Battles of the Nineteenth Century, Page 292.

The Attack on Port Arthur

             After the victory of Ping-yang the Japanese army, now under Marshal Yamagata, advanced to the Yalu, the northern boundary of Korea, forced the passage of the river and invaded Manchuria.  On September 17^th the Japanese fleet, under Admiral Ito, had brought the Chinese squadron to action and defeated it off the mouth of the Yalu.  The story of the battle has been told in an earlier volume of this series.  This victory gave the Japanese the command of the sea.  They made use of it to send an army to reduce the great naval arsenal of Port Arthur.  This second army, composed of a Division under General Yamaji and a brigade under Hasegawa, the whole commanded by Marshal Oyama, and numbering about 15,000 men, landed on October 24^th at Hua-yuan,kon, in the Liao-tung peninsular and marching southwards captured Kinchow on November 6^th, and Ta-lien-wan on the 7^th.

              Kin-chow and Ta-lien-wan had been captured by Yamaji’s division.  Before advancing on Port Arthur, Marshal Oyama brought up Hasegawa’s brigade, and gave his army, now concentrated at Ta-lien-wan, and in tough with the fleet, a few days rest, during which the doomed fortress was carefully reconnoitred, and the country between it and the Japanese camp was cleared of the roving bands of Chinese braves that infested it.  In one of these skirmishes the Japanese, whose easy victories had made them sometimes act with a daring that amounted to rashness, encountered a superior force of Chinese and fared very badly.  In the fight the Japanese officers and soldiers performed many deeds of splendid courage and self devotion, and the story may best be told as it is related by “Vladamier,” in his history of the war, a work based chiefly on Japanese sources, often translated literally from Japanese narratives and bringing out characteristic traits of the Japanese code of honour and military tradition.

              “Major Ajikama,” he says, “advancing upon Tu-cheng-tzu (Mud-town) with a single company of cavalry, met a body of Chinese from Shiu-shih-ying, which gradually increased to about 3,000 men, who completely surrounded the Japanese horsemen.  These fought with great bravery, and succeeded in cutting their way through the enemy, and retreating to Shuang-tai-kow (Double Terrace Dutch).  On hearing of the engagement Major Marui had sent a company of infantry to assist the cavalry, and they now in turn were attacked and surrounded by the Chinese.  Seeing the danger of their rescuers a handful of the cavalry, under Captain Asakawa, made a desperate charge to extricate them.  The infantry and cavalry succeeded in retiring, but they were obliged to abandon their wounded, which preferred to kill them rather than be tortured by the enemy.  Lieutenant Nakaman was severely wounded, and his servant cut off his head and brought it back to the camp to be honourably buried.  Captain Asakawa was also wounded, and his horse was shot under him, but Private Tio, though mortally wounded, gave his horse to his officer and led him out of danger, when he fell down dead.  Major Marui, with the rest of the battalion, came up to rescue the advanced guard, but he was not able to repulse the Chinese, who now had mounted four guns on a hill.  It was not until the artillery of the advanced guard arrived and unlimbered that the Chinese retired.  The Japanese had lost one officer and eleven men killed, and one officer and thirty-two men wounded.”  

             This success for the Chinese might have had a very unfavourable result on the operations of the next few days, occurring as it did on the eve of Oyama’s approach to Port Arthur.  But happily for the Japanese, whatever encouragement it gave to their enemies was counterbalanced by the result of another engagement on November 20^th.  On that day Oyama, who had marched from Ta-lien-wan on the 17^th, had concentrated his army in front of the advanced forts of Port Arthur.  The Chinese attempted a sortie in force against his outposts, but they were driven back to the forts by a well directed dire of artillery, leaving more than a hundred dead on the ground.

             The country round Port Arthur is a mass of rocky hills with steep sides, running up now into isolated pointed summits, now into narrow ridges or table lands of no great width.  In order to understand the story of the battle fought on November 21^st, the accompanying plan should be examined in connection with the following description, which, however, only deals with the leading features of the position without going into technical details.  It will be seen that the harbour lies northeast and southwest in the line of its greatest length.  The town and dockyard are at the north end, between two hills, the more easterly of which looks out on the sea.  A rocky promontory shelters the lower part of the harbour from the sea.  On this promontory, on the eastern hill near the town, at the base of this hill, and on another hill still further east, stand the sea forts.

