THE SAPPERS--REWARDS
The provision of technical troops in Port Arthur, their employment, and
their reward for the work done are points which deserve some mention.
Their provision is a matter which it is in some ways difficult to
separate from the ludicrous idea of the way to defend a fortress which
held with those in authority.
It was, one would have thought, patent that to defend Port Arthur it
was necessary to defend the peninsula from sea to sea and from Kinchou
to Liao-tieh-shan, or an area of some eighteen miles in breadth by
forty in length. As it was unlikely that an attacking enemy would
advance on the Fortress held by a civilized power such as Russia with
the same impetuosity as was shown by the Japanese in 1894 against an
effete nation, it was equally obvious that as many delaying positions
as possible, from the most excellent one of Kinchou right away back to
the actual enceinte of the place, should be held. Such is the nature of
the country that there is a whole series of positions. Even if general
principles were not to be regarded, it might be thought that the
manoeuvres of the years preceding the war would have shown in actual
practice how valuable these positions were to any force defending
Port Arthur. The enemy were evidently of opinion that we would take
every advantage of what Nature had given us, and would supplement
these natural advantages with all the resources of art. It follows,
therefore, that in the preparation of these successive positions,
quite apart from the defence of the Fortress proper, there was an
immense amount of work to be done which would necessitate the skill of
technical troops.
Within and round the place itself also, even supposing that all the
permanent defences had been ready at the commencement of war, [which
they were not by any means], there would be during a siege great
scope for the employment of technical troops. It is largely for
siege-work that such troops are included in the organization of an
army. On the whole, therefore, both the more distant defences of the
district and the closer defence of Port Arthur appear to have called
for the provision of a very large number of sappers. The district was
large, from a point of view of the amount of defensive work that was
necessary, and the Fortress was large. Let us see what the higher
authorities in St. Petersburg and the local authorities in Arthur
apparently thought sufficient.
Of sapper officers not with units there were altogether fifteen in the
Engineer Department of the whole district. Of these, the following
were not available for general sapper duty: six officers employed in
the Naval Construction Yard, and six others specially employed, thus
leaving three officers available for sapper duties over the whole
area. Of troops for the work over this huge area there was one sapper
company--the gallant Kwantun Sapper Company, consisting of 9 officers
and 450 non-commissioned officers and men. Even from this number 2
officers were detached and sent up north to Manchuria, and 50 men
detached for special duties; that leaves 7 officers and 400 men at
the commencement of hostilities! Had the subject ever been considered
in St. Petersburg? This number was all that were available for the
defensive works on miles of field and semi-permanent positions, on
many permanent forts and intermediate works, and for the construction
and repair of all defence buildings.
It must be remembered that under the Engineer officers trained
technical foremen are required, and that these have to be paid
according to their skill. Stössel regarded the more expensive article
as unnecessary, and thought it sufficient to employ the ordinary
sappers from the company as foremen. The proper employment of these
technical troops seems also scarcely to have been grasped. As a rule,
for defence works the sappers, both officers and men, do little
unskilled manual labour themselves; they organize, supervise, and
direct the unskilled labour of the troops or of hired civilians. The
extent to which the capabilities and powers of sappers was understood
by some of the staff in Arthur is illustrated by the following incident:
When the enemy were on the eve of their assaults on Kinchou the Officer
Commanding the Sapper Company got a telegram on May 24 from Arthur:
'_To Colonel Jerebtsoff._
'General Stössel directs me to request you immediately to arrange for
the blowing up of the southern wall of the town of Kinchou. It should
be carried out at once.
'Kondratenko.'
The next morning Jerebtsoff went with his subaltern to inspect this
wall. Kinchou was situated in front of the left flank of the position
of that name. Like the majority of Chinese towns, it was surrounded
with a loopholed stone wall, like a tower of mediæval times. Upon
inspection this wall proved to be a solid erection of stone laid in
mortar, 19 feet high, 21 feet thick at the bottom, and 19 feet thick
at the top. This was what Stössel wanted blown up 'immediately.' To
demolish it meant blowing up some 1,435,000 cubic feet of stone masonry!
When Colonel Jerebtsoff went into Arthur to report the impossibility of
demolishing this wall _at once_, he was told:
'We will give you as many men from the 5th East Siberian Rifle Regiment
as you like.'
