A FACSIMILE OF THE AUTHOR’S INSTRUCTIONS.
A SECRET AGENT IN
PORT ARTHUR
BY
WILLIAM GREENER
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
16 JAMES STREET, HAYMARKET
1905
PREFATORY NOTE
No one who has seen anything of the fighting between the Russians and the Japanese needs to make any apology when presenting to the public a truthful account of any events of which he was an eye-witness. Very little was actually seen by any newspaper correspondent, and every history of the war, and even of each campaign, must depend for many particulars upon official reports, with which the public are familiar. I do not profess to have attempted to compile anything like a detailed story of the siege. Instead, I have preferred to give merely my own experiences in Port Arthur and elsewhere in Manchuria and the Far East; to describe what I saw, to repeat something of what was told to me, to say what I thought of such happenings as interested me, and to write of the people whom I met when in quest of information. Some of the things I have set down may throw sidelights upon certain phases of the war, and if what I have written induces readers to think for themselves what ought to be the policy in the Far East of Great Britain and the United States, then my object will have been attained.
CONTENTS
I SECRET AGENTS, CORRESPONDENTS AND SPIES 1
II RUSSIA AND MANCHURIA BEFORE THE WAR 18
III LIFE AT PORT ARTHUR 39
IV WAR 58
V HIDING IN PORT ARTHUR 78
VI LAST DAYS IN PORT ARTHUR 114
VII THE DAY’S WORK 136
VIII IN NEUTRAL TERRITORY 158
IX CONSULS, CORRESPONDENTS AND OTHERS 179
X THE BATTLE OF TASHICHIAO 204
XI THE JAPANESE AS CONQUERORS 222
XII CONTRASTS AND COMPARISONS 233
XIII THE ATTACK ON PORT ARTHUR 249
XIV THE DEFENCE OF PORT ARTHUR 268
XV JAPAN’S REQUIREMENTS AND CHINA’S FUTURE 295
ILLUSTRATIONS
Facsimile of Author’s Instructions frontispiece
Facsimile of an order in the Chinese Telegraph Office at Tientsin. to face 190
The Battle of Tashichiao. 207
The Russian Retreat 216
The Fortress of Port Arthur. 269
Addendum
In order to avoid misapprehension the Author wishes to state with reference to the notice re-produced at page 190 that he is satisfied that the notice was issued without the knowledge or authority of Reuter’s Agency Limited, or the Associated Press of America, and that none of the telegrams were communicated to them.
CHAPTER I
Secret Agents, Correspondents and Spies
Secret agents as practical workers in the field of journalism are little known to the public. The character and scope of my operations may be gathered from these pages, but it is not my intention to disclose here any details of the inner workings of newspaper offices. Much of the information which reaches the editorial offices of a great journal is neither published nor intended for publication. A foreign correspondent may desire the suppression of news he sends, yet require leading articles and the policy of the paper to be shaped upon a knowledge such as he possesses of events of no immediate concern to the public. Special circumstances and extraordinary conditions sometimes require services which cannot be rendered adequately by resident foreign contributors, or known special correspondents. In my case the instructions were simple and definite. I was to journey through Russia, Siberia and Manchuria; make myself acquainted with certain facts; obtain what information I could on the subjects specified; communicate same to my paper in the manner directed; and report myself at Peking for further instructions at a given date.
War between Russia and Japan was believed to be imminent; much of the information I sought related more or less closely to military affairs, but reports on these matters were neither published nor divulged. The Times office wished to obtain the truth, and to be the best informed--in that following a policy which has grown into a custom.
The status of the secret agent is that of a special correspondent travelling incognito. Amongst men of our own race whom I met on terms of absolute equality the chief were: officers of the British Intelligence Department; inquiry agents of the State Department, Washington; reporter-detectives of the U.S. Customs; paid spies of foreign governments, and tourists. Those of us who had a common object cultivated most the society of Russian naval and military officers and their associates; the Custom’s agents sought the shippers of contraband goods and immigrants intended for the United States, and the tourists all places of interest. When war began, the Intelligence officers withdrew to neutral territory; the secret agents and spies became avowed newspaper correspondents, and the tourists disappeared.
In the earlier stages of the war the distinction between spies and newspaper correspondents was a fine one. The difference consisted chiefly in the nature of the employment, but it mattered little to the power spied upon whether the reporter was paid by a newspaper or by the enemy. It was important that naval and military movements should be kept secret, and a plan was marred if a fleet were reported seen by a press despatch-boat or tramp steamer, or one of the enemy’s scouts. The presence of all newspaper men, and most civilians, was irksome to commanders. It is not surprising that newspaper correspondents were denied the facilities they expected, before an adequate censorship had been established; for, as a matter of fact they not infrequently acted as spies without intending to do so. For instance, in June, a correspondent landed at Port Arthur from a junk; he saw little there, and was sent back to Chifu at the first opportunity. He stated, amongst other things, that fresh provisions were not scarce in the besieged fortress, and immediately afterwards the junk supplies there appreciably diminished, for the Japanese watched the coast with greater vigilance.
The spies who acted as newspaper representatives do not call for special condemnation, since a spy is expected to do whatever will effect his purpose; and although his presence and behaviour may hamper the genuine correspondent, it is the newspaper which the spy pretends to represent that alone has a substantial grievance. Spies and correspondents are equally eager to obtain every item of information that has any interest, and in order to succeed one takes the same risks as often as does the other.
The treatment which would be accorded a spy and a correspondent by the military authorities would differ, but the difficulty has been to detect the spy and exculpate the correspondent. By the Russians it was, at first, deemed most satisfactory to regard both as though all were spies.
