REASONS FOR OUR REVERSES
The minor part played by the fleet—The small carrying capacity of
the Siberian and Eastern Chinese Railways—Absence of any diplomatic
arrangements to permit of the unhampered despatch and distribution
of our forces—Delay in mobilization of reinforcements—Disadvantages
of “partial mobilization”—Transfer during the war of regulars from
military districts in European Russia into the reserve—Delay in
the arrival at the front of drafts—Weakening of the disciplinary
powers of commanders as to the punishment awarded to private
soldiers—Delay in promoting those who distinguished themselves on
service—Technical shortcomings.
After a succession of great battles,[76] our army retired fighting on
to the so-called Hsi-ping-kai positions in March, 1905, and remained
there, increasing in strength, till the conclusion of peace. This
peace, which was as unexpected as it was undesired by the troops,
found them putting the finishing touches to their preparation for a
forward movement. Later on, in its proper place, will be described the
high state of readiness to which we had arrived in August, 1905—a pitch
of efficiency never before known in the history of the Russian army.
General Linievitch was awaiting the arrival of the 13th Army Corps—the
last to be despatched—before commencing decisive operations. The
leading units of this corps had arrived at Harbin and its rear had
passed through Cheliabinsk, and the army, now 1,000,000 strong, well
organized, with war experience to its credit, and with established
reputation, was making ready to continue the bloody struggle; while
the enemy, so we learned from reliable reports, was beginning to
weaken both in strength and spirit. The resources of Japan appeared
to be exhausted. Amongst the prisoners we began to find old men and
mere youths; more were taken than formerly, and they no longer showed
the patriotic fanaticism so conspicuous among those captured in 1904.
We, on the other hand, were able to free our ranks to a great extent
of elderly reservists by sending them to the rear and to perform
non-combatant duties; for we had received some 100,000 young soldiers,
a great portion of whom had volunteered for the front. For the first
time since the commencement of hostilities the army was up to its
full strength. Some units—the 7th Siberian Corps, for instance—were
over strength, so that companies could put more than 200 rifles into
the firing-line after providing for all duties. We had received
machine-guns, howitzer batteries, and a stock of field railway material
which made it possible to transport to the army the supplies which had
been collecting for some months. We possessed telegraphs, telephones,
wire and cable, tools—everything. A wireless installation had been put
up, and was in working order; the transport units were up to strength,
and the medical arrangements were magnificent. The force was in
occupation of the strongly fortified Hsi-ping-kai positions, between
which and the Sungari River there were two more fortified defensive
lines—Kung-chu-ling and Kuang-cheng-tzu. There is little doubt that we
could have repulsed any advance of the enemy, and, according to our
calculations, could have assumed the offensive in superior force. Never
in the whole of her military history has Russia put such a mighty army
in the field as that formed by the concentration of the 1st, 2nd, and
3rd Manchurian Armies in August, 1905.
[Illustration: PRINCE KHILKOFF.]
Such were the favourable conditions existing when we suddenly received
the fatal news that an agreement had been come to with Japan at
Portsmouth.
It is clear, therefore, that the war ended too soon for Russia, and
before Japan had beaten the army which was opposed to her. After
defending every yard, we had retired to Hsi-ping-kai, and were, after
a year’s fighting, still in Southern Manchuria. The whole of Northern
Manchuria, including Harbin and part of Southern Manchuria, with Kirin
and Kuang-cheng-tzu, was still in our hands, and the enemy had nowhere
touched Russian territory, except in Saghalien. Yet we laid down our
arms, and besides ceding half the Island of Saghalien to the enemy,
literally presented them—what was strategically far more important—with
the Hsi-ping-kai and Kung-chu-ling defensive lines, together with
the fertile districts which had fed our hosts, and it was with mixed
feelings of shame and bewilderment that we withdrew in October, 1905,
into winter quarters on the Sungari River. None of the many misfortunes
which had befallen us had such an evil effect on our troops as this
premature peace. Upon assuming command, I had assured the army that not
a man would be allowed to return to Russia until we were victorious,
that without victory we would all be ashamed to show our faces at home,
and the men had really become imbued with the idea that the war must
be continued till we won. This was even recognized by the reservists,
many of whom said to me: “If we return home beaten, the women will
laugh at us.” Such a sentiment is, of course, not as valuable as a
wave of patriotism and a display of martial spirit before hostilities;
but under the conditions in which this war had to be conducted, the
mere acknowledgment by the whole army that without victory a return
to Russia was impossible augured well for any future fighting. Such,
then, being the conditions, the future historian must admit that,
although unsuccessful in the first campaign, our land forces had grown
in numbers, had gained experience, and had acquired such strength at
last that victory was certain, and that peace was concluded before they
had been really defeated. Our army was never fully tested; it had been
able to concentrate but slowly, and, consequently, suffered in detail
from the blows of a more ready enemy. When, after enormous sacrifices,
it was eventually able to mass in strength, and was furnished with
everything requisite for a determined campaign, peace was concluded.
It cannot be truly said that the Japanese land forces had defeated
ours. At Liao-yang, on the Sha Ho, and at Mukden, a comparatively small
portion of our army was opposed to the whole armed might of Japan. Even
in August and September, 1905, when almost all our reinforcements had
been collected in the Manchurian theatre of operations, we had only
put about one-third of all our armed forces in the field. Our navy was
almost entirely destroyed at Port Arthur and in the battle of Tsushima,
but our army in the Far East was not only not destroyed, but had been
gradually strengthened by the reinforcements received, and, after
the battle of Mukden, by the expansion of the three-battalion East
Siberian Rifle Regiments to four-battalion regiments, and the formation
of the 10th East Siberian Rifle Division. These measures alone added
seventy-six battalions of infantry to its strength. We must, therefore,
look further afield than to our numerical strength for the causes of
our disasters. Why was it that right up to March, 1905, our troops were
unable to win a battle? It is difficult to reply to this, because we
do not yet know the strength of the enemy in the principal battles.
We know approximately the numbers of battalions of the peace army
which were in the field, but not the number of reserve battalions at
the front, and, consequently, the actual number of rifles. In war the
issue is not decided by the number of men present, but by the number of
rifles actually brought into the firing-line.
It is quite possible that when a trustworthy history of the war
compiled from Japanese sources is published, our self-esteem will
receive a severe blow. We already know that in many instances we were
in superior strength to the enemy, and yet were unable to defeat them.
The explanation of this phenomenon is simple. Though they were weaker
materially than we were, the Japanese were morally stronger, and the
teaching of all history shows that it is the moral factor which really
counts in the long-run. There are exceptions, of course, as when the
side whose _moral_ is the weaker can place an absolutely overwhelming
force in the field, and so wear out its opponents. This was the case of
the Federals as compared with the Confederates in America, and of the
British against the Boers. It is indeed a lucky army which, starting a
campaign with the weakest _moral_, is able to improve in both spirit
and numbers at the same time.
This was the case with us. Between the battle of Mukden and the end
of the war our army almost doubled in numbers, had taken up a strong
position, and was quite ready to advance. The strength of the Japanese,
on the other hand, was exhausted (they were reduced to filling up
their ranks with their 1906 recruits), and many things pointed to a
weakening of their spirit. As Japan was pre-eminently a naval Power,
our principal operations should have been on the sea; and had we
destroyed the enemy’s fleet, there would have been no fighting on
Chinese territory. As I have already pointed out, our fleet scarcely
assisted the army at all; for while taking shelter in Port Arthur, it
did not attempt to prevent the enemy’s disembarkation. Three Japanese
armies—those of Oku, Nodzu, and Nogi—landed unhindered on the Liao-tung
Peninsula; the forces of Oku and Nogi actually landed close to where
our squadron was lying. Though we possessed an excellent base at
Vladivostok, our main fleet was collected at Port Arthur—in a naval
sense a very inferior place, for it possessed no docks nor workshops,
and no protection for the inner basin.
As regards our naval strength, I am unable to refer to official
figures, for I write from the country,[77] but I quote from an article
published in the _Ruski Viestnik_ in 1905 by M. Burun, as much of what
he says agrees with what I had previously known. Our fleet began to
increase after the Chino-Japanese War, the naval estimates reaching
£11,200,000 in 1904. At the outbreak of hostilities it consisted of 28
sea-going and 14 coast-defence battleships, 15 sea-going gunboats, 39
cruisers, 9 ocean-going destroyers, 133 smaller destroyers, and 132
auxiliary vessels of less importance. Between 1881 and 1904 we had
spent £130,000,000 in the creation of this fleet. The naval estimates
of the two nations for the years preceding the war were, in millions of
pounds:
1899. 1900. 1901. 1902. 1903.
Russia 9 9·6 10·8 11·2 12
Japan 6 4·5 4·1 3·2 3·2
The Japanese fleet consisted of:
Sea-going battleships 6
Coast-defence battleships 2
Armoured cruisers 11
Unarmoured cruisers 14
Destroyers 50
Gunboats 17
At the commencement of war our Pacific Ocean Squadron consisted of:
Sea-going battleships 7
Large cruisers (of which only four were armoured) 9
Small cruisers and minor ships 4
Destroyers 42
Our fleet was neither ready nor concentrated. Four cruisers were at
Vladivostok, one at Chemulpo, and the greater part of the Port Arthur
Squadron lay in the inner roads. A few days before the attack of
February 9 it moved out into the outer roads to carry out steam trials,
but proper precautions were not observed, even though diplomatic
relations had already been broken off.
As far back as 1901 our Headquarter Staff had estimated that in the
event of war our Pacific Ocean Fleet would be weaker than Japan’s, but
within two years of that date Admiral Alexeieff, the Viceroy, stated
in the scheme for the strategical distribution of our troops in the
Far East[78] that the defeat of our fleet was impossible under existing
conditions.
In their night attack of February 9 the Japanese put several of our
best ships out of action; but, serious as the damage was, it could
have been speedily repaired had we possessed proper facilities in Port
Arthur. Though we had expended many millions in constructing docks
and quays at Dalny, Port Arthur was without a dock, and repairs could
only be executed slowly. Still, our Pacific Ocean Squadron revived
when Admiral Makharoff arrived, and for a short time its chances of
success were much increased. After Makharoff’s death the command passed
to Admiral Witgeft, who, upon receiving instructions to force his
way through to Vladivostok, put to sea and engaged Togo’s squadron.
