BOOKS.
THE SIEGE OF PORT ARTHUR.*
MORE than four and a half years have passed since the down- fall of Port Arthur—that most dramatic of all the events of the struggle in the Far East—and the first authoritative English account of the siege is now before us in Vol. III. of the Official History of the war. This volume is in the nature of a digression from the main account, and is confined to a description of the progress of the military events of the siege, which, because of their intrinsic strategic importance and academic interest, well deserve separate consideration. We have nothing but praise for the manner in which this last
* Official History of the Eveso.Japenese War. Part III., "The Siege of Port Arthur." Prepared by the Committee of Imperial Defence. LoUdon : Printed for His Majesty's stationery Office by Harrison and Sons. [4s. 6d.]
addition to the Official History has been produced. The style is clear, the arrangement is logical, there is no attempt at fine writing, and the thread of the narrative is not unnecessarily broken by the insertion of unimportant detail. The letter- press is greatly helped by diagrams, illustrations, and some excellent maps—the maps are the best we have yet seen—and by information tabulated in the form of appendices. To a person of average intelligence this account conveys a clear impression of the progress of the siege. Though from its nature it must have been compiled from various sources, the compilation has been well done, and the book reads like the work of a man who not only possesses considerable know- ledge of the scene of the actions described, but who was actually present during the operations. The result is that, while the volume is no less impartial than the two which have already appeared, it is less detached in tone, and therefore more attractive and interesting to the average reader as opposed to the military student.
But the book has its acknowledged limitations. It deals only with the land operations round the fortress. As the course of events at Port Arthur was almost entirely shaped by the presence and action of the Russian fleet sheltered in its harbour, and as, apart from sentimental reasons, the very existence of the fortress, its desperate defence by the Russians, and the superhuman efforts to capture it made by the Japanese, were due to the vital necessity for maritime pre- ponderance, any account, however accurate, of the land operations alone is unsatisfying. The volume is hardly more than a narrative of certain established facts. It is only by reading between the lines and by exercising our reasoning powers and imagination, or with the knowledge acquired from other sources, that we can clothe this framework of facts so as to satisfy the natural desire to know " the why and the wherefore." Possibly it is yet early for explanations or criticisms to be made in any work which carries the weight always attached to an official document, and we are expressly informed in the preface to Vol. III. that comments are with- held until the production of the combined naval and military history. This is probably a wise decision, and doubtless in this combined work the subject will be treated in a broader aspect, and more analytically. It is in no spirit of criticism that we make these remarks on the scope of this work, but we think that a frank statement of its limitations may prevent some disappointment in those who are not accustomed to official military histories.
Sieges are not now the everyday occurrences of warfare that they once were, and their very rarity adds to our anxiety to profit by all the experiences and lessons afforded by them. When it is a matter of the attack and capture of a first-class —so-called impregnable—fortress, covering a harbour and naval base, containing a fleet, and defended by over forty thousand of the bravest troops in the world, the significance of the event can hardly be exaggerated. To the British Empire with its huge scattered area and its large numbers of coast fortresses the lessons to be learnt may be of vital importance.
The first point we naturally turn to—one upon which Vol. III. of the Official History throws no light—is whether Russia was right in her decision to hold Port Arthur. Did the fortress justify its creation, existence, and defence, or did it not ? We attach the more importance to this question because there has been a tendency in certain quarters to con- sider it too much from the point of view of the progress of the field operations in Manchuria. Because, as it happened, Port Arthur did undoubtedly act as a drag on the actions of the Russian Commander-in-Chief in the field, not only has it been argued that this place was an entanglement, and its defence a mistake in strategy, but it has been urged that fortresses are erroneous in conception and dangerous inasmuch as they are liable to become enticements towards, and excuses for, a purely passive and strategically fatal policy. The case of Port Arthur has even been used as a weapon for attack upon that branch of all armies which is primarily responsible for fortification and the construction of fortresses. We do not for a moment attempt to maintain that fortresses placed everywhere and anywhere are desirable or correct, or that there are not unnecessary fortresses existing in the world, but we do maintain that this case is one of the very last to select as a basis for argument against fortresses generally.