Some weeks after hostilities were commenced the Viceroy’s staff drew up regulations which were approved at St. Petersburg, and enforced. Their object was to lessen the number of newspaper representatives with the Russian army at the theatre of war, and to control them effectually apart from the restraint exercised by the censorship which was then established. The conditions imposed cannot be too widely known, as they show exactly some of the difficulties with which accredited correspondents had to contend.
Art. IV. Each war correspondent on arrival at the scene of action must sign a written compact binding himself:
(i.) Not to interfere in any way with preparations for war, or with the plans of the Staff, nor to divulge anything which should be kept secret, such as, the result of the action of the enemy, damages done to fortifications, losses of guns, etc.
(ii.) Not to communicate any information about the enemy, which, not being proved, nor having any foundation in fact, could awaken public uneasiness.
(iii.) Not to insert in any correspondence any criticism whatever concerning the decisions, or acts, of members of the Staff, but limit reports to facts.
(iv.) To carry out exactly all orders of the higher military authorities given through the officers appointed to explain to correspondents, and of those in charge of the censorship.
Art. V. The violation of any of the above published regulations, the non-observance or the disregard of the rules issued by the military authorities, immodesty, (indiscretion) lack of tact, will entail a caution in minor cases, or expulsion from the scene of military activity if serious, providing always that the correspondence or conduct does not of itself constitute a criminal offence.
Art. VI. Correspondents are bound to fulfil absolutely all the requirements specified in Arts. IV. and V., with regard to the acts, movements, and work of the fleet, during which all correspondents, without exception, are forbidden absolutely to enter the Admiralty, the docks, workshops, and other buildings of the Marine Administration, or be in boats in the harbour, or roads of the ports of Vladivostok and Port Arthur. Correspondents must not apply to the Admirals in command for any relaxation of this rule.
Art. VIII.... Each correspondent must be furnished with written permission to keep horses, vehicles, and servants, and these also must have a written certificate of identity. Correspondents are responsible for themselves and also for their servants.
Art. IX. Correspondents are bound to apply to the Chief of a detachment for permission to remain with that corps. In case the chief may find the presence of the correspondent undesirable for military considerations, the correspondent is bound to leave without delay.
Art. XI. Correspondents must carry always on their person their permits and those for their servants.
Art. XII. Correspondents must wear always on the left arm a broad red band with the letters B.K. in black.
Art. XV. Correspondence is permitted (a) in telegram form; (b) as separate articles, with marks and signs as intended for publication. Cipher messages are prohibited.
Art. XVI. Correspondents must endeavour to supply without delay to the Viceroy’s Staff two copies of each newspaper in which their correspondence is printed.
Some correspondents, following the instructions of their papers, signed the above conditions and more or less conscientiously adhered to them. Others were unwilling to forgo the privileges of the ordinary correspondent, and, in preference to being formally attached to the Russian army, awaited developments and remained within the Russian lines near the border of the neutral territory, where they were tolerated. No foreign correspondents were permitted to remain at Port Arthur. At Newchwang those who made a practice of dodging the censorship, and in their messages betrayed an unintelligent anticipation of events, were requested to leave. The newspaper free-lances for the most part frequented the territory between the Great Wall and the river Liao, and the treaty ports of Chifu and Newchwang, where the newspapers and news agencies already had their own permanent resident representatives.
The free correspondents might telegraph as news accounts of things seen, reports of things heard, and statements of imagined events. They were in a better position during the early stages of the war than the accredited correspondents accepted by either the Russian or the Japanese authorities, who were restricted to official communications. Of the actual fighting, most of these saw nothing at all until the battle of Liaoyang at the end of August; there were only Reuter’s representative, Lieut.-Col. Norris-Newman of the Daily Mail, and myself at Port Arthur on the occasion of the first bombardment, and only the Daily Mail representative, Col. Emerson and myself, at the battle of Tashichiao. Neither Etzel, who was shot, nor Middleton, who died, ever saw an engagement between the Russians and Japanese, only guerilla encounters of Russians and Chinese, which were of almost daily occurrence.
The treatment of the war correspondents by the authorities on both sides indicates that their presence on the field of battle is not only undesired but will not be tolerated. The men who wish to study the human side of the war at first hand, those who wish to witness how the soldiers advance under fire, carry a position, waver, or retreat, will have only accidental opportunities, as their views are not wanted by commanders any more than are the criticisms of independent military experts present at the engagements. In a word, the occupation of the war correspondent has gone. The foreign military attachés do not appear to have been afforded facilities denied to correspondents, and their accounts also must be based largely upon what they hear, supported by topographical knowledge gained by subsequent visits to the lines where the real fighting took place.
An American correspondent on the Japanese side informed me that he estimated the newspaper representatives there to have cost their papers in the aggregate over half a million yen, and it is certain that those on the Russian side cost theirs a quarter of a million roubles, in all £75,000--an outlay quite disproportionate to the value received.
It must be remembered that the expenses of a correspondent are very heavy, and that ordinarily he is well remunerated for his services. Even in the China coast ports, for instance Chifu, where there is no likelihood of attack and war prices consequently do not rule, the out of pocket expenses of a news-gatherer exceeded £300 in one month, and this exclusive of the cost of telegraphing. The remuneration of a correspondent at the port--not a man sent out specially, but a merchant’s clerk appointed in lieu of a journalist of experience--is £50 a month. This may seem high pay, but in North China salaries are at a higher level than at home and a well educated, competent, trustworthy man, if a British subject, rarely expects less, for even a soldier appointed as a railway guard receives from £15 to £18 a month, and has free quarters at each end of his day’s run and free meals whilst on his train.