Witgeft was killed, and the fleet inflicted some damage on Togo’s
squadron, and returned to Port Arthur without the loss of a single
ship. The battle of August 10 was indecisive, though our blue-jackets
fought gallantly the whole day against a numerically superior enemy,
and beat off numerous attacks by destroyers. After returning to Port
Arthur the fleet finally assumed its passive rôle, and was gradually
disarmed—as in the Siege of Sevastopol—in order to strengthen the land
defence of the fortress, where our sailors did most excellent work.
What it might have accomplished on its own element can be gauged from
the performances of the gallant little cruiser squadron under Admiral
Essen, which made a daring sally from Vladivostok to the coasts of
Japan. Not only did Essen’s success cause considerable consternation
in Japan, but it resulted in action of practical value to the army,
for one vessel sunk by the squadron was conveying siege material for
use against Port Arthur. On October 14, 1904, Admiral Rozhdestvenski’s
fleet, consisting of 7 battleships, 5 first-class cruisers, 3
second-class cruisers, and 12 destroyers, with a complement of 519
officers and 7,900 men, left Libau for the Pacific Ocean, and Admiral
Nebogatoff’s squadron left to join it on February 16, 1905. The latter
consisted of 1 sea-going battleship, 3 coast-defence battleships, and
1 first-class cruiser, with a complement of 120 officers and more than
2,100 men. Rozhdestvenski’s squadron had to steam 16,400 miles to reach
Vladivostok. In spite of the lack of coaling stations _en route_, and
in the face of extraordinary difficulties, it eventually succeeded in
reaching the Sea of Japan, where it was utterly destroyed on May 27
and 28, 1905, off Tsushima. In twenty-four hours we lost 30 pennants
sunk or captured out of 47, and 137,000 from a total tonnage of
157,000. The light cruiser _Almaz_ and 2 destroyers—the _Grozni_ and
_Bravi_—alone reached Vladivostok. According to Admiral Togo’s reports,
he lost only 3 destroyers, while his casualties amounted to 7 officers
and 108 men killed, 40 officers and 620 men wounded. Many gallant
exploits were performed by our sailors in the fight: the battleship
_Suvaroff_ continued firing until she sank, and of the _Navarin’s_
complement only two men were saved; while the small ironclad _Ushakoff_
replied to the Japanese summons to surrender with a broadside, and
foundered with the whole of her crew. M. Burun closes his remarkable
article in the following words:
“Undoubtedly many tactical mistakes were among the contributory
causes of the Tsushima catastrophe: our initial error in allowing
transports to be with the fleet, the unseaworthiness and the
conspicuous colour of our ships, and many such details; but
the real cause was the unreadiness of our fleet for war, and
the criminal short-sightedness of our Administration. Such a
contingency as war was never contemplated, and the fleet was kept
up entirely for show.
“Our crews were of the best material in the world; they were
brave and capable of learning, but besides being unversed in the
use of modern implements of war (such as automatic gun-sights,
etc.), they were not accustomed to life at sea. Our officers were
possessed of a strong sense of duty, and thoroughly appreciated
the immense importance of the task before them; but they were new
to the crews and to the ships, which they had suddenly to command
against a fleet trained in the stern school of war. Born sailors,
the Japanese seamen never left their ships, while our vessels had
neither permanent nor full crews. Even in the last eight months
of the cruise of our fleet our captains were unable, owing to the
shortage of ammunition, to put their crews through a course of
gunnery, or to test their training. The ships only carried enough
ammunition for one battle. Yes, we lost our fleet because the most
important element—the _personnel_—was unprepared. We lost the war,
and lost our predominance on the Pacific Ocean, because, even while
preparing to celebrate the anniversary of the gallant defence of
Sevastopol, we quite forgot that the strength of a navy is only
created by the spirit of every individual member belonging to it.
“But can it be that there is no one left of all those gallant
sailors who so proudly sailed under the Cross of St. Andrew
who possesses the secret of training men? If so, then our Navy
Department will never succeed in creating a fleet. However many the
milliards spent, it will only succeed in constructing a collection
of ships such as now rest at the bottom of the Sea of Japan. Mere
ships do not make a fleet, nor do they form the strong right arm
of an empire, for the strength of a nation does not lie in armour,
guns, or torpedoes, but in the souls of the men behind these
things.”
Far from assisting our army, Rozhdestvenski brought it irreparable
harm. It was the defeat of his squadron at Tsushima that brought about
negotiations and peace at a time when our army was ready to advance—a
million strong. As at Sevastopol in 1855, the only assistance given by
our fleet to Port Arthur, except at Chin-chou, was to land blue-jackets
and guns.
Next to the absence of a Russian fleet, the most important factor to
assist the Japanese in their offensive strategy and to impede us was
the condition of the Siberian and Eastern Chinese Railways. If these
lines had been more efficient, we could have brought up our troops
more rapidly, and, as things turned out, 150,000 men concentrated at
first would have been of far more value to us than the 300,000 who
were gradually assembled during nine months, only to be sacrificed in
detail. In my report upon the War Ministry in 1900 (before Japan had
completed her armaments), I wrote that she could mobilize 380,000 men
and 1,090 guns, about half of which could be transported across the
sea; that there were immediately ready only seven divisions, with a war
strength of 126,000 rifles, 5,000 sabres, and 494 guns. In March, 1903,
before visiting Japan, I calculated that if the views then held by our
naval authorities as to the comparative strength of the two fleets were
correct, we ought to be ready, in the event of war, to throw an army of
300,000 into Manchuria. In the battles of Liao-yang and the Sha Ho we
only had from 150,000 to 180,000. If we had had a better railway, and
had been able to mass at Liao-yang the number specified, we should
undoubtedly have won the day, in spite of our mistakes.
[Illustration: Map of the Siberian Railway]
As regards the railway problem, we counted, in August, 1901, on having
for military transport purposes on the Eastern Chinese Railway 20
waggons running in the twenty-four hours, while in the summer of 1903
we calculated we should have 75. We were promised from January 1, 1904,
five pairs[79] of military trains of 35 waggons each, or 175 waggons
each way; and it was supposed at the same time that the Siberian
Railway would be in a condition to run seven pairs of military trains
in the twenty-four hours, but these hopes were not realized. Let us see
what actually did happen.
In 1903 we were only able to reckon on four through military trains on
the Siberian line, and on three short trains on the Eastern Chinese.
Towards the end of that year relations with Japan became strained;
it seemed as if, having made all her preparations, she was seeking
a pretext for war, and was therefore meeting all the concessions we
made by fresh and quite impossible demands. Our unreadiness was only
too plain, but it seemed at that time that we should be able, with
two or three years’ steady work, so to strengthen our position in the
Far East and improve the railway, the fleet, the land forces, and the
fortresses of Port Arthur and Vladivostok, that Japan would have small
chance of success against us. It was proposed, in the event of trouble,
to send out, to begin with [in addition to the troops already in the
Far East], reinforcements consisting of four army corps (two regular
and two reserve) from European Russia. Owing to the unreadiness of the
railways, and the uncertainty as to the time it would take to improve
them, it was impossible to draw up concentration time-tables with any
accuracy. According to these tables, 500 troop trains and a large
number of goods trains would be necessary to transport from European
Russia the drafts for the Far East, the 3rd Battalions of the East
Siberian Rifle Regiments, several batteries, local units and ammunition
parks for the East Siberian Rifle Divisions, the 4th Siberian Corps,
and the two army corps from Russia (10th and 17th). Moreover, upon
mobilization, the Siberian Military District would require local
transport for a very considerable distance. This would add about
three weeks to the time required for through transport of the above
reinforcements.
As I have said, we expected that from January, 1904, the Siberian and
Eastern Chinese lines would be able to give us daily five trains each
way; but the concentration of one-half of the reinforcements to go to
the Far East actually took five months from the declaration of war. One
of the most important of the War Minister’s tasks, therefore, was to
get the Siberian and Eastern Chinese lines into a more efficient state
as rapidly as possible. My scheme was to improve them at first up to a
capacity of seven trains each way in the twenty-four hours, and on the
southern branch of the Eastern Chinese (along which movements would
have to take place through Harbin from both sides, from Pri-Amur and
Trans-Baikal) to fourteen pairs of trains. My proposal was approved by
the Tsar, who noted against the figure fourteen the words, “Or even up
to twelve pairs of military trains.” In the middle of January, 1904, he
appointed a special committee to consider the questions of the money
and time required for the immediate improvement of the railways as
suggested. This committee, consisting of the Ministers of War, Ways
and Communications, Finance, and the State Comptroller, was under the
presidency of General Petroff, of the Engineers. It was instructed to
ascertain what should be done to enable seven pairs of military trains
to be run on the Siberian and Eastern Chinese lines, and twelve pairs
on the southern branch (from Harbin to Port Arthur).
On January 29, 1904, the Viceroy wrote of the state of the Eastern
Chinese Railway as follows:
“According to my information, there is reason to doubt the official
figures as to the carrying capacity and the ability to cope with
increased traffic of the Eastern Chinese Railway. Rolling-stock is
deficient, and many engines are out of order. The water-supply is
so uncertain that the officials have recently been forced to refuse
to accept goods for transport. The soldiers are the only reliable
portion of the subordinate railway staff, and on this account some
alarm is already felt by the higher officials. But the most serious
want is that of a sufficient fuel reserve. The bulk of the coal is
stocked at Dalny, whence 1,000 tons have to be distributed over
the line daily, of which amount only half goes to increasing the
reserve, the other half being required for current consumption. To
transport the whole of the reserve by rail from Dalny would take
about twenty-five days, but the railway would even then be able to
cope with the increased traffic for a period of three months only.
In war we can scarcely count on the large railway demands being
met, as the coal is sea-borne.”
