General." This was said by a lieutenant-colonel at a conference
between the Army and Navy, when remarking on a communication of
Lieutenant-Colonel Galkin's, of the General Staff.

'Such are the Generals--the originators of principles similar to that
announced by General Smirnoff. The Japanese Generals were different.
It is true that their Commander-in-Chief and Generals Commanding
armies, like Oyama, Nogi, and others, did not command battalions
and companies; but the subordinate Generals led their troops--even
scouting parties--in the attack, as we more than once witnessed
in Arthur. I mention this because, when I once spoke of Japanese
Generals sitting in the advanced trenches, some of our Generals,
hearing of the gallantry of the Japanese men from Smirnoff, told
me that I was incorrect, and that "the wonderful Japanese soldier
did not need the presence of a General." But in action things were
different. Even "the wonderful Japanese soldier" required to be set
an example by his General. Our--according to many--very ordinary
soldiers were grateful even for the fleeting presence of a General
whom they only saw passing by.

'Put into simple language, the question asked me by the Commission,
as to what steps I had taken to see that the principle that "the
garrison of a fort should resist to the last" was not shaken, means
that a Commander must not allow a single man to come out of a fort
alive.

'(_a_) If regulations permit the surrender of a _fortress_ under
certain conditions, how can they be construed to forbid the
abandonment of a _fort_, when its defenders might be useful in
defending other works of the same fortress?

'(_b_) Is it desirable that a unit told off to the defence of a fort
should go to it feeling like men who went across "the Bridge of
Sighs" in Venice?

'Was it possible for me to literally carry out this principle in
practice?

'Fort No. 2, according to Norregaard, for some hours resembled
a "witch's cauldron," vomiting fire, smoke and flames from the
bursting of countless shimose shells, hand-grenades and torpedoes.
Behind the sand-bags our handful of men were repelling with rifle
and machine-gun the numerous assaults. The Japanese cut off their
communication with the Fortress; reinforcements were not received,
and the number of defenders dwindled. The enemy pounded them
continuously, and the hours of the fort were numbered.

'Such was its state at the moment when I had to decide whether to
save that handful of brave men, or to sacrifice them for the sake of
General Smirnoff's "principle."

'I preferred the first alternative--not from feelings of humanity,
but because I could not take the other; every one else in my place
would have done the same. To judge my action fairly, it must be
borne in mind that I was not sitting before a green-topped Committee
table when I had to make this decision, nor in General Smirnoff's
comfortable quarters, but was near the Chinese Wall.[49] Far from
being in comfort and security, I was at a place that would have
suffered the next blow after the fall of Fort No. 2.

'How I should decide this question was vital to the men--if I should
become their executioner or would act as they expected me to. It was
by no means immaterial to me either; for I should be judged by my
action, and upon it would depend in the future how others fought.

'Though General Smirnoff never left his quarters during the fight, it
did not prevent him reporting it as follows:

'Page 33. "At 11 p.m. I knew that Fort No. 2 had already been
abandoned by our troops and its casemates blown up. This was done by
Captain Kwats, who had only been appointed to command it that day,
under instructions from Lieutenant-Colonel Glagoleff commanding the
section, who was acting on orders received from General Fock, without
even waiting for the arrival of General Gorbatovsky, who was in
supreme command on that flank.

'Page 34. "Meanwhile General Stössel, feeling that it was a very
bad business, issued an order, dated December 27, No. 961, based on
untrue reports made to him by Captain Kwats and Colonel Glagoleff,
in which he made out that the whole shameful affair was a great
exploit.... Ten days later the example of Fort No. 2 was followed by
the abandonment of Fort No. 3, which forced the Council of Defence
and myself to the conclusion that there was an understanding between
Generals Stössel and Fock to reduce the Fortress in the shortest
possible time to such a condition as would justify a capitulation."

'As regards General Smirnoff's opinion that the abandonment of Fort
No. 2 was due to treachery on the part of General Stössel and myself,
I am silent; but I cannot allow him to call its surrender shameful.
This opinion of his bears witness to the fact that between him and
the defenders of Arthur there was about as much in common as between
the baby and the mother who said, "Divide it," when Solomon had
ordered half of the baby to be given to each mother.'

The principle of the non-surrender of a fort should be instilled into all soldiers from the day they join. A good soldier knows that he must be the first to lay down his life for his country in war, and remembers during the whole of a campaign that success is founded on a clear appreciation of the principle of self-sacrifice by all, from Commander-in-Chief to private soldier.

War is a death summons.

Death is the soldier's crown.

Every soldier--that is, in the true sense of the word, one who is willing to die in the struggle--sees in death the highest end of his calling. By this feeling he exalts the _moral_ of his comrades to an extent which ensures victory in the end.

Under the circumstances of modern war it is more than ever necessary that this spirit should be instilled into the individual as well as into the mass, for the surroundings of a modern battle are more harrowing than they were in old days. Success in war will be to that side in which this feeling is most deep, which is best equipped, and which possesses the most skilful and heroic leaders.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 47: 'The Great Siege,' by B.W. Norregaard.--E.D.S.]

[Footnote 48: 'The Siege of Port Arthur,' by D. James. Translation from English by Captains von Schwartz and Romanovsky: 'Voenny Sbornik.' 1906. No. 11.]

[Footnote 49: General Fock was at the time in his quarters, a long way from the fighting.]