In the war area, at Yingkow for instance, within the Russian lines, although Newchwang is a treaty port, provisions and all necessaries were at war prices, owing to the Russians buying all they could secure for transmission to Liaoyang. The cost of living was double and treble that current at Tientsin and Chifu, or even the much nearer Shanhaikwan--all being outside the war area. Some correspondents--indeed most--received the salaries of correspondents at the theatre of war, usually upwards of £100 a month, whilst the representatives of American newspapers, weekly periodicals, and even monthly magazines, received very much more.
The American newspapers are sending out additional men for the approaching campaign, but judging from the results already obtained it would appear at first sight that for the accounts of events the public must depend upon the official telegrams and the reports given by the news agencies’ services. This should not be so. I have proved that the official notifications can be beaten in time to even such near points as the China Treaty ports, and official messages to America and Europe require so much longer for transmission that the difference in point of time would be even more appreciable.
It is pardonable of Admiral Sir J. C. D. Hay to congratulate the shareholders of Reuter’s Telegram Company on the valuable character of the company’s news, and to instance what it has achieved, but it must not be presumed that perfection has yet been reached. Mr. John Cowen, of the China Times, which throughout the war has had the best service of any paper, remarks that, “Sir John Hay might have added, if he had prophetic vision, that Reuter’s Agency would first record, as it did on June 23, the capture of Liaoyang by the Japanese (not taken until September 3); also that Kaiping has been captured three times by the Japanese according to the same authority. The fact remains however, that without such services we should be very badly off.”
The war correspondents who had been through several campaigns, well-known authorities such as Mr. Bennet Burleigh, Mr. E. F. Knight, Mr. George Lynch, Mr. Douglas Story and Mr. H. F. Wigham, are to be counted amongst the smartest and most enterprising Britons it has ever been my fortune to meet, and their inability to surpass their former achievements is due entirely to the official restrictions they had no choice but to accept. Amongst the Americans, Mr. J. Archibald, Mr. R. H. Little, and Mr. F. Palmer are in the fore front as news correspondents, and they have the knowledge, the abilities, and the energy requisite to keep there. Of the other men, it may be said that most were of more than average ability, though some could not ride, others not write, and one was unable even to distinguish between the national flags of France and Russia. They lacked most a competent knowledge of the technics of their profession. Even those who did send perfect messages probably had learnt the knack from practical study of the best cables arriving at their offices, and knew not why they were cast in a particular form. This was a point on which the representatives of American newspapers had full knowledge.
If the reader imagines that a correspondent having seen an engagement, rushes to a telegraph office, scribbles out an account and straightway hands it in for transmission, he is very much mistaken. The man who acted in that way would be beaten by the expert every time. Mr. Bennet Burleigh drafts his messages with the greatest care, and accurate and precise though he is, he never fails to revise in a quite wholesale fashion before dispatching what may appear to be only a hurried account after all. Dr. Morrison writes and rewrites, and revises and rewrites and weighs the value of every word--the use of the exact word characterizes his style--then when he is finished the draft is usually type-written by his secretary. Even then, by the time the Chinese telegraph operators have completed their work upon it, the message may be in such a state as to need its reconstruction almost before it is fit to be forwarded to the next relay station. Hours are often spent by competent correspondents in drafting even a moderately long telegram, and the time required to write a serviceable message a column in length is much more than proportionately greater. The longest message I wired was immediately after my return from Port Arthur, and it consisted of only two hundred words--many correspondents rarely send important news in any telegram of more that half that length.
Possibly one of the most interesting personalities in the journalistic world of to-day is that of Dr. G. E. Morrison, the Times correspondent at Peking. He is an Australian by birth and education, a doctor of medicine by profession, an investigator by nature and a diplomat by predilection. Every one knows that he was born at Geelong in 1862, that he has walked across Australia and China, practised medicine in Spain, and is fond of shooting. In appearance he is unlike the average North China resident, though he is of medium height and build, is clean shaven and wears his ashen grey hair cropped short. There is something distinguished about Dr. Morrison, something he does not derive from his immaculate attire, from the nabob stick with which he toys as he walks, or from the forward inclination of his head, characteristic of thinkers. Indeed his manner at first suggests the pedagogue, but when you see the man you know you have something more; you have a man who can and does think for himself, a man who can scheme, and with dogged pertinacity peg away until that upon what he has set his heart upon having is obtained. He is hard as a Manitoba winter; a man of resolution and of power, a man devoted to an idea, or a principle, or a rule of life; a man who will go long lengths to gain a point, who will find out means with which to accomplish his self-set task, who will get at the right people and use them; a man who is unlikely to be generally loved, but may be esteemed, and cannot but be admired for what he is; a man who may not possess many real friends, but is certain to have enemies, and himself be an implacable foe. Though he has a nature which certainly is not running over with sweetness, there is probably no one in China for whom British residents there have more genuine respect, or one whom they understand so little. Dr. Morrison delights to puzzle the ordinary person, so that by some his commonest talk is regarded as a cryptic utterance, to be treasured and studied lest its true inner meaning escape observation. He is not a sinologue and has only a nodding acquaintance with Chinese, but is better informed than most people, has a trained power of observation and the gift of insight. Accustomed also to think, and being of a contemplative temperament, he reads signs which are to others without significance, so is able to surprise them, and cause them to ask of each other what it is he means. He is credited with having had a share in the work of bringing about the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and throughout the Far East the present hostilities are known as “Morrison’s War.” He cannot be said to be popular at Peking, and his visits to the Legations are so quickly followed by matters of moment, that he is regarded there as a very harbinger of unrest.