An official statement, prepared to show the then position of the
railway, was laid before the special committee at a sitting held four
days before the commencement of hostilities. According to the Minister
of Ways and Communications (Prince Khilkoff), the Siberian line could
only run six pairs of through trains, of which four were military,
one was passenger, and one service (for the railway); owing to the
scarcity of rolling-stock, only three of the four military trains
could carry troops, the fourth being given up to goods (trucks). But
the War Department representative in charge of Transport, who was at
the meeting, pointed out that on the portion of the Trans-Baikal line,
between Karim and Manchuria station, only three trains altogether,
whether of troops or goods, could be run. The official information
furnished by the Ministry of Ways and Communications thus differed from
that of the military railway representative. The representative of the
Eastern Chinese Railway stated that it would soon be possible to run
a total of five pairs of trains on that line, while he calculated on
working up by April to a running capacity of six pairs along the main
line and seven pairs on the southern branch. On going into details as
to the work that would be necessary before this could be done, it was
discovered that, owing to the very inferior equipment of the different
branches of the Siberian and Eastern Chinese lines, the necessary
additions to rolling-stock and the construction of sidings, crossings,
and water-supply would absorb a very large sum. The workshops on the
Eastern Chinese line were poorly equipped, and there were not nearly
enough engine depôts, while the large amount of rails, fish-plates,
sleepers and ballast necessary would have to be conveyed while the
transport of troops was going on. On March 9 I wrote to General
Sakharoff, then in charge of the War Department, and pointed out that,
owing to what I had heard as to the deficiency of engine depôts in the
Viceroyalty, and in order to facilitate concentration, I considered it
essential that, up to Manchuria station, not more than one train a day
should be taken up for goods, the remainder being reserved for troops.
Lake Baikal was the great obstacle on the Siberian Railway. The
ice-breaker did not work regularly, and progress on the construction of
the Circum-Baikal line was slow. Prince Khilkoff conceived and carried
out the idea of laying a temporary line across the ice of the lake,
and so passing the waggons over. He also proposed to dismantle the
locomotives, take the parts across by horse traction, and reassemble
them on the eastern side. On February 16 I received the following
letter from him:
“I have returned from inspecting the Trans-Baikal line. The
line will be able immediately to run six pairs of trains of all
kinds. I have started work building sidings for nine pairs, but
this number will not run until the warm weather sets in and we
get rolling-stock. Almost all the rivers now are frozen solid.
Thirteen temporary water-supplies are now under construction. I
will write again about the warm weather and the increase up to
twelve pairs of trains. Khorvat, whom I saw in Manchuria, tells me
that the following numbers of military trains can be run on that
line[80]: three pairs on the western portion, five on the southern.
The further traffic acceleration depends almost exclusively on the
receipt of rolling-stock. Heavy snowstorms have somewhat delayed
the laying of the line across Lake Baikal; but I have hopes of
success. Arrangements are being made at Manchuria station for the
temporary accommodation of 4,000 to 6,000 men in hut barracks.”
[Illustration: RUSSIAN TRANSPORT CARS BEING DRAGGED ACROSS LAKE BAIKAL
ON THE ICE BY HORSES.]
It is clear from this letter that when we entered upon hostilities
we had for mobilization, concentration, and the carriage of supplies
only three military trains in the twenty-four hours, for the carrying
power of the western branch of the Eastern Chinese line from Manchuria
station to Harbin fixed the capacity of the line throughout its whole
length from Europe to Harbin. Thus, in the first period of the war,
Lake Baikal was not the only obstacle to rapid transit. The freezing
of the rivers in Trans-Baikalia was also a serious difficulty, and
necessitated the improvisation of water-supply at numerous stations.
But what was most wanted was an early delivery of rolling-stock for
the Trans-Baikal and Eastern Chinese lines, where the running capacity
was considerable, but the carrying capacity was limited—owing to the
shortage of rolling-stock—to three military trains in the twenty-four
hours. Under normal conditions we should have been compelled to wait
for the opening of Lake Baikal in the spring before commencing the
transport of rolling-stock eastwards from it, which would have meant
that we should have had to be content with three pairs of trains
till the middle of March. The ability and immense energy of Prince
Khilkoff, however, rescued us from this serious plight. Though in very
bad health, he took the matter in hand personally, regardless of the
climate and all other difficulties. On March 6 I received the following
message from him:
“On the 17th [February] we began to send rolling-stock across the
ice [Lake Baikal]. More than 150 waggons have been sent across, and
about 100 are now on their way over. If the weather is favourable,
I shall start sending engines over.”
On March 9 I received another message, recounting the difficulties that
were caused by the frequent great changes of temperature, for the ice
on the lake cracked badly, and it was often necessary to relay the line
just put down. He asked me to help him with fatigue-parties from the
army, which I gave him.
What had to be done in order to improve, to some extent, the Manchurian
line, is recorded in the report of the special committee submitted
to me on March 9, 1904. The officials of the Eastern Chinese Railway
calculated that to increase the carrying capacity of its main line up
to seven, and of the southern branch to twelve, pairs of military
trains, would entail an expenditure of £4,424,000. With this sum the
following improvements in actual traffic might be made: On the main
line, up to 7 pairs of troop trains, 1 pair of passenger, 1 pair
service; total, 9 pairs; running capacity, 10 pairs; water-supply
for 10 pairs. On the southern line, up to 12 pairs troop trains, 1
passenger train, and 2 service; total, 15; running capacity, 16;
water-supply for 16. Among the chief items were the laying of eighty
odd miles of sidings, which necessitated the delivery and distribution
along the line of between 9,000 and 10,000 tons of rails, sleepers,
and fish-plates, and the construction of 224 engine-sheds, 373,400
square feet of workshops, and 265,600 square feet of platforms. For
the construction of dwelling-houses £400,000 was necessary. The
water-supply of the southern branch was to be increased by 60 per
cent., and rolling-stock, of the value of £2,300,000, including 335
engines, 2,350 covered waggons, 810 trucks, and 113 passenger coaches,
were to be supplied. This increase in traffic to seven pairs of
military trains on the Siberian and Eastern Chinese lines and twelve on
the southern branch was, of course, only a first instalment of what was
required. Orders were issued in June, 1904, when I was in Manchuria,
for the respective lines to be brought up to the above capacity.
Before my departure to take over command of the army in the Far East,
I submitted a statement to the Tsar on March 7, showing what was most
urgently required to enable us to fight Japan successfully. This was
endorsed by the Tsar himself, and sent to the War Minister, General
Sakharoff. The following is an extract from it:
“I have the honour to report that the following are the measures
which, in my opinion, are most urgently required:
“1. Improvement of the Siberian and Eastern Chinese lines so as
gradually to work up to fourteen pairs of military trains in the
twenty-four hours over the whole length, and eighteen pairs on the
southern branch. Every additional pair of trains will not only
shorten the time for concentration, but will at the same time help
the supply services. Great difficulties will be encountered in
carrying out what I recommend, especially in increasing the running
capacity on the Central Siberian and Trans-Baikal lines. Once these
difficulties are overcome, the necessary increase of traffic can
easily be attained by means of a loan of rolling-stock from other
lines. I venture to assert that of all urgently pressing questions,
that of improving the railway communication between Russia and
Siberia is the most important. It must therefore be taken up at
once in spite of the enormous cost. The money expended will not
be wasted; it will, on the contrary, be in the highest sense
productive, inasmuch as it will shorten the duration of the war.
“2.... Together with the carriage of troops and goods by rail, a
transport service must be organized on the old Siberian road and
on that alongside the Eastern Chinese Railway. For a successful
concentration and the rapid transit of supplies, we ought to
have thirty troop trains in the twenty-four hours. Even when the
measures I suggest are carried out, we shall only have a total of
fourteen pairs—less than half of what are really required. Our
present precarious position, therefore, can be realized, as the
total number of military trains we are able to count upon between
Baikal and Harbin is four pairs!”
When I travelled over the Siberian and Manchurian lines in March, 1904,
I was accompanied by M. Pavlovski, who was in charge of the Siberian
line. He told me that if he were given rolling-stock on loan, he would
be able that year to increase the number of military trains to ten, and
later on to fourteen, pairs, at a cost of £650,000. On receiving his
report, I sent on March 19 the following message to General Sakharoff:
“With this I am telegraphing to Secret Councillor Miasiedoff
Ivanoff as follows:
“‘I earnestly request you to arrange for the early improvement of
the running and carrying capacity of the Siberian Railway. Engineer
Pavlovski, in charge of the Siberian line, informs me that he has
already represented that, in order to work up the number of trains
on the western portion to thirteen, in the central to fourteen,
and in the hilly portion fifteen (of which nine, ten, and eleven
will be military) during the summer, an expenditure of £650,000
is absolutely necessary. Please arrange as soon as possible to
credit him with this amount and an equal sum for the Trans-Baikal
line. I have informed the Tsar as to my opinion of the necessity
of eventually working up the whole line from the Volga to Harbin
to fourteen trains, though it be only twelve at first. Pavlovski
considers it desirable and possible to get seventeen pairs of
through trains. I cannot hope to act energetically unless the
railway to Harbin is improved to the extent I recommend. From
Harbin onwards it is absolutely necessary eventually to have
eighteen, and temporarily fourteen, pairs of trains. I earnestly
beg you to support this request.’”
By the middle of March Prince Khilkoff succeeded in sending across
the ice-line on Lake Baikal sixty-five dismantled locomotives and
1,600 waggons. [When I met him he was very ill, but had succeeded in
accomplishing a tremendous work, which it is to be hoped the country
will appreciate.] Échelons[81] of troops marched twenty-nine miles over
the ice in the day, every four men having a small sledge to carry their
kit, etc. When I passed across the lake not more than four échelons
were crossing in the twenty-four hours. The Trans-Baikal line was
working very badly, and together with the lake was a great cause of
delay.
In order to expedite the troop moves in Southern Manchuria, I
telegraphed to the Viceroy on March 16, emphasizing the necessity of
improvising road transport on the many roads between Harbin and Mukden
for the carriage of units and supplies from the former place, and of
not taking up more than one train in the day on the southern branch for
goods. At the same time I drew attention to the fact that the troops
should not be allowed to take with them more than their field-service
scale of baggage. I had noticed that the 3rd Battalion of the East
Siberian Rifles, which I had inspected on the way to the front, were
taking as much baggage as if moving in the course of ordinary relief.