Gallant and protracted as was its defence, Port Arthur failed
to perform its duty as a fortress. It was partly due to the dismal shortcomings of the Russian Navy, partly to the faults of the fortress itself as a strong place, but more to the moral effect produced by the knowledge of such weakness on those in high command, that Port Arthur influenced the Russian campaign in Manchuria. It is not easy to be wise, even after the event, and we have no wish to dogmatise, but it seems to us clear that the Russian strategy in holding Port Arthur was correct. To effect her object Japan was forced to fight on the mainland. To do this command of the sea was necessary. Sea power alone could enable Japan to gain this command ; by sea power alone—in other words, by the action of her fleet on the spot—could Russia deny it to her foe. For Russia to maintain a fleet so many thousands of miles from her home ports a naval base close to the probable theatre of action was absolutely essential, and there can be no question but that Port Arthur was better suited climatically and strategically for the purpose than Vladivostok. Unless Russia, conscious of her own weakness, had been so diffident of her naval strength as to be content to give up the command of the sea, and all that this implies, she had no choice in the matter. The mistake was not in holding Port Arthur, and had the Russian fleet not repeated its tactics at Sevastopol, perhaps if Admiral Makarov had not been killed, had the defences been as strong and ready as they could and should have been after so many years, and had the man in command been a Todleben,*the place would not have exerted any baleful influence upon Russian strategy. It would have been self- contained and independent for a sufficiently long period to have left the Russian Commander-in-Chief complete freedom to carry out his own plans for a field campaign. It cannot be said that by holding Port Arthur Russia committed the mistake of the workman who uses the wrong tool. The right tool was used, but it was blunt, dirty, and badly handled.
We purposely insist upon this point because affairs move so quickly that the siege is already a matter of the day before yesterday. Public attention is now turned towards the development and commercial possibilities of Manchuria, and the future of the white and yellow races in the Far East, with its coming economic and racial struggle, and there is con- siderable danger of the steps by which the present state of affairs has been brought about being forgotten in the desire to look ahead. The Official History loses nothing from its restraint and lack of lurid writing, and such a dispassionate account of the appalling amount of human woe—apparently suffered in vain on the part of the Russians—may lead to wrong deductions being drawn, especially by those who have not had the opportunity of reading round the subject.
We know that Port Arthur was not nearly as strong as it could and ought to have been ; that the defences were badly sited and arranged for their purpose ; and that the scheme of the expert (Colonel Velicbko) who was sent out in 1899 for the express purpose of reorganising the defences was not carried out. We also know that large sums of money were lavished in building Dalny, while the defences of the vital and ice-free naval base, which bad been the real motive of Russia's advance eastward, were being starved for funds. We know, again, that just as there was divided authority between Admiral Alexeieff and General Buropatkin in the field, so there was divided authority, mutual distrust and jealousy, between Generals Stessel, Smirnov, and others in Port Arthur itself. That General Stessel—we follow the official spelling—should have dared to disobey the order from his superior to hand over the command of the fortress and join the field army sheds light on a state of affairs which seems almost incredible. Indeed, when the finding of the Court- Martial by which this officer and others were tried is studied, we begin to realise how well the Russian troops must have fought to have held the place for as long as they did. As is so often the case, the soldiers suffered for the incompetence and criminal negligence of a Government which neglected military needs.
We have no space to refer to the interesting analysis that can be made of the connexion between the various events
which occurred round Port Arthur and those that happened elsewhere,—how a landing of the Japanese Army followed upon an attempt at blocking the Russian fleet in the harbour;
• Unluckily for Russia, the gallant Koudratenko was not in command of the fortress. Even so, with his death on December 1.5th the cEirit a the defence departed. how an advance by the Japanese main force to the north awaited the result of an attempted assault upon the land front; how every effort made upon the fortress by the Japanese was aimed st destroying Russia's sea power. We cannot here speculate upon what might have happened if Port-Arthur had held out for even two months longer, and so forced Oyania either to attack at Mukden without the assist- ance of the veteran army under Nogi, or else to wait until a thaw had rendered the rivers impassable and the country nearly so, and the stream of Russian reinforcements had run on for eight weeks longer. We can only put down Vol. III. of the Official History with one thought, expressed by a motto sufficiently hackneyed, yet so often neglected,—Si via .pacem, pars bellum.
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