Dr. Morrison lives alone in a large, rambling, quaint Chinese house situated off the great boulevard and about midway between the east wall of the Forbidden City and the Telegraph Office. As do all the houses in Peking, his home faces south, and occupies the greater portion of a small and cheerless compound. There is a little room at the extremity of the west wing which serves as a study. In the main building there is a dining-room hung with Chinese built-up pictures, and crowded with curios and black-wood furniture. The larger part of the ground floor is devoted to his library, which is one of the finest collections of books on China in private hands. There are books on shelves, books in cases, books covered up, and books loose; there are rows and rows of books, and book tables and indexes and library fittings without end. Never until amongst them did I realize how cold, cheerless, and uninviting too many books render a dwelling house, how completely they destroy its homeliness. A near neighbour of Dr. Morrison, who is also a literary man living in a Chinese house, has improvised from even less promising media originally, a home suggesting cosiness, luxury, and real loveliness. The difference is that he has books everywhere in his home, whilst the other cannot find his home for the books. But books are to Dr. Morrison merely tools; he is not inordinately proud of his library; still less does he love it; but is full of regard for it as the means to an end.
Dr. Morrison speaks rapidly, using short words and somewhat long sentences, and there is an evenness in the tone of his voice which betrays that sentiment is lacking in his temperament. His address is somewhat stiff, but his phrases are never without point, and have the saving grace of being pertinent. I met him one day unexpectedly as he stepped from the train at Yingkow, and this was his salutation: “Hallo, Greener, what are these Cossacks doing here? How many are there of them? How’re you?”
People think that Dr. Morrison takes himself too seriously, and is too devoted to his work--it is that for which he lives--but none doubt his sincerity, and all admire his patriotism, which is deep, genuine, and predominant. The one trait in his character which makes him close kin with all is his sincere and undisguised liking for young children. The infants of his serving-men run loose about his rooms and are sure that he will pet them. Occasionally he will treat himself to real entertainment. He gives a children’s party, to which all are welcome. The courtyard is roofed over with sun-mats; there are flowers and sweets, music and games, jugglers, conjurers, tumblers and tricksters, and not one of the merry party enjoys the romp more than does the staid journalist who thus momentarily forgets his cares, his Chinese pictures, his curios, and even himself--a mandarin entitled to have twelve bearers for his chair and several clangs on the gong at the entrance gate.
CHAPTER II
Russia and Manchuria before the War
The year 1903, whether reckoned by the Julian or by the Gregorian calendar, was ended before Russia realized that war was the only possible outcome of her protracted negotiations with Japan. It is the practice of diplomats to dissemble, and Russian statesmen, if they knew what the issue must be--and in my opinion very few of them even suspected war--hid it successfully from the Russian people. The Russian peasant neither knows nor is wanted to know anything of world politics or to take any interest in them; the military and civil officials have no voice in the direction of the foreign policy of their country and scarcely possess an opinion on the subject; Russian journalists are expected to express such declarations only as are indicated by official communications. The only articulate class, the only people in Russia who reflect the impressions produced by the absorption of news current in the world, is formed of those engaged in commercial and industrial pursuits. They are aware of the movements of the peace-barometer. To them the fluctuations in the stock markets, abroad and at home, showed the importance foreign speculators attached to the negotiations proceeding between Russia and Japan, but even the value of this indication was discredited by the great confidence the Russian merchant had in the ability of Russian statesmen to arrange with Japan, avert an immediate crisis, and force the issue at a season Russia would find favourable for war.
In European Russia I met no one who wanted war; many who were opposed to it. The merchants and manufacturers had Manchuria as a free market for their goods; imports from Japan into Manchuria, like all sea-borne goods, were taxed, and high duties were imposed on foreign goods brought into Siberian markets by way of the Manchurian ports and railways.
The state of affairs in the Far East was the chief, if not the only, topic of conversation. Moscow residents agreed that attention was riveted upon Manchuria, and they inferred that the trans-Siberian express trains were crowded with naval and military officers. They argued that although four trains ran every week, the three controlled by the State would doubtless be monopolized for Government servants, and that my best chance would be by the train of the International Sleeping-Car Company. I determined to leave Moscow by the first train, one of the State expresses. At the office of the Sleeping-Car Company I was informed that all trains were very full, and at the town office of the State Railways I was told the same, and that I could not book then by the next train, but might be able to do so at the station. I sent a messenger from the hotel to buy a through ticket at once, and he obtained it without difficulty. It will scarcely be believed that I was the only passenger going through to the Far East. A Jew merchant of Harbin was my only companion for days. He was utilizing the Christmas holidays to make his return journey, and had with him many of his purchases in Moscow, for he told me that although one should make the journey in less than a fortnight, the time required for the conveyance of goods was from four to five months, the average speed being less than 120 miles a day--about five miles an hour. The third day we were alone I called his attention to the fact that on the train and engines there were upwards of twenty-five men all engaged in running the train; that at great expense and with special effort the scheduled time was being kept--for one Englishman and one Jew! We represented the two races the Russian Government likes least; but for us the train would have been absolutely empty.
I have crossed Siberia by railway three times, each at a different season of the year, and not once without encountering a delay through some breakdown. On this occasion we had a broken rail, which made us nine hours late at Irkutsk; another in Trans-Baikalia, which delayed us hours before reaching the Manchurian frontier, and on the Eastern Chinese line, a military train ahead ran off the rails, blocked the line all day, and caused us to be twelve hours behind time again at Harbin.
The line is maintained regardless of cost, and allowance must be made for the many difficulties to be overcome. It is true that there is no need for so many miles of snow-sheds as the Canadian Pacific railway has found necessary, but for thousands of versts across the steppes snow-screens have to be set up parallel to the track, to keep the snow from drifting over the permanent way and blocking the line. In spring and autumn there are heavy floods, and not infrequently a “wash-out,” in summer the unballasted track is blown away from the sleepers and must be constantly renewed. In winter everywhere, and in summer on many sections, the supply of water is kept up at great expense, and a drought would threaten the running of extra traffic.