On March 27 I reached Liao-yang, where the weary wait for the arrival
of reinforcements began. The first troops to arrive were the 3rd
Battalions for the seven East Siberian Rifle Brigades, at first one and
then two in the day. These were followed by the artillery units and
drafts for the brigades of the 31st and 35th Divisions. Meanwhile the
money required for the improvement of the Siberian and Eastern Chinese
lines had not been allotted as quickly as it should have been. On May
19 I received from the Ministry of Finance a telegram forwarding a
copy of another to the Viceroy, dated 15th. From this it appeared that
the question of bringing the carrying capacity of the Eastern Chinese
Railway up to seven pairs of trains, and that of the southern branch to
twelve pairs, had been thoroughly gone into at numerous meetings of the
special committee, and that the necessity for despatching the following
to the line was recognized: 190 miles of rails with joints, 770 sets
of crossings, 355 engines, 88 passenger coaches, 2,755 goods vans and
trucks. In addition to these, Admiral Alexeieff asked for 30 miles of
rails, 265 sets of crossings, and 1,628 vans. The Finance Minister
stated that it would be necessary, in order to improve and develop the
line, to provide it with 3,000 truck-loads of various stores. But as
it had only been found possible to send 200 trucks in April and 201 in
May, or a total of 401, he was of opinion that “the whole amount could
not possibly be guaranteed earlier than the autumn.” The extent to
which the despatch of these was delayed is evident from the fact that
out of 1,000 vans, only 60 had been sent off by May 18, and out of 355
engines, only 105. By July 30, 120 more engines had been sent, but it
was not proposed to forward the remaining 130 till a good deal later.
Owing to three regiments of the 1st Siberian Division being detained in
Harbin during the whole of April, the Manchurian army was not augmented
by a single battalion. Meanwhile we had been defeated on May 1 at the
Ya-lu, and on the 6th Oku’s army had begun to disembark at Pi-tzu-wo.
Though the 2nd Siberian Division reached Liao-yang in the second half
of May, we were still very weak. On May 23 General Jilinski brought
me a letter from the Viceroy, in which Admiral Alexeieff wrote that
the time had come for the Manchurian army to advance towards the Ya-lu
or Port Arthur. In spite of my opinion as to our unreadiness for any
forward movement, in spite of the fact that out of twelve divisions
of reinforcements only one had arrived, in spite of the inefficiency
of the railway, an advance with insufficient numbers was ordered and
carried out. The result was the disaster on June 14 at Te-li-ssu. The
leading units of the 10th Corps did not reach Liao-yang till June 17;
thus it took more than three months from the beginning of hostilities
for our troops in the Far East to receive reinforcements from European
Russia. During this prolonged and particularly important period the
burden and heat of the campaign was borne by five East Siberian Rifle
Divisions, whose two-battalion regiments had been expanded into
three-battalion regiments as late as March and April; the 4th Siberian
Corps, which arrived in May, did not take part in any fighting. Taking
advantage of our inferiority in numbers, and especially the inaction of
our fleet during these three months, the enemy disembarked their three
armies on the Liao-tung Peninsula and in Kuan-tung. The 1st Army, under
Kuroki, moved from Korea into Southern Manchuria, and Japan won three
battles on land—at the Ya-lu, Chin-chou, and at Te-li-ssu. Had the
railway only been ready at the beginning of hostilities, even to run
only six through military trains, we should have had three army corps
at Te-li-ssu—namely, the 1st and 4th Siberians and the 10th Army Corps,
instead of only the 1st Siberian Corps. The issue of this battle would
have been different, and this would undoubtedly have affected the whole
course of the campaign, for we should have secured the initiative.
The arrival of the first units of the 10th Army Corps was more than
opportune, but events did not permit us to await the concentration of
the whole of it. Kuroki’s army was advancing, and the line Sai-ma-chi,
An-ping, Liao-yang, on which he was moving in force, was only covered
by our cavalry and one regiment of infantry. Consequently, as soon as
the leading brigade of the 9th Division arrived at Liao-yang, it was
sent off in that direction. Similarly, troops of the 17th Army and
5th Siberian Corps went straight into action from the train without
waiting the concentration of their corps. It was only on September
2—_i.e._, after seven months—that the three army corps (10th, 17th,
and 5th Siberian), sent from Europe to reinforce the field army,
were all concentrated in the Manchurian theatre. During the decisive
fighting at Liao-yang, the 85th Regiment was the only unit of the 1st
Army Corps which had arrived, and it went straight from the train
into the battle. If, at the beginning of the war, we had had only one
more military train a day, we would have had present at the battle of
Liao-yang the 1st Army Corps and 6th Siberian Corps, and with these
sixty extra battalions must certainly have defeated the enemy. But the
railway fatally affected us in other ways, for while we were feeding
our army with fresh units as reinforcements, we were unable at the same
time to find carriage for the drafts for the advanced troops, which
had suffered heavy losses in killed, wounded, and sick. For example,
in the fighting of five long months, from May 14 to October 14, the
Manchurian army lost in killed, wounded, and sick, over 100,000 men,
to replace which, during that period, it only received 21,000. The
enemy, on the other hand, were making good their casualties quickly and
uninterruptedly.
By the beginning of October the 1st Army Corps and the 6th Siberian
Corps had arrived. Taking advantage of these reinforcements, I ordered
an advance. In the bloody battle on the Sha Ho, where we lost about
45,000 men, killed and wounded, neither side could claim a decisive
victory. During the four months immediately preceding the February
(1905) battles the army received drafts to replace wastage, and was
reinforced by the 8th and 16th Corps, besides five brigades of Rifles,
but in that month it was still short of its establishment by 50,000
men—_i.e._, two whole army corps. In other words, as regards numbers,
the 8th and 16th Corps might be said merely to have made up the wastage
in the others. It is true these corps brought us additional artillery;
but looking at it purely from the point of view of their fighting
value, I should have preferred to have received them in the shape of
drafts; I could then have incorporated them in the battle-tried corps,
instead of having them as separate inexperienced units. Even with
these considerable reinforcements our position in February, 1905, was
worse than before, for the fall of Port Arthur enabled the Japanese
to be augmented by Nogi’s army. Immediately after the 16th Corps
the field army was to have received two Rifle brigades, one Cossack
infantry brigade, and the 4th Army Corps; but their despatch was
delayed for more than a month, in order to allow a quantity of stores
which had collected on the line to be railed up. It was only on March
5—_i.e._, five weeks after the arrival of the last units of the 16th
Army Corps—that the leading battalions of the 3rd Rifle Brigade (the
9th and 10th Regiments) reached Mukden, and they at once went into
action. But for this break we should have had at the battle of Mukden
a main reserve of more than sixty battalions, which, even allowing for
our mistakes, might have turned the balance in our favour. In a full
year, from the beginning of March, 1904, till the beginning of March,
1905, we railed up eight army corps, three Rifle brigades, and one
reserve division to the front. Thus each corps on the average required,
roughly, one and a half months to perform the journey. These figures
indicate the peculiar disabilities under which we laboured in massing
superior numbers. Owing to our far too slow concentration, our forces
were bound to be destroyed in detail, as we were obliged to accept
battle. With the transit of troops, the materials necessary for the
work of improving the railways had to be railed up, and from August
onwards the progress made in this work was remarkable. In October,
1904, I received a message from General Sakharoff to the effect that,
according to the Minister of Ways and Communications, the Siberian
main line would have a carrying capacity, after October 28, of twelve
pairs of military trains. But this promise was not carried out for
almost a year, though the traffic in October and November was heavy.
Altogether, in one and a half months (forty-seven days), from October
28 to December 14, there arrived in Harbin 257 military, 147 goods
(commissariat, artillery, red cross, and railway service), and 23
hospital trains (total, 427), which gives an average of nine pairs in
the twenty-four hours, of which only five and a half carried troops.
In ten months of war the railway had increased its traffic from three
military trains to nine, so it took on an average more than one and a
half months to add one pair of trains to the traffic. Finally, in the
summer of 1905, after sixteen months of war, the railways worked, I
believe, up to a rate of twelve pairs of military trains on the main
line and eighteen on the southern branch—_i.e._, on the main line we
did not even then get so high as the number (fourteen pairs) which I
had asked for on March 7, 1904, when leaving for the front.
From all I have said it must be amply clear what a decisive factor the
railway was. Every extra daily train would have enabled us to have at
our disposal one or two corps more in the decisive battles. Thus a very
great responsibility—that of not losing a single day in improving the
lines—lay with the Ministries of Ways and Communications, of Finance,
and, to a certain extent, with the Ministry of War. Looking back to
what was done by these departments, it must be confessed that the
results attained were very great, and that the railway employés did
magnificent service. By the end of the war we had within the limits of
the Viceroyalty an army of 1,000,000 men, well supplied with everything
necessary for existence and for fighting. As this army was conveyed
while work was being simultaneously carried out on the railway-line,
the result, though largely attained by forced labour, was, for a
badly laid single line of railway, somewhat striking. By means of good
lines of railway, mobilization and concentration are very quickly
effected nowadays. Germany and Austria can throw about 2,000,000
soldiers on to our frontiers in from ten to fourteen days, and their
rapid concentration will enable them to seize the initiative. Our
forces reached the front, so to speak, by driblets, which resulted in
paralysis of all initiative on our part.
Thinking that the information with regard to the railways, sent by the
War Minister in October, 1904 [which reached me on November 8], meant
the realization of my recommendations of February, 1904, I considered
it time to submit to the Tsar my views as to the necessity for further
work, for I considered it most necessary that the line should be at
once doubled over its whole length. I expressed my opinion on this
question in a letter to the Tsar, dated November 12, 1904. As there is
nothing in this letter that can be regarded as secret, I will quote it
literally:
“YOUR MAJESTY,
“Before leaving to join the army, I was permitted to give my
opinion as to our principal requirements to insure success in the
war. My opinion was submitted in a memorandum dated 7th March,
and was marginally annotated by Your Majesty. Eight months ago I
expressed in this memorandum the opinion that, for a successful
concentration and rapid transport of all the supplies necessary to
an army in the field, the running of 30 pairs of military trains
in the 24 hours was essential. As a first step I considered the
improvement of the Siberian and Eastern Chinese lines should
be taken in hand, so as to bring up the number of trains to 14
pairs in the 24 hours along the main line, and 18 pairs along the
southern branch. Against the words ‘up to 14 pairs in 24 hours’
Your Majesty was pleased to note, ‘Very necessary.’ In a message
reaching me on the 8th November the War Minister has informed me
that from the 28th October the Siberian and Trans-Baikal lines will
have a carrying capacity of 12 pairs of trains in the day, and
that it is proposed further to work up the Siberian main line to
14 pairs, and that the Minister of Finance[82] has been approached
with regard to the urgency for improving the Eastern Chinese lines
so as to correspond with the Siberian. Thus, we have not, in eight
months, reached the number indicated as necessary in my former
memorandum. I now earnestly request that as a first step the whole
Siberian main line and the Eastern Chinese line as far as Harbin
should be worked up to a carrying capacity of 14 pairs, and on the
southern branch to 18 pairs. I know that this is no easy matter,
but it is absolutely essential, and admits of no delay. These 14
pairs will by no means supply all our requirements. The larger
number of men in the field has increased the demand for transport.