'But, sir,' said the Colonel, 'I shall want more than two men to lay
the charge in every chamber. For 1,200 yards of wall I should want not
less than 500 chambers--that is, about 1,000 men--and anyhow, even if
you give me the men, it is impossible to do the work _at once_.'
The answer was amusing.
'There's no time to talk, Colonel; you must please go and carry out
General Stössel's order.'
Jerebtsoff left by rail that night, but the train was unable to proceed
beyond Inchenzy, as the line was fired at by the enemy's gunboats. He
therefore had to ride from there to Nangalin, whence he again proceeded
on by train. But he never even reached the position at Kinchou, for it
was already in the enemy's hands.
Without understanding the rôle of sappers, Stössel during the whole
siege threw the Sapper Company about like a ball from hand to hand. It
was within this period put under the orders of four separate officers,
without rhyme or reason. This anomaly of passing a most valuable
technical unit from one officer to another was not only not called for,
but did absolute harm, as it enabled people who were totally ignorant
of its duties, qualifications and capabilities to issue to it utterly
irregular and impossible orders.
That the organization of the sappers in the Fortress in the event of
war was not sufficiently thought out and foreseen is shown by the fact
that this company, though 'a Fortress Company,' was allotted to work
not only in the Fortress, but in the whole district (which was the
reason it was not called the 'Port Arthur' Company). It was therefore
given a civilian complement, which put it on a different footing to
other fortress companies--_i.e._, it consisted of a field sapper
company supplemented by a telegraph detachment of half the strength of
a field telegraph company. In consequence, when hostilities commenced,
there were neither fortress nor telegraph sappers in the Fortress
itself.
The Sapper Company also affords an example of Stössel's system of
bestowing rewards. These men had done many gallant deeds, and by May
had won thirty Crosses of St. George. When Stössel learnt this, he said
to the commanding officer:
'You have got too many crosses in your company: I shall not give you
any more.'
Despite many gallant actions done by the sappers at later periods
of the siege, and the recommendations made to him, Stössel kept his
word: not a single cross was given to the sappers. With regard to the
question of rewards in general, space does not permit of a description
of the general system of their disposal by Stössel, but to give some
slight insight of his methods, the following extract of a letter
written to his relations by an officer when a prisoner of war in Japan
is quoted. After describing his feelings and the hardships he and his
companions had undergone, he continues:
'And to all this is added the knowledge of the insults heaped upon
us by the bitter injustice shown to many in the bestowal of rewards.
Many unworthy officers who have done nothing to deserve good of their
country have been plastered with orders by General Stössel, who wished
to help them on. In the majority of cases these were either officers
of high rank who were intimate with him, were with him in the China
campaign, or were liked for "family reasons." Others were recommended
by their immediate commanders more than once, but the reward lists
were either lost in the office of the Officer Commanding the District
or were purposely overlooked by General Stössel. In the Fortress at the
end, counting those who had been recently promoted, there were fourteen
General Officers. Of these, those who had already got the Cross of St.
George of the fourth class received that of the third class, and those
who had not got the fourth class were given it. There was _only one_
General Officer who remained without this order for bravery, and he,
need I say, was General Smirnoff, the Commandant!
'The private soldiers were also shamefully treated. Many of those who
did countless gallant deeds and were recommended for rewards went to
Japan as prisoners of war, having received nothing. Apparently these
recommendations received no notice in Stössel's office. The case of
Colonel Jerebtsoff, who commanded the only Sapper Company in the
Fortress, is also noteworthy. At the beginning of the war he met with
much opposition from the other Engineers in his endeavours to get
materials, etc., for his company. During the siege he lost 12 officers
and 350 men out of his company, of which 5 officers were killed and
2 died, and 100 men were killed. Work was carried on constantly, day
and night, from April 14, and from July 1 to the surrender of the
Fortress under constant fire. From September 28, during one and a half
months, he supervised the sapping and mining works on his portion under
incessant fire, and on November 26 went out and worked for four and a
half hours under a heavy fire, losing an officer and six men. In short,
he did an immense amount of work and showed the greatest gallantry. He
was recommended by General Kondratenko in August, after the fighting
at Green Hills, for the Order of St. Stanislav, second class, and by
Colonel Grigorenko, after the assault of November 26, for the Cross of
St. George, fourth class, but he received nothing save a medal of the
Order of St. Anne, third class, which he had won in peace-time! And
why? Simply because he was a quiet, modest officer, asked for nothing
for himself, and thought only of how best to do his duty and look after
those under him. And he was one of many!'