Two engines are required on heavy grades, and special twenty-wheel locomotives are used on the hilly sections. Hot water is kept night and day at most stations, and the trains suffer severely from the inclement weather. The double windows are permanently frosted; often the vestibule doors become fast, great patches of frozen snow adhere to the roofs, the sides and panels are hidden under a thick white hoar, and long streaming icicles hang from the roof to the bogie truck where the water from the tank for the heating apparatus in each carriage has splashed over during the day’s run. At every large station there is a special gang of attendants, who attack the train vigorously on its arrival; they use hammers and crow-bars, iron rods heated red, long flaming torches, scalding water, and even light fires of shavings under the carriages to free the breaks, and little by little thaw out the working parts of the frost-bound train, wringing, as it were, tears of anguish from the cold-hearted monster that has crossed the bleak plateaux of Siberia in winter.
The Baikal ferry was presumed to be the weakest link in the through chain of railway communication. At this date both of the ice-breakers were running daily, but were needing their periodical overhauling in dock. The larger steamer was capable of putting seven trains, or seven thousand men, across the lake every two days. The Angara could be counted upon to ferry across five hundred men every day. If goods were taken instead of troops, there would be an appreciable lessening of the number of voyages owing to the delay in loading and discharging. The Baikal can accommodate on deck twenty-four loaded trucks, or covered vans, and as these are simply run on board and off again on to the rails, a complete train can have quick despatch.
The ice was over three feet in thickness, but the Angara, much the smaller of the two steamers, not only crossed in good time, but on several occasions went out of the track, and cut a new road through the solid virgin ice of the lake.
In order to continue the traffic without interruption whilst the steamers were laid up, a horse ferry had been organized, and the contractors had undertaken to convey across the lake on sledges at least 750 tons of goods daily.
The railway across the lake was from the first fraught with danger owing to the enormous cracks always found in the lake-ice. The railway round the lake was being constructed with great speed, and would be ready for traffic early in 1905; but it has already been opened.
I am still of the opinion that the Trans-Siberian State Express trains afford the most comfortable railway travelling in the world. The cars are as luxurious but not so sumptuous as the Pullman Palace cars of America. They are wider, and give more accommodation; and as the trains are run solid through from Moscow to Irkutsk, meals are provided at every hour of the day, and it is not necessary to breakfast before seven one morning and after nine the next, as sometimes happens on the American through trans-continental routes. The piano in the saloon is a welcome addition; the exercising apparatus is useful, and the bath a convenience. The observation car was not much frequented in winter, and the raison d’être of the photographer’s dark room, with its dishes and trays, has departed, now that all photographing along the route is strictly prohibited.
Siberia is little altered the last three years; but in Manchuria there have been notable changes. The border-town of Manchuria, five miles east of the frontier, has been created by the railway. It possesses not only some fine brick buildings but a great market, intended for dealings with the Mongols in the produce of the great plains. The whole district is marked out into lots, like a new town that is booming in the west of America, and in addition there is a detached native town already inhabited.
The agricultural settlements of western Manchuria have developed rapidly, and appear to be thriving. They have also increased in number. It is interesting to note that Manchuria was exploited under the direction of General Grodekov, formerly administrator of Tashkand district, and the same method of founding Russian colonies was followed in Manchuria. Russian subjects obtain free grants of agricultural land, and, in some instances, of town lots. Elsewhere the Russian Government is obtaining high prices for building-sites in towns, and everywhere high rents to occupiers are the rule. In western Manchuria the tenure of land by the nomad tribes of Mongol graziers is of the slightest, and at present they seem to benefit by relinquishing the land in exchange for the better market the Russian settlements supply. In central Asia the landowners dispossessed of their domains by the Russian settlers made certain charges against the governor, and forwarded them to St. Petersburg. The charges were neither examined nor entertained; the villagers were punished and the governor promoted to a better post under the Crown.
Throughout Manchuria the Eastern Chinese Railway, following the lead of the Russo-Chinese bank and of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, has undertaken other work than transporting passengers and goods; through it the Russian Government has been exploiting the territory, trading, and deriving revenue from the direct development of the natural resources of the country.
Another change is the increase of military establishments along the railway route. The greatest is at Fu-li-ahdé, where the line crosses the Nonni, below Tsitsikar. Here the Russians have large barracks, extensive fortifications and a military colony. Everywhere, too, block-houses were in course of erection. The intention was to have them all along the route within three miles of each other. Up to the present time those finished are closest together between Pogranichnaya and Harbin, and on the branch line between Harbin and Port Arthur. The first to be erected were near large native towns, but the chain is almost complete now. They are of one type: a two-storied building, capable of accommodating a hundred men.
A compound is surrounded by a high wall, with two round towers, looped for musketry, diagonally opposite each other, and so commanding all four walls of the quadrangle. Another point: there are two qualities of brick in common use throughout Manchuria, red and blue, the blue being the more durable. The station buildings are mostly of red brick, the military quarters and block-houses mostly of the blue variety. Stone is freely used in districts where it is easily obtainable in quantities suited to building purposes.
Harbin has grown almost beyond recognition. Old Harbin, still the administrative and military centre, has changed but little, and is, if possible, rowdier and more blatantly banal than formerly; but the New Town, China Town, Lower Harbin, the Sungari Pristan, and the Middle Town, now contain massed buildings of fine proportions, where but four years ago, there was only an uncultivated plain, and all indicate the growing wealth and increased trade of the commercial capital of the new Manchuria.
In this district many square miles of arable land are under cultivation, and the wheat grown is milled in the vicinity. So enormous is the supply that I met an agent travelling to Singapore and India, in the hope of finding there a market for some of the surplus from the Harbin district.