It is calculated that, to supply the army with everything
necessary, and to carry back what is not required, not 30 pairs
of trains, but 48, are essential. This is not exaggerated; it is
the minimum under normal conditions. Each Manchurian army should
have its own line (like the Bologoe-Siedlce)[83] giving 48 pairs
of trains in 24 hours. We must bow, of course, to the impossible,
but we shall have to pay in human life and in money for a prolonged
war. The urgency of every extra train can easily be seen. If we
had had one more pair of trains available at the beginning of the
war, we should have had 2 extra army corps—the 1st and 6th Siberian
Corps—in the August fights at Liao-yang, and our success would
practically have been assured. This one extra train could have
brought in drafts during September and October an extra 50,000 men,
of which we are now in such urgent need.
“In the future, every month will increase the necessity of
strengthening the line still more. When the field army was small,
we drew our supplies almost entirely from local sources (wheat,
barley, hay, straw, fuel, and cattle), but these will soon be
exhausted, and the provisioning the army will depend on supplies
from Europe. When we move forward our position will become worse,
for we shall be moving into a part of Manchuria already devastated
by war, and into a hilly tract which was never rich in supplies.
The daily transport of provisions (flour, groats, oats, hay,
and meat) for our present establishment takes up 5 trains, and
we soon shall have to provide carriage for live-stock. But the
army cannot live from hand to mouth. A quantity of supplies must
be collected, sufficient to form a reserve for the force for
some months, besides satisfying current requirements, and this
must be distributed in the advance and main depôts. It will take
5 additional trains a day for one month to collect one month’s
reserve. Only by having a large number of trains can we organize
our advance depôts with necessary rapidity, and move them to fresh
points. The demand for trains is greatest on those days when
fighting is in progress. A number of urgent demands—amounting
sometimes to hundreds during two or three days—are made, not
only for supplies, but for the carriage of military and engineer
stores, troops, parks, and the transport of drafts and of wounded.
The needs of an army in war are so varied and so vast that it
is considered necessary in Europe to have for each army corps a
special line of rails (single track), capable of running 14 to
20 pairs of trains in the 24 hours. For our 9 army corps we have
only one single line of rails running (in the last few weeks) from
8 to 10 pairs of trains. The inability of the line to cope with
the necessities of the war is the main reason for the slow and
indecisive nature of the campaign. Our reinforcements arrive in
driblets. Supplies despatched from Russia in the spring are still
on the Siberian line. Waterproofs sent for the summer will arrive
when we want fur coats; fur coats will be received when waterproofs
are wanted. But so far, during all these months that we have been
in contact with the enemy, have fought and have retired, we have
not been hungry, because we have been living on the country. The
situation is now altogether changed, for local resources will last
only for a short time longer. Our horses will soon have to be fed
on hay and straw, and if we do not make extraordinary efforts to
improve the railway and concentrate a large quantity of supplies at
the advanced base, our men, who are concentrated in great numbers
on small areas, will, after the horses, begin to suffer hardship
and hunger, and will fall sick. Any accidental damage to the
railway will be sorely felt.
“I am expressing my firm conviction with complete frankness as the
officer in command of three armies, that, for their successful
operations, we must at once start laying a second track throughout
the whole Siberian trunk line and on the Eastern Chinese Railway.
Our army must be connected with Russia by a line capable of running
48 pairs of trains in the day.
“I have some experience of my profession, and was for eight years
in charge of the management of the Trans-Caspian Railway, and
I am convinced that all these difficulties can be overcome if
Your Majesty is pleased to order it. Possibly the war will be
finished before we shall have laid the second line of rails over
more than a fraction of the whole distance; on the other hand,
it may continue so long that only a double track will save the
situation. Only with a double line also shall we be able at the
end of the war to send back rapidly all the troops which came from
Russia and to demobilize. We are living in the midst of events of
immense importance on which depends the future, not only of the Far
East, but, to a certain extent, that of Russia. We must not shirk
sacrifices that will insure victory and subsequent peace in the Far
East. Neither a conquered Japan nor a sleeping China will permit
such peace unless Russia possesses the power to despatch army corps
to the Far East more rapidly than she can at present. A double
line alone will enable this to be done. While keeping this as our
main ultimate object, we should make every effort now to work the
railways up to a traffic capacity of 14 pairs of trains as far as
Harbin, and 18 beyond.
“Having set to work to double the line, we must try to arrange that
one section will give us 18 pairs of military trains a day (perhaps
it will be best to begin from the hilly portions). As the second
line is laid, we shall be able to work up to a running and carrying
capacity along the whole line to Harbin and southwards of at first
24 pairs of trains, then 36, and eventually 48.”
Upon receipt of this letter from me, the first thing that the St.
Petersburg authorities did was to work out the details of the
preliminary arrangements for doubling the line. They tried to formulate
some scheme whereby the necessary construction material could be
carried on the railway without cutting down the number of troop trains.
It was suggested that the rails should be sent via the Arctic Ocean,
and apparently some attempt to do this was carried out, but later all
idea of doubling the line during the war was abandoned. It was a pity,
for the earth-work might have been carried out without interfering with
the traffic. Had we carried out this important measure, we should have
made our position in the Far East far stronger than it is now.
While they were making ready for war with us, the Japanese concluded
a treaty with Great Britain, by which they were assured of the
non-interference of any other Power. We, on the contrary, had not only
made no preparations for war in the east, but did not even consider it
possible to weaken to any great extent our frontiers on the west, in
the Caucasus, or in Central Asia. Our diplomats neither steered clear
of war with Japan, nor insured against interference in the west. The
result was that, while Japan advanced against us in her full strength,
we could only spare an inconsiderable portion of our army in European
Russia to reinforce the Far East. We had to fight with one eye on the
west. The army corps stationed in Western Russia were in a much higher
state of preparation than those in the interior as regards the number
of men in the ranks and the number of guns, horses, etc., and they
were armed with quick-firing guns. We, however, took corps that were
on the lower peace footing (the 17th and 1st), and gave them artillery
from the frontier corps; while the efficiency of some of the units
we took, which had companies from 160 to 100 strong in peace-time,
varied a great deal. It was due to this quite natural fear for our
western frontier that of five army corps sent to the Far East, three
were composed of reserve divisions. We had to keep troops back for the
maintenance of internal order; Japan did not have to do this. Our
picked troops—the Guards and Grenadiers—were not sent to the front; on
the other hand, the Japanese Guards Division was the first to attack
us at the Ya-lu. Thus, though we had a standing army of 1,000,000 men,
we sent reserve units and army corps on the lower establishment to the
front, and entrusted the hardest work in the field, not to our regular
standing army, but to men called up from the reserve. In a national
war, when the populace is fired with patriotism, and everything is
quiet in the interior of the country, such a course might be sound;
but in the war with Japan, which was not understood, and was disliked
by the nation, it was a great mistake to throw the principal work on
to the reserves. In the summer of 1905 we corrected this mistake, and
filled up the army with young soldiers, with recruits of 1905, and
drafts from the regular army. These young soldiers arrived at the front
cheerful and full of hope, and in a very different frame of mind to
that of the reservists. It was a pleasure to see the drafts of regulars
proceeding by train to the front—they were singing and full of spirit.
The majority of them were volunteers, and they would undoubtedly have
done magnificently if they had had a chance, but more than 300,000 of
them saw no service owing to the hasty peace.
In her war with France in 1870, Prussia, assured of our neutrality, had
nothing to fear from us, and was able to leave only an inconsiderable
number of men on our frontier and to enter upon the struggle with all
her strength. Similarly, Japan was able to throw her full strength
into the struggle from the very commencement. We, on the other hand,
considered it advisable to keep our main forces in readiness in case of
a European war, and only a small part of the army stationed in European
Russia was sent to the Far East. Not a single army corps was taken from
the troops in the Warsaw Military District, our strongest garrison.
Even my request to send the 3rd Guards Division to the front from there
was not granted, while our numerous dragoon regiments were represented
by a single brigade. We kept our dragoons on the western frontier,
and sent to the war the 3rd Category regiments of the Trans-Baikal
and Siberian Cossacks, consisting of old men mounted on small horses.
They reminded one more of infantry soldiers on horseback[84] than of
cavalry. In my report to the Tsar on March 7, 1904, I requested that
the reinforcements from Russia might be mobilized simultaneously and
immediately after the Easter holidays, and I gave the following reasons:
“By this measure the units, especially the reserve ones, will get
time to settle down. It will also be possible to put them through
a course of musketry and some military training, and it will give
time to organize the transport, parks, and hospitals.”
I considered it important that units detailed for the Far East should
have as long as possible to shake down, and to receive some training
before starting for the front.
The above memorandum, with the Tsar’s remarks on it, was sent to the
War Minister for his guidance; but General Sakharoff either did not
carry out some of the important recommendations I had emphasized most,
or altered them, and carried them out too late. As regards the date of
mobilizing the reinforcements, he did not share my view (1) as to the
necessity for a simultaneous mobilization, and (2) as to the necessity
for mobilizing immediately after Easter. In a memorandum drawn up
by him, dated March 18, 1904, he asked permission to mobilize the
reinforcements in three lots instead of at once. Six Cossack regiments
were first of all detailed for mobilization in the end of April, then
the 10th Army Corps on May 1, the 17th Army Corps on May 1 or a little
later, and four reserve divisions of the Kazan Military District
at the end of June. In a second memorandum (July 31) the question
was again raised whether all the reinforcements should be mobilized
simultaneously or at different times. The Headquarter Staff preferred
the latter alternative. Besides the poor carrying capacity of the
Siberian Railway, the reason given was that—
“... The political horizon might become so clouded as to make
the simultaneous mobilization of all the troops mentioned in the
statement inadvisable.”
