On my first trip into Tsingtau I met a German officer in the Prince
Heinrich Hotel, who had taken part in the siege, and questioned him as
to the truth of the statement.
"Maybe that is what they say, but the facts are the garrison had
expected Tsingtau to fall sooner than it did. Our heavy artillery fire
was not kept up for the purpose of throwing away our shells,--it would
have been less dangerous to have dropped them in the bay,--but solely
to do as much damage to the Japanese as possible before the assault on
the fortifications could be made. We regulated our fire with the one
purpose of covering the country with shells before they had a chance
to get under cover. When they attempted to mount their siege guns at
the start of the bombardment their forces were exposed to us. We could
see their ammunition columns and supply wagons rolling up on open roads
and, by spreading our fire about the valley, we were attempting solely
to postpone the fall of Tsingtau as much as possible by hindering the
allied forces in their work."
The officer then went on to tell me of the ruse Lieutenant Trendel,
manager of the Wagonlits Hotel at Peking, who took part in the siege,
played on the Japanese. Trendel was in command of a battery of six
old nine-centimeter ships' guns which were in an exposed position on
a ridge near Iltis Fort. This battery received a fire from both the
ship and land guns, and the men could be seen on the first day of the
bombardment building bomb-proofs in the dust and smoke from exploding
shells.
In the night Lieutenant Trendel put up wooden guns, roughly shaped from
beams, at a distance of two hundred yards from his own guns. In the
morning, he exploded powder near them to give an appearance of firing
from them. By this ruse he diverted the Japanese fire and saved all his
men, dynamiting his guns before the surrender.
Governor-General Waldeck, after the surrender, made the following
statement as to the bombardment:--
The combatant force at Tsingtau did not amount to more than forty-five
hundred. The permanent garrison consisted of eighteen hundred men
nominally, but was, in reality, about two hundred short. Some of those
under arms were mere boys. Each fort was defended by about two hundred
men.
The Tsingtau guns were mostly weapons captured from the Boxers during
their rebellion, or trophies of the Franco-German War, and were no
match for modern arms. The Huichuan and Bismarck Forts, however, had
some modern pieces. Altogether there were, for the defense, about sixty
guns and a hundred machine guns.
The Iltis fort was guarded by sixty men. The Japanese in their assault
charged up under a hot fire as if unconscious of their danger, and
gained the position before the defenders could call reinforcements.
The Bismarck and Moltke Forts were also taken by a charge, but for the
most part the Japanese conducted their attack under cover of their
trenches, and concealed themselves so well that the most searching
German fire could not stop their advance. At length the supply of
ammunition ran out, and further defense was futile. I thought the
Japanese casualties would be very heavy, as they fought bravely
and charged desperately, and I estimated their loss at five to six
thousand. I have been astonished to learn that the loss in killed
and wounded amounts to only seventeen hundred. They certainly showed
remarkable skill in taking cover.
Tsingtau was not an ideal fortification, such as Antwerp. Strictly
speaking, it was merely a defended position. As possible enemies in the
Far East, Germany had calculated only on England, France and Russia. It
was quite unexpected that the blow would come from so good a friend as
Japan.
The fire from the Japanese squadron was not so furious as to cause any
great inconvenience, except once when a shell landed in the Huichan
Point Fort, killed thirteen and severely wounded three. In respect
of accuracy of range the fire of the British cruiser _Triumph_ was
inferior to that of Japanese ships. The land fire, however, was
terrible. A perfect rain of shells fell on the Bismarck, Iltis, and
Hsiaochau Forts, and the central batteries suffered severely. One of
them received as many as a hundred shells, and it was death to leave
the trenches for an instant.
Two days after the surrender I was able to get through the picket line
thrown about the rear of the city of Tsingtau, and could observe better
just what damage had been done to the city during the seven days of
bombardment.