As the 1904 crops have been properly harvested, and by this date probably are milled also, the Russian army in Manchuria ought not next year to be short of its staple food. The wealth derived at little cost of labour from the land is so enormous that the inhabitants are already comparatively rich. Prices are high. My travelling companion, the Jew merchant, informed me that he could journey to Moscow, buy what be needed there at retail prices in the shops, take them to Harbin, and not only defray the cost of his journey from the profits, but secure a satisfactory surplus.
Journeying farther east improvements are visible all along the route. The Southern Ussuri district of the Primorski territory has been developed. Nikolskoe has become an important military centre. Barracks to accommodate 20,000 men are in course of construction, and more land has been brought under cultivation. Vladivostok has grown and improved; it possesses a new cathedral, many new government buildings, three theatres and several additions to its business streets. Additional barracks have also been erected at Vladivostok, and its importance has increased rather than diminished since it ceased to be a free port.
There is no lack of amusement, gaiety, and “life” at Vladivostok, but the port has an appreciable commerce which gives it staidness and stability. It is not entirely a naval station as Port Arthur was, nor so absolutely in the hands of the naval and military commandants. It has a severe climate; in January it was painfully cold and out of doors life scarcely enjoyable. The harbour was frozen over solid, with the exception of the track kept open by the daily voyages of the Danish ice-breaker, Nadejni. The Rossia, Rurik, and Gromoboi, lay alongside the ice, gangways from the ships’ sides giving access thereto. The Cardiff steam coal from the British colliers, then discharging in port, was being carted across the ice to the cruisers.
The defences of the fortress had not been materially strengthened. Several new batteries had been prepared, for the most part on the land side, and they face the east, but the guns for them were lying at the harbour level, and those in the new forts were not mounted. On board the men-of-war, even in the dockyards, and on shore there was a general slackness. In the depth of winter, Vladivostok is not one of the busiest ports in the world. New Year festivities rather than war were uppermost in the minds of the society people to whom the existence of forts and batteries assured security apart from the apparently impenetrable barrier of the ice-girt coast. I learned that Vladivostok had not in hand at that time sufficient supplies to feed the garrison and inhabitants for a fortnight. They were dependent upon the stores and granaries in the neighbourhood of Nikolskoe, four to five hours distant by railway. In short, the defences of the place were so incomplete, and its resources so shallow, that I quite believed a Japanese Intelligence officer when he told me they could capture the port in a week.
The Russian military authorities were so slack and so confident in the strength of their fortress that when a Japanese squadron made a surprise visit in March, the guns still lay at the foot of the new forts, batteries were unmanned, and thus but a very feeble reply could be made to the Japanese bombardment, which, fortunately for Vladivostok, was not heavy, and damaged principally the Linevich fort.
Harbin is one of the coldest towns in Manchuria, and there the snow lies deep for months. Port Arthur is 607 miles to the south by railway, and in a different climate. The line crosses the Sungari for the second time at Da-la-Chiao, about seventy miles from the great bridge at Harbin. Tehling is forty miles north of Mukden; the Chinese town of 10,000 inhabitants is some miles from the railway station and Russian settlement, for in almost every instance the line has been constructed through unoccupied, but not uncultivated, country on the flat plain west of the hill range. Fengtien province is densely populated, and the flat land is carefully tilled by the industrious, thrifty Chinese. There is little snow, and it lies but a short time on the plains, where all through the winter the winds raise great clouds of dust from the village roads thronged with carts hauling produce to the railway stations and ports. The hills and the hill passes hold the snow, and a winter campaign there would entail many hardships, but on the plain, in the cold bracing air with a frozen surface giving a passable road everywhere, fighting might be continued with fewer delays from climatic changes than in the summer season with its frequent heavy rains.
The south and west gates of Mukden are only about two miles from the railway station and barracks; the Imperial Tombs are between the city and the line, although the latter now runs direct, the détour originally constructed having been abandoned since 1901.
Mukden, 275 miles from Port Arthur, is a quadrangular city, about four square miles in extent. The outer wall is of mud, the middle wall of earth faced with brick, and fifty feet in height; the inner wall has red gates and corresponds to the Forbidden City of Peking, being the administrative and executive centre with the old Royal Palace, the residence of the Tartar General and that of the Russian Commissary. The town is more generally and more densely populated than is Peking and its inhabitants must number nearly a million. There is, or was, a Russian hotel and restaurant in the town, having four small and very dirty, ill-furnished rooms for travellers. The Chinese inns were better, and the Green Dragon near the East Gate became the headquarters of the newspaper correspondents. The mission stations are near the Bund, on the Hun-khé river, and, as elsewhere in China, are the finest residences in the town. The Russians never maintained a large garrison within the town, but had sentries and guards at each gate and at the Russian establishments, with Cossack and infantry patrols of the streets. The gates were closed at sundown.
A few miles south of Mukden the railway crosses the Sakhé river; next the colliery district of Yentai is reached, and, further south, the station of Liaoyang. The capital of ancient Korea and one of the most picturesque walled cities of North China, is a few versts east of the railway. Haicheng, is a celebrated mission station further south. Tashichiao, where a branch line leads to Newchwang, is 106 miles south of Mukden, and 168 miles north of Port Arthur.
Kinchow is on the north-west of the narrow isthmus which connects the Kwan-tung peninsula with the mainland. The line runs first near the east, then along the western shore; from the train both shores could be seen fringed with ice, in some places a band only a few hundred yards in width, in others stretching out to sea apparently for miles. Here and there were rugged hills, their tops white-crowned and the higher reaches of the ravines blocked with ice and snow. These ravines, widened and worn by flood waters, constitute deep, crooked gullies traversing all the flat land between the hill sides, and the sea, affording excellent shelter for infantry and rendering the use of cavalry almost impossible.