Against this part of the memorandum I wrote the words, “It would be
better to do it simultaneously.” On my way to the front I received a
telegram from General Sakharoff, dated March 21, in which he said that
my request for the troops guarding the line to Harbin to be supplied
from one of the divisions of the Kazan Military District, and for this
division to be mobilized together with the other reinforcing troops
directly after the Easter holidays, could not be acceded to, owing to
the inconvenience to which the people of that district would be put
by so early a mobilization. He suggested that guards for the railway
might be found from one of the divisions of the 4th Siberian Corps—in
other words, that this corps should be broken up. The result of the
reinforcements being mobilized at different dates, contrary to my
wishes, was that when the leading units reached the front, they had
not settled down properly; the men did not know their officers, and
_vice versâ_. Few corps had been able to do a musketry course, the 2nd
Category reservists did not know the rifle, and hardly any had been
tactically exercised, or if they had, it had been only for a few days.
Divisions and corps had not been practised with the three arms. The 6th
Siberian Corps was mobilized under fairly favourable circumstances,
the 55th and 72nd Infantry Divisions being sent into camp in 1904, but
these divisions were trained without artillery or cavalry.[85]
In former days troops had to make long marches in full field-service
order before they reached the battle-field. If properly conducted,
these marches hardened the men, and enabled units to settle down; all
superfluous baggage was discarded, the weaker men were left behind,
and officers and men got to know one another. But nowadays, with
railway transport, the results are very different. Going to the Far
East, our men were crowded up in railway carriages for as long as
forty days at a time, out of the control of their officers, who were
in different compartments. In the old and well-disciplined units no
particular harm resulted, but in the case of newly formed units,
whose reservists—particularly those of the 2nd Category, just summoned
from their homes—consisting of peasants and town-bred men, were all in
carriages together, instead of with regulars, it was most harmful. If
to this fact be added their original unwillingness to go to the front,
their lack of military spirit, and the frame of mind induced by the
seditious proclamations with which they were lavishly supplied, the
small fighting value of these reinforcements can be easily imagined.
Many commanding officers of such regiments told me that not only did
they not know the men under them, but that, in spite of a journey of
from forty to fifty days, even the company commanders had not got to
know their companies.
The command of the various units of the field army was in a bad enough
way, for, owing to the numerous changes in the staff, there were many
newly appointed commanding officers; but among the reserve troops the
case was worse, for almost all the commanders were fresh men. The
value of even the regular units was still further diminished by the
proportion and class of the reservists joining. For instance, in some
companies of the 10th Army Corps there were only sixty regulars, of
whom thirty were young soldiers who had hardly finished their recruits’
course; when 150 reservists from the Poltava province were added to
this nucleus—all of them old men—a company lost almost all semblance
of a regular one. The spirit of the Poltava reservists was at first
specially bad, for a number of these men had taken part in the agrarian
disturbances. Can it be wondered at that, in such circumstances,
reinforcements which arrived from European Russia, and went into action
straight from the train, were not so useful as they would have been had
proper pains been taken with them?
What, then, were the motives which induced the War Minister
(General Sakharoff) to act in this important matter contrary to the
recommendations I had made, both as War Minister in 1903 and as Officer
Commanding the Manchurian Army in 1904? In a memorandum written by
him on March 18, after explaining his views as to the number of days
which he considered the 10th and 17th Corps would take on their journey
to the front, he stated that if the reserve units were mobilized in
the middle of April, at the same time as the ordinary units, as I had
asked, they would have to wait an unnecessarily long time before being
despatched, and that it would be sufficient if reserve units,
“... having finished their mobilization, had two or three weeks
for field exercises.... The units mobilized at the beginning of
April would have to wait some three and a half months before
being despatched. This, besides taking the men away prematurely
from their spring work in the fields, would put the War Department
to great and unnecessary expense in maintaining some 60,000 men.
Mobilized units, of course, do not require so long to settle down.”
Thus, in spite of the importance of the matter, and of the fact that
we could have trained well the men going to the Far East, my request
was refused for financial reasons, and in order that men who were
to be soldiers should not be taken away at sowing-time! The grounds
for General Sakharoff’s opinion that newly raised reserve units only
required two or three weeks to shake down instead of three and a half
months are not obvious. Did he not know that the three-line[86] rifle
now in the possession of the army was quite new to the 2nd Category
reservists?
The Easter holidays were early in 1904, coming on April 10. I had asked
that the general mobilization of all reinforcements should be ordered
immediately after the holidays—_i.e._, in the middle of April—but
General Sakharoff fixed the date for a month later; thus the reservists
of the 10th and 17th Corps received a month’s less training before
their departure for the front than I had stipulated for. The actual
dates of mobilization were: 10th and 17th Army Corps, May 1, 1904;
5th Siberians, June 14. The leading échelons[87] entrained as follows:
10th Army Corps, May 18, 1904; 17th Army Corps, June 14; 5th Siberians,
July 12. Thus those of the 10th Corps only had ten days to complete
mobilization and get ready. If from this number be deducted the days on
which reviews were held, it can be seen that the leading units of this
corps could neither have gone through the shortest musketry course, nor
have carried out any tactical exercises, while the rest of the corps
had only about two weeks for this important work. The leading échelons
of the 17th Corps were in a similar plight. The first units of the 5th
Siberians, which was formed of reserve divisions, had one month from
the day mobilization was ordered till it entrained. If review days and
the time taken to mobilize be deducted, only a fortnight was available
for instruction and shaking down, and the whole experience of the
war has shown that this is insufficient, especially for 2nd Category
reservists. Had the troops of the 5th Siberians only been mobilized at
the same time as the 10th and 17th Corps, its leading units would have
had about two and a half months for this process of preparation. In
these circumstances the efficiency of its regiments would have been
higher in the first fights than they were in General Orloff’s column at
Liao-yang. Another result of the postponed mobilization was that the
first échelon of the 10th Army Corps (9th Division), which arrived at
the front on June 30, was much below strength, especially as regards
officers. Not only had the Poltava reservists not settled down with
the regulars, but in some companies they almost came to blows with
them after the first fights. The regulars reproached the reservists
for leaving the ranks in action, to which the latter replied: “You
are soldiers; it’s your job; we’re peasants.” Feeling between the two
classes of men ran so high that they were with difficulty restrained
from actually fighting. I should in justice add that these peasants,
under the command of the able and gallant General Hershelman, became
hardened soldiers, and in later battles fought most gallantly,
especially at Mukden. Units of the 5th Siberian Corps reached the front
with their men in much the same state, and in the first battles some
regiments of this corps did not display the steadiness they should have
done, but later on, especially at Mukden, the 51st and 54th Divisions
fought splendidly.
Although we had a large number of reservists at our disposal, instead
of mobilizing the youngest, in some districts we took men of all ages,
while in others we did not discard the elderly men. Directly they
arrived at the front it was noticed that the older reserve men were
both physically and morally less reliable than the others. Indeed,
according to their officers, they were an actual source of weakness
instead of strength to the units they joined. Nearly all the men who
left the ranks in action were 2nd Category reservists. Of course, there
were splendid exceptions, but the one idea of the majority of these men
was to get put on non-combatant duties on the line of communication,
on transport work, or appointed as hospital orderlies, and after the
first fights they were given their desire. Our peasants generally put
on fat, grow beards, and lose their soldierly appearance when they
get over thirty-five. Naturally, also, they find the discomforts of
campaigning harder to bear than younger men. The “Little Russian” 2nd
Category reservists of the Poltava province were too heavy to scramble
over steep slopes, and found the Manchurian hills very difficult to
negotiate after the plains of their native country. The small active
hillmen of Japan had indeed a great advantage over our soldiers in the
July and August battles. It must also be remembered that villagers of
over thirty-five are generally married men with large families. Our
reservists were continually thinking of the homes and families they had
left behind, which was not exactly conducive to the cheerful mind so
necessary to the soldier. Added to all this, they did not understand
the reason for the war, and far from being urged on by their country
to deeds of gallantry, were fed with seditious proclamations, advising
them to kill their officers instead of fighting. During the retreat
from Mukden several units retired in disorder, and many men were met
who had thrown away their rifles. One of these was heard by my staff
to ask: “Where is the road to Russia?” On being told he was a cowardly
cur, he answered: “Why should I have to fight? I have got six children
to support.”
The partial mobilization proved unsatisfactory, but it was not merely
an accident of the war. Owing to the enormous extent of our frontiers,
we might have been drawn just as easily into a European struggle that
would have necessitated a general mobilization as into a war which
required only a partial one. Thus, in addition to having a plan for
general call to arms, we had to work out different schemes for partial
mobilization to meet certain contingencies. It was laid down as a basis
for these schemes that their application should not interfere with a
general mobilization if that also proved necessary, so certain areas
had to be selected for the calling out of reserves which would not
interfere with the general and more important scheme. The number of
these areas could only be kept down by taking from them the maximum
of reserve men—_i.e._, those of all categories irrespective of age.