At Nangalin the line branches, running eastward to Dalny, and winding south, and westwards through intermittent cultivation, to the rocky promontory on which Port Arthur lies. The line runs right through to the water-front, opposite the Tiger’s Tail, and to the west of Signal Hill, and east of the New Town. No station has yet been constructed; temporary sheds afford some slight shelter for passengers and goods. Such is the real terminus of the great Trans-Continental railway system.
All along the route the people most concerned in the political disagreement between Russia and Japan were the trading classes. They feared war, for war would interfere with commerce and might mean financial ruin to them. They, almost to a man, expressed themselves as opposed to the forward policy of Russia. The newer settlers professed to have little fear of the industrial competition of the yellow races; but the older settlers in eastern Siberia still cling to the earlier policy, which had for its object the ousting of Chinese, Koreans and Japanese from the territories more recently occupied by Russia. Few could comprehend the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and all accepted it as a purely political combination effected by England in order to thwart the plans of Russia in the Far East, and consequently evidence of the inborn hostility of the Briton to Russia. One merchant, an ardent admirer of Leo Tolstoy’s teaching, asked me how it was that the English people had such an inveterate hatred of Russians. I explained to him that there was no ill feeling existent against the Russian people, only against the policy of the Russian Government, and therefore against the Russian soldiers, who were the tools used in making the policy effectual. “Ah,” said he, “the soldiers? They are a different people.” In Russia, more than in any country, there is a detachment of the people from the army, and from the executive government it represents. People were anxious to explain that they disassociated themselves completely from everything the Government was doing by its executive officials, the servants of the Crown.
The army officers believed war to be imminent; they knew of no way in which it could be averted with honour to Russia. They thought a winter campaign would be most advantageous to them, whilst declaring that a spring campaign was more probable.
In Port Arthur every one expected war. If they knew it from no other event, the crowd of newspaper war correspondents from England and the United States must have indicated by their very presence in the port that an appeal to arms was foreseen abroad. Withal, the Russians pursued their fatuous policy, and even so late as the last week of January dispatched from Port Arthur a regiment of Cossacks and two regiments of infantry to the interior, thus strengthening the force threatening Korea.
It was at this period that I went on board one of the finest battleships in the harbour and conversed with one of the officers of the fleet on the probability of war. In his opinion war would be avoided; but after some argument, he admitted that war was possible. “But we will not fight,” he added significantly. I was so astonished at this remarkable assertion, that I asked him if he did not mean that Russia would not make war. “I mean we, the navy, will not fight,” he repeated. “Of course, as you say, the Japanese may make war; I may be killed even, but we will not fight.” He spake calmly, even sadly, and soon brought the conversation politely to a termination. As events proved, the officer was right, and particularly right with regard to that ship, which of all the fleet was probably poorest in defence, and never once attacked.
The Russian military authorities knew that war threatened, and made such preparations as they could in anticipation of an early outbreak of hostilities. If men and stores in excess of usual movements had been directed towards Manchuria, the act would have been construed by the Japanese as indicating a hostile intent, and of itself would have constituted a casus belli. To increase very materially the military force at the disposal of the Viceroy would have incommoded him seriously in dealing with the Japanese contentions. War could have been diverted, or at least delayed, if Russia had promptly abandoned her aggressive policy in the Far East, if only for a time. As it was the “Forward” party had attempted too much on the slight military resources at their disposal in Manchuria.
Opinions differ as to the number of troops east of Lake Baikal in January last. From information I obtained, the Russians had increased their force during the autumn of 1903 by about 50,000 men; they had in Manchuria and eastern Siberia, in the month of January, about 200,000 men, which force was being increased by new arrivals to the average number of 400 men every day. This force was distributed as follows:--
In Port Arthur 20,000 Outside Port Arthur: Inchentse, Nangalin, etc. 5,000 At Dalny and Talienwan 6,000 At Feng-Huang-Cheng 1,250 At Antung-Hsun 500 At or near Kaichiao, etc. 300 At Waffientien, Kinchow, Tashichiao, and Yingkow 1,000 On the Yalu River 5,000 At Haicheng 3,000 At and near Liaoyang 4,000 Along the Peking Road to the Yalu 8,000 At Mukden 600 At and near Tehling and vicinity of Mukden 3,000 At Kuan Chentse and Kirin 2,500 At Vladivostok 12,000 At Nikolskoe, Spasskaya, etc. 6,000 In Eastern Siberia, N.W. of Vladivostok 8,000 At Harbin 4,000 At Fu-li-ahdé 1,000 At Blagoveshchensk, Stretensk and Chita 8,000 Railway Guards 70,000 Reserves in camp 31,000 En route 2,000 -------- Total force 202,150
The Railway Guards include the riflemen who accompanied each train; the patrol for about 1,400 miles of railway line; the garrisons of the block-houses at each tenth verst; and the details posted at every railway station and siding. The number is probably understated. At the commencement of the war the patrols were doubled and the number of guards was increased.
Russian military opinion seemed to indicate that the garrisons in Manchuria were sufficient for defensive purposes. The troops were being advanced towards the Yalu, that is to say, the Korean frontier, and the largest offensive force was being concentrated in Fengtien Province along the old Peking highway from Liaoyang to the mountain passes on the Manchurian side of the Yalu; thither munitions and stores were being conveyed all through the winter, averaging in January about 700 tons a day.
The Russian authorities grossly underrated the strength of their enemy. Not only the civilians, but the military and naval officers, were confident that Russia would win, and win easily. The Russians had a supreme contempt for the “yellow monkeys,” and only officers of the highest rank regarded the coming conflict as anything more serious than a “walk over” for Russia. Even in the Far East, the tone was buoyant; people were in high spirits, they spake in glad tones of war, business was brisk, and about everything there was the true ring of self-confidence, come what might.
CHAPTER III
Life at Port Arthur
As every one knows, Port Arthur was named after H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught. It consists of a small land-locked harbour, surrounded by hills, and runs north and south, at the extremity of the Kwan-tung Peninsula. It is entered from the east, between Golden Hill on the north and Weiyuen Hill tapering to the sandspit on which is the Tiger’s Tail fort to the south. Directly opposite the entrance is Signal Hill, formerly known as Quail Hill, a comparatively low bluff which divides the new from the old towns. On entering the harbour, to the right are, first, the Admiralty depôts, dock-basin, and dockyard, sheltered from the sea front east by the lofty Golden Hill and loftier Huang-chin, with the heaviest batteries of the fortress; next, the Bund, or water-front, and the commercial quarter; beyond, the old administrative quarter adjoins Signal Hill. On the left is the Tiger’s Tail, behind which are coal stores, and moorings for the torpedo-boat flotilla. The deep water of the harbour is between Signal Hill and the Tiger’s Tail, extending but a short distance to the south, the great sheet of water in that direction being little more than a mud flat, which in winter is covered with ice, and once had an outlet to the sea between Ching-tan Fort and Liaotishan--an egress long since silted up with the débris carried down from the hills by the mountain torrents during the spring floods.
The New Town is situated south of Signal Hill, on a plateau rising to the south and west. A magnificent city had been planned, a town on a grand scale, with long avenues, broad streets and fine vistas. A lofty and commodious Administration building had been erected, the Viceroy’s Palace was building; there was a colossal hotel--finished but never opened--a restaurant, hotel, theatre, various places of public entertainment, some naval and military barracks, many villas, and at least one large retail store. Not one-fifth of this town had been constructed when the war began; hundreds of buildings were being erected.
The Old Town lies behind the Bund, also on rising ground, on the north of which was a great quarry, and north of that the old Chinese town, the Chinese citadel, the market and the parade ground. On the east side of this hill, behind the Admiralty docks, were the old cathedral and the Viceroy’s Lodge; farther to the north-east lies the large freshwater lake, the overflow from which runs through the Admiralty docks into the harbour. On the west side of this hill there is another stream, and the commercial quarter extended along its banks. The new China town is on the north-east of Signal Hill, and the railway terminus on the south.
Around the towns were hill forts; in some places north of the town three lines of elaborately wrought defences. In the old town there was a military road leading to the battery and the hill forts, which served also to connect some of the barracks and stores lying north of the Viceroy’s quarters. With the exception of this road and the Bund, the old town did not possess any properly made thoroughfares. There was no real street or good roadway anywhere in the town; the tracks, unless frozen hard, which was unusual, were just troughs of mud through which horses splashed, and jinrickshas were forced by two men. The soil dries rapidly, there is generally a breeze, and dust clouds are common in summer and winter.
Most of the buildings in the Old Town were mean--little better than Chinese dwellings. The greater part of old China town had already been demolished, and it was intended, as the Admiralty works were extended, to absorb the site of the Old Town for government purposes. When war commenced, the Old Town consisted of bungalows, hastily built one-storied houses, go-downs, extemporized stores, and Chinese buildings and houses.
The old towns were sombre, dirty and inconvenient. The houses lacked style, the dwellings the ordinary conveniences of a modern abode. Excepting the Viceregal Lodge and the Naval Club there were no buildings possessing any pretensions to sumptuousness in their decorations or furniture; it may be stated without exaggeration that three-fourths of the houses were unfit to live in, and the remainder were made habitable by the genius and unceasing vigilance of the tenants.
The buildings, called hotels, available for travellers were as primitive as Siberian inns. Nikobadze’s in the New Town consisted of a series of half a dozen cottages, with small suites of rooms let out to residents; in the Old Town of a couple of rows of cubicles in a dingy Chinese house, which were also occupied by residents, but occasionally a furnished room was to be had there. The hotel of the town was Efimoff’s, a one-storied quadrangular building of about twenty-four rooms, of which more than half looked into a courtyard, filled with old packing-cases and miscellaneous effects. Each room was about ten feet by eight; the furniture consisted of a truckle or camp bedstead--no bedding--a small deal table covered with a dirty cloth, and a chair of bent-wood. An old packing case on end, with the lid hinged, formed the washstand; there was a small enamelled basin, a jug of water occasionally, an old petroleum tin served the double purpose of a slop-pail, and the ewer for fresh water. There was no mirror, no picture, rarely an ikon in the sacred corner, and a few wire nails knocked into the whitewashed wall constituted clothes-stand and hat-pegs. The door fastened with a hasp and padlock outside. Upon extra payment one might obtain the loan of a pillow, bed linen and a dirty coverlet. If the occupant wanted anything, he went into the corridor and shouted “Boika,” and in the fulness of time a Chinese coolie, speaking pidgin Russian, would call upon the ‘number,’ and, for an inducement, supply hot water, or a tumbler of weak and very greasy tea. The rent was three roubles a day, and, in peace time even, it was a combination of favour and luck which secured for the stranger this inadequate accommodation. There were other houses, known as hotels, ‘numbers,’ and furnished rooms, which provided superior accommodation at the same price, and there were houses which catered for travellers and new-comers by granting lodging at extortionate prices, fixed by the owners’ judgment of his guests’ ability to pay. Usually therefore European tourists made a short stay at Port Arthur, and business men most frequently resided in the private houses of their friends.