The first scheme for partial mobilization on these lines was drawn up
and approved in 1896, when General Vannovski was War Minister, and
when it was found necessary, in 1903, to work out fresh plans in case
of complications with Japan, they were naturally based upon the old
scheme. Having at that time complete faith in the reliability of the
2nd Category reservists, I (then War Minister) concurred in the general
lines adopted, and submitted the new plan to the Tsar for approval,
but only as regards the first reinforcements to be sent to the Far
East. After I had seen the first consignment which actually reached
the front, I asked that no more 2nd Category reservists or men with
large families should be sent. When the second partial mobilization
(54th, 61st, and 71st Divisions) took place, a half-hearted attempt was
made to reject men with large families; but it was not till the fifth
and sixth mobilizations that 2nd Category reservists and family men
were, by the Emperor’s wish, left behind. Neither the people nor the
reservists could understand why 2nd Category reservists with families
were taken from one district or one set of villages, and bachelors who
had only just passed into the reserve from the colours were rejected
in others. Future schemes for partial mobilization must be drawn up
on entirely different lines from those of 1896 and 1903. Although 2nd
Category reservists were being sent to the front, we continued to
allow men to pass as usual from the regular army into the reserve,
even letting them go before they had completed their five years with
the colours. This state of affairs was extremely harmful to the army,
but can be partly explained as follows:—In the spring of 1904, just
after the commencement of the war, the recruits of that year should
have begun to join all units in European Russia. In peace, infantry
soldiers are usually passed from the colours to the reserve at the
end of the manœuvres when they have done only three years and a few
months’ service out of five (four manœuvres and three winters). It did
not occur to the Headquarter Staff to make use of these men for the
army in the field, though there were more than 200,000 of them—young
soldiers, splendidly trained—who might have been enrolled in reserve
units and then sent as drafts to the front. In this matter Headquarters
were guided by considerations quite unconnected with the war. The
advisability of retaining in their regular units the men about to pass
to the reserve was indeed considered, but it was put down as having
many disadvantages. The political side of the matter was what carried
most weight at Headquarters; moreover, questions of finance were
involved, for the men so retained with the colours would, upon arrival
of the recruits, have been supernumerary to the establishment. But,
owing to the shortage caused by the formation of new corps, it was
found difficult to carry out guard and other duties, and in some units
the men due to leave were retained with the colours till the young
soldiers had joined the ranks. General officers in command of districts
gave various replies when asked for their opinions on this matter; some
were for retaining the men, others for letting them go. In the summer
of 1904 the War Minister asked the Tsar’s permission to authorize
commanding officers to pass men of the infantry, field artillery, and
engineers into the reserve if they thought fit, provided that men were
not kept with the colours longer than March 31, 1905. The transfer in
other arms of the Service was to be as usual. Thus the retention in the
ranks of these time-expired soldiers was the exception, and was not
dependent on the war. Always fearful of a European war, we replaced the
troops sent from Russia to the front by forming a large number of new
divisions from the reservists. This course was also necessary for the
maintenance of internal order. On August 23, 1904, officers commanding
districts were authorized to transfer men retained with the colours
into the newly formed infantry and artillery units, and thus to get
rid of the same number of 2nd Category reservists. Thus the reserve
divisions formed for service in the interior of Russia began to be
filled by good men and rid of 2nd Category men before the divisions
at the front were. In the autumn of 1904, at the request of the
authorities in the field, authority was given to transfer men retained
with the colours up to March 31, 1905, into the units mobilized and
expanded by the seven partial mobilizations, and to discharge from
these units the 2nd Category reservists and men of large families.
It was only on December 27, 1904, when the young soldiers joined the
ranks, that arrangements were made to transfer the men retained with
the colours into the units that were not mobilized or expanded. These
men were available for despatch to the front as drafts in the summer
and autumn of 1904, but they only arrived a year later, after the
Mukden battles, when they were too late. These splendid men saw no
fighting at all.
I have endeavoured to explain (Chapter VII.) on what a large scale
the Japanese made use of their reserve troops, and how rapidly they
replaced casualties. The organization of the reserve units in the
Russian army, on the other hand, was not fully completed before the
war, for we had only been able to go ahead as funds permitted. The
number of reserve troops in the Far East corresponded to the small
number of units stationed there in the first instance, but while we
increased our numbers out there it was not considered convenient to
increase the reserve units, the number of reservists living there
and in Siberia being insufficient to fill them. But if we had had
the cadres of a large number of reserve units there, it would have
been easy to send the reservists to them from European Russia. The
six reserve battalions stationed in Pri-Amur had lost most of their
permanent cadres in the first fights. The army generally had to operate
with a constantly decreasing establishment, due to a variety of causes:
1. Units arriving as reinforcements sometimes came with a shortage of
15 to 20 per cent. among the men, and 25 per cent. among the officers.
The 10th Army Corps in particular arrived very short—a fact which I
immediately reported to the War Minister.
2. Owing to the shortage of men in the administrative services and
of the auxiliary troops, many duties had to be carried out by the
regiments in the field—_i.e._, duties in rear, at camps, on the line of
communication, at hospitals, in the commissariat and transport, as well
as guards for the different store depôts. Advantage was taken of these
duties to get rid of the 2nd Category reservists.
3. A large number of men had to be told off to guard property left
in the staff quarters of the Viceroyalty, and the stores, supplies,
and droves of cattle collected for the troops at work on the railways,
bridges, and for other odd duties.
4. On the days of heavy engagements the shortage increased by tens
of thousands, and even in periods of comparative quiet the number of
killed and wounded in some units was very high.
5. Sickness.
All these reasons combined necessitated a continual stream of
reinforcements to the front. But owing to the state of the railway
there were intervals, and fairly long ones, when the army received no
drafts—as, for instance, in July, August, and September, 1904, when, as
I have already mentioned, we lost 100,000 men, and only received 21,000.
The advance at the beginning of October, 1904, was made when the
army was much below strength, some regiments having only half, and
even less, of their proper complement. And this shortage of men was
increased on the eve of a battle by the large numbers left with the
transport, at the staff quarters and as officers’ servants—men who
were in reality combatants. Curiously enough, many commanding officers
showed no particular anxiety to take their units into action as strong
as possible. But what was most serious was the speed with which
some units melted away as soon as they came under fire; directly
casualties happened this dissolution commenced. Men were told off,
with the knowledge of their commanding officers, to assist company and
divisional stretcher-bearers in carrying the wounded out of action. If
the number of wounded were large, an enormous number of unwounded men
went to the rear. The cowardly and the skulkers did their best to get
detailed for this duty, or went off with wounded men without orders, or
left the ranks without any excuse. I have seen stretchers with wounded
men accompanied by as many as ten unwounded soldiers. In some regiments
the numbers thus voluntarily retiring from the field amounted to
hundreds; in one regiment[88] more than 1,000 men left the ranks in the
first fight in which it took part. These were generally reservists, and
chiefly those of the 2nd Category. The men with the colours, as a rule,
did most of the fighting, and fought magnificently; sometimes even when
companies were reduced to a handful of men they continued fighting.
Of course, there were some gallant men amongst reservists, but, as a
rule, any brave deeds that were performed were done by the men with the
colours and 1st Category reservists. Even for the drafts, the men sent
to the front were not selected with adequate care, and many were quite
unfit for active service. In 1905, of some 76,000 who arrived for the
1st Army, 4,100 were sick or otherwise unfit. The following statement
by the Adjutant-General of that Army is interesting:
“The drafts sent to the Army before the battle of Mukden were
composed of 2nd Category reservists who left the colours about
1887. They were quite ignorant of the present rifle, and their
training was in other ways far below the level of the men forming
the permanent cadres of their units. Many of them were physically
quite unfitted to endure the hardships of a campaign or of any
military service, being chronic sufferers from diseases such as
rheumatism. But those who arrived after the battle of Mukden were
splendid. Reservists were sometimes drafted to an Arm of the
service in which they had not served before passing to the reserve;
for instance, men were put into the artillery who had done all
their colour service in cavalry or infantry, while to engineer
units were sent men who had served in the infantry. This, of
course, caused considerable complication as regards training, and
could not but militate against our field operations, especially in
the case of the technical troops.”
The above is an accurate representation of the facts. Until the battle
of Mukden the drafts sent to the front were much less reliable than
those arriving afterwards, when they were too late to see any fighting.
Those which were composed of 2nd Category men were often so bad that
if a fight were imminent, commanding officers asked to be relieved of
them, as their steadiness could not be relied on. These officers felt
that their more or less veteran units would do better in the field,
even if weak in numbers, than if filled up just before a fight with
these men. Such a request was made to me by the officer commanding the
1st Army Corps and many others.
The shortage of officers was also a bad feature of our arrangements.
In spite of the stream sent out to replace casualties, many units went
short of their proper complement of officers all through the war.
Both the troops actually in the Far East and the reinforcements sent
out were at their peace strength when hostilities commenced. Indeed,
there were instances in the beginning of the war of companies going
into action for the first time commanded by junior lieutenants. As
things went on, this deficiency in leaders was found to exist even in
those units whose muster rolls showed an excess above their proper
complement, and after the first fights, owing to the specially heavy
casualties among the officers, cases were quite common of battalions
and companies in action which were commanded by captains and second
lieutenants. This dearth at the front was increased by the number of
officers absorbed in departmental and other duties in the rear, and, in
the case of the reinforcements, by so many—both medical and combatant
officers—being left at the different bases; the latter were, of course,
intended, in case of a general mobilization, to be available for
general or regimental duties with the newly formed units. These remarks
apply more particularly to the infantry. In the cavalry and artillery
the numbers, though less than the establishment, were generally
sufficient to carry on with. This was due to the fewer casualties in
those arms. There is no doubt that the question of providing officers
for an army in the field is a very serious one, which is complicated by
many extraneous circumstances. We found that when the period of great
battles and consequent heavy losses amongst the officers commenced,
the discrepancy between the number of them shown on paper and of those
actually present with a regiment rapidly increased. The names of a
large number of wounded and sick were kept on the rolls for a long
time. Some of the wounded and sick who stayed in the theatre of war
gradually drifted back to their regiments, but the great number who had
gone to Russia remained there, and did not rejoin even after they had
quite recovered. There were instances where commanders of regiments,
who had gone to Russia convalescent and had not returned, were still
shown as commanding, and were still drawing command pay. Several who
went home sick or wounded loafed about the streets of our cities or
large towns for months, and the curious thing is that no one seemed to
question such behaviour. In spite of what was done to obviate this, the
medical officers and the medical board were far too lenient to those
who wished to return home, and gave them every facility. On the other
hand, many who were considered incompetent for field service, and sent
back to Russia on this account, appeared again as fit, and returned
to their corps, thus squeezing out from the command of companies and
battalions those who had honourably borne all the hardships of the
campaign, had acquired war experience, and had earned accelerated
promotion. An excellent article on this subject by M. Glinski, called
“The Resurrected Dead,” was published in the _Razviedchik_ in 1906. It
should be stated, in fairness to our officers, however, that if many
remained absent who could have returned to the front, there were a
very large number who, though they had been wounded, made every effort
to rejoin, often, indeed, doing so before they had quite recovered.
Several officers rejoined after having been wounded two and three
times, and these gallant gentlemen would have been a credit to any army
in the world. In the 1st Army Corps, over 837 officers who had been
wounded rejoined. For all these reasons my requests that fresh officers
might be sent to the army were frequent and persistent, but the War
Ministry were not always able to comply. They had to collect officers
stationed in European Russia, the Caucasus, and Turkestan—wherever they
could be obtained, and were not always able to pick and choose. Some of
them were quite useless owing to alcoholism, others to the irregular
lives they had led, while several got drunk and became violent even
on the way out. Such men stayed at Harbin as long as they could, did
nothing but harm on joining the corps to which they were appointed, and
were eventually removed. Our most reliable officers were the regulars,
particularly those who volunteered for the front, many of whom greatly
distinguished themselves. The least reliable were the reserve officers,
who had been removed from the service, and had managed to squeeze into
the reserve owing to our mistaken kindness.
When I was War Minister I had directed General Narbut, a member of the
Military Council, to work out a scheme whereby a reserve of officers
might be obtained in war. The essence of this scheme was that our cadet
schools should, on mobilization, pass out a larger number of cadets
as officers, and should then set to work to train as soon as possible
those officers of the 1st and 2nd Categories who volunteered, and also
the men of the regulars who were possessed of an intermediate standard
of education, thousands of whom were good enough to be given the rank
and duties of lieutenant. Why this scheme was not carried out during
the war I do not know, but unless steps are taken to do something
of this kind in future we shall be in difficulties. We did not take
advantage of the possibility when war was declared, or even immediately
afterwards, of passing out a greater number of the senior classes of
the military and cadet schools. In 1902 these colleges supplied the
army with 2,642 officers; we might, therefore, have received at the
beginning of 1904 and 1905 more than 5,000 young officers wherewith to
fill vacancies in the field. This is precisely what the Japanese did.
Foreseeing how we should be placed, on March 19, 1904, I asked the War
Minister that officers might be commissioned from the military and
_yunker_ schools, before the manœuvres, at the rate of 2 per battalion,
1 per battery, 4 per Cossack regiment, and 100 to the reserve. This was
not done. On my repeated representations as to the urgent necessity for
increasing the supply, I received in 1904 a curt reply to the effect
that the maintenance of the number of officers up to establishment
was the duty of the War Minister, not that of the officer commanding
the army in the field. When the output was eventually increased, we
received only a comparatively small number of those who had just got
their commissions. These formed a most desirable element in the army,
and in the majority of cases behaved splendidly in action.
On the whole, our troops were, for the reasons explained, very short of
officers in the greater number of actions. Although the War Department
accomplished a great work in sending out the large number of officers
that did go to the front, very little discrimination was shown in their
selection. It must be acknowledged, also, that we made little use
either of our non-commissioned officers in the way of preparing them to
take the places of officers, or of the splendid material to our hand in
the cadets of the military and cadet schools.
The behaviour of our troops in the field was, on the whole, excellent,
but the further from the advanced positions they were the worse did
their discipline become. Even at the actual front it varied with the
different classes of men, as I have explained. Of course, had good
discipline prevailed in the units in which the 2nd Category reservists
served, they would never have been able to leave the field in action
as they sometimes did. But men, even of the best regiments, when they
saw looting all round them, and acts of violence being committed with
impunity, were themselves liable to become tainted with the spirit of
lawlessness, and to get out of hand. This especially applied to the
lines of communications, for strict and uncompromising discipline
was maintained in the advanced positions. In the time of Frederick
the Great the saying went that the soldier should fear the corporal’s
cane more than the enemy’s bullet, but nowadays, though of course the
liability of all to serve has improved and raised the average moral
condition of the rank and file, it is not easy to make our uneducated
peasantry appreciate what discipline is. Belief in God, devotion to
the Tsar, love of the Fatherland, are the factors which have, up till
now, welded the mass of soldiers in each unit into one family, and have
made them fearless and obedient; but these principles have latterly
been much shaken amongst the people, and the result was, of course,
felt in the recent war. It was chiefly noticeable in an increase in the
number of men who were slack and insubordinate, who criticized their
seniors, and generally exercised a bad influence on their comrades.
Such men could only be controlled by severity, for fear is the only
thing which appeals to them. But while this deterioration in the
discipline of the whole nation has been going on, our defence against
it has been weakened, for in the summer of 1904 corporal punishment
had been abolished in the army even on active service. I supported
its abolition in peace myself—indeed, conducted the measure for this
through the Military Council; but many of us thought it unwise to alter
the existing law which authorized its infliction in war, for the fear
of it kept many bad characters from crime, and prevented the cowards
leaving the ranks in action. However, our officers were deprived of
this deterrent, and no substitute was given.
In war such minor punishments as confinement to barracks or in cells
and extra duty are out of the question. We therefore had no summary
and effective punishment for many offences, such as insubordination,
etc. A certain number of crimes are punishable with death, but what
is lacking is some adequate punishment between the capital award and
nothing at all. To make the position worse in our case, men who had
been sentenced to a term of service in the disciplinary battalions
remained on in the ranks, and at the slightest show of gallantry on
their part our kind-hearted officers asked that their sentence might be
remitted or modified. As if this were not enough, insubordinate sailors
used to be sent to the army for punishment! The action of the military
courts was unsatisfactory, their procedure complicated and slow. The
usual result of the withdrawal from commanding officers of the power to
award a flogging was that they let a man off altogether or else took
the law into their own hands. As a matter of fact, corporal punishment
continued to be given in certain cases, sometimes on the verdict of
the men and at their own suggestion; but the culprits were beaten
with cleaning-rods instead of canes. Taking into consideration the
peculiar conditions under which this war was conducted, owing to the
want of national sympathy in the struggle, and to the anti-Government
propaganda which permeated all ranks of the army, this weakening of the
disciplinary powers of officers was on the whole very ill-advised, and
was carried out without reference to the officers actually in command
of troops.
The reasons for the unpopularity of the war also affected the
steadiness of the troops in action. Amongst many instances of real
gallantry, cases of cowardice in detachments, and particularly in
individuals, were noticeable. Occasions when soldiers, and even
officers, surrendered when still unwounded were only too frequent, and
they were, unfortunately, not visited with the full severity of the
law. Many officers, on returning after release from capture, were not
tried by court-martial at once, but were straightway placed in command
of units going to the front, and then took command of companies and
battalions as soon as they rejoined. This attitude towards those of
our people who had surrendered could not but cause bad feeling amongst
the best elements in the army who had been doing good work all along.
This feeling of disgust was particularly aggravated when it became
known that various persons removed from the army for incompetence—even
for cowardice—had received high appointments in Russia. Such action
destroyed all discipline. For instance, the conveyance of General
Grippenberg by special train after he had just thrown up his command
was in itself sufficient to encourage insubordination on the eve
of decisive battles; it certainly undermined the authority of the
Commander-in-Chief. The wholesale criticism pronounced on all ranks by
the Press, the abuse of the officers, particularly of those in high
command, together with the underhand efforts made to tempt the men not
to fight, but to mutiny and kill their superiors, undermined their
faith in their commanders, destroyed discipline, and made the troops
cowardly in action. Such a state of affairs was enough to discount all
the efforts of the very best officers, and had the most evil effect on
those who were already inclined to show the white feather.
War is terrible; therefore the methods of maintaining discipline
amongst troops, to be effective, must be as terrible. We certainly
desired success, yet how often did we not act so as to make success
improbable, if not impossible? The very causes which were undermining
authority in the army were those which kept victory from us. Peace
reputations are no criterion of ability in war, and many commanders
who had been noted throughout their career as “brilliant,” “above the
average,” proved in physical strength and force of character of very
little use. On the other hand, those who had remained unnoticed in the
piping times of peace showed great strength of character and brilliant
military qualities amid the stress of war. Amongst the latter was
General Kondratenko, the hero of Port Arthur.
After the first engagements it was found necessary to remove from the
army as rapidly as possible those officers who had shown themselves
unfit for their duties, and, without attaching undue weight to mere
seniority, to promote others who had proved themselves capable soldiers
in the field. On June 3, I reported to the War Minister the unfitness
of two generals commanding army corps then proceeding to the front, but
no notice was taken. Every obstacle was put in the way of my efforts
to get rid of incapable commanders of army corps and divisions, and
amongst other things I was informed from St. Petersburg that I asked
for commanders of corps to be changed far too often. My orders removing
from duty a General Officer commanding an East Siberian Rifle Division,
who was liable to attacks of nerves in action, and left his division
before a certain great battle, drew a series of questions as to my
reasons. As I have mentioned, persons who had left the army owing to
incompetence, sickness, or even cowardice, sometimes received high
appointments in Russia, and all my recommendations that gentlemen of
this spirit should be removed from duty as speedily as possible were
pigeon-holed. To turn to another point, some regiments were commanded
for twelve months and more, by temporary commanders. A characteristic
example of this kind is the story of the removal from duty of the
officer commanding one of the Caspian Regiments, Colonel F―. This
officer, who was slightly wounded (contusion) in the first fight in
which his regiment took part, went in the beginning of October, 1904,
to Russia to recover, and only rejoined after he had been absent nearly
a year, during a considerable portion of which time he was quite well.
In his absence the regiment was commanded by an excellent officer, a
certain colonel, who was awarded the Cross of St. George for gallant
behaviour when with the regiment at the battle of Mukden. During those
twelve months I sent in ten recommendations asking that Colonel F―
might be gazetted out of the command, and that it might be given to
the colonel acting for him. When Linievitch was Commander-in-Chief
he supported my request, adding his own recommendation to mine, and
sending it on to the War Minister and the Chief of the Headquarter
Staff. The latter, however, did not agree, and asked why Colonel F―
[who had then rejoined] was not commanding the Caspian Regiment.
I again sent in my recommendation, and again received a refusal.
These absolute refusals of my request were the more inexplicable as
I had already received information that the officer commanding the
troops in the St. Petersburg Military District was not opposed to the
appointment of my nominee. In the end the long-waited-for appointment
was made, but the Chief of the Headquarter Staff informed me that it
was made at the request of General Baron Meyendorf, lately commanding
the 1st Army Corps! Several colonels commanding regiments specially
distinguished themselves in the early engagements, and showed fine
military qualities, and owing to the lack of brigade commanders I
frequently asked that some of them then in command of regiments—for
instance, Lesha, Riedko, Stelnitski, and Dushkevitch among others—might
be promoted to Major-Generals, and I called attention to brigades in
the army that were vacant. The Headquarter Staff delayed for a long
time, continually asking for further information, and the end of the
matter was that Colonel Ostolopoff, commanding the Omsk Regiment, a
worthy officer, but one who had in no way distinguished himself in the
field, and whose name came up in the ordinary way, was promoted before
the above-mentioned colonels.
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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