             This eastern hill is the end of a sickle shaped range of heights, with pointed summits running inland, and forming an outlying rampart to the town on the north and northeast.  Each hilltop is crowned with a fort.  In the following narrative this range will be spoken of as the “northern ridge.”  West of the town, and completing the line of its landward defences, is another hill, steep sided, broad topped, s small table land, with a couple of summits rising above its general level.  This is the hill of I-tzu-shan (literally, the “Chair Hill”).  It is crowned with three forts, and as its summit is the highest land near the Port, they overlook and can take in reverse the land forts on the inner part of the northern ridge.  The hill if I-tzu-shan is thus the key of Port Arthur.  Once in possession of a besieger, the forts on the nearer summits of the northern ridge would be untenable, and these being taken, the rest must fall in succession, and the place would be at the mercy of the besiegers.

            The main road ran into the town of Port Arthur through a gap between the I-tzu plateau and the inland extremity of the northern ridge, crossing an open level space used as a parade ground by the garrison.  The I-tzu forts commanded the gap from the left, and on the right it approaches were covered by the guns of a strong fort built on the summit of Sung-shu-shan (the Pine Tree Hill), the western buttress of the ridge.  Next, running along the crest of the sickle-shaped curve of the ridge, stood seven forts on long summits known as the Erh-lung (the two Dragons; in some Japanese narratives the Urlung) and the Chihuan (the Cook’s Comb).  Another fort looked out on the sea from the east end of the ridge, and between it and the isolated hill near the town there was another fort on the lower ground, also forming part of the seaward defences.  The hill between the town and the sea, Huang-chin-shan (The Golden Hill), was crowned by a fort armed with nineteen guns.  Seven forts were built on the promontory between the harbour and the sea known to the Chinese as Lan-hu-wei, (the Tiger’s Tail.)  The largest and highest placed of these, built on Man-tou-shan (Bread Hill), was constructed to fire across the harbour and cover the left flank of the I-tzu plateau with its long ranging guns. 

            The forts had all been planned, constructed and armed under the superintendence of European and American engineers.  Their heavy armament consisted of breech loading Armstrongs and Krupps.  There were a few quick firers, field pieces, and mountain guns, and some machine guns were used to flank the ditches.  The garrison consisted of about 10,000 men.  Japanese writers, anxious not to minimise the success of their own army, assert that this was an adequate garrison; but, even if the troops and their officers had been of better quality, 10,000 men would be dangerously dispersed and terribly overworked in a prolonged defence of a fortress which was protected not only by a system of sea forts, but also by a line of land works extending over about seven miles of ground.  There were twenty-two forts in all.  Allowing only an average of 400 men for the defence of each of them, there would be a reserve of only 1,200 men left.  Thirty thousand men for the fortifications would not have been too many.  Considering all that had been said at the outset of the war about the “armed millions” of China, it is curious that she could only find this handful of men for the defence of the fortress that was her chief naval base; while the navy itself could lend no co-operation whatever to the land forces.

             On November 20^th, just before the abortive sortie of the Chinese, Marshal Oyama had assembled his principal officers at his headquarters-not for a council of war, but to explain to them the arrangements he proposed to make for the assault of the forts next day.  The troops were to form up at 2 a.m. ready to march from their camps between Shuang-tai-kow and Tu-cheng-tzu, so as to be in position before Port Arthur by dawn.  They were to march in three columns; on the right General Yamaji, with main body consisting of the bulk of the first division; in the centre General Hasegawa’s brigade; on the left a small column of all three arms, moving between Hasegawa’s troops and the sea, and guarding the flank of the advance against a possible sortie from the forts on the north ridge.  At dawn the fleet would open fire on the forts nearest the sea.  The artillery of the first division on the right would come into action against the forts on the I-tzu plateau, taking up its position on a ridge facing the north side of the plateau, and distant about a mile from the forts.  In this position the guns could also be brought to bear on the ga leading to the town.  On the left of the field artillery, and a little to its rear, the heavy guns of the siege train were to come into action near the village of Shui-shih-ying (“the Naval Camp”), firing first at the I-tzu plateau and the Pine Tree Hill Fort , and in the second stage of the fight devoting all their attention to the western forts on the ridge.  Haseqawa was to occupy the high ground north of Shui-shih-ying, facing the ridge forts on which he was to open fire.

            During the bombardment General Nishi, with the first brigade of Yamaji’s division, was to work round to the left, or southwestern flank of the I-tzu plateau.  For the greater part of the way his march would be concealed from the Chinese by a lower range of hills running north and south.  In fact, he would be under cover until his troops moved over the crest of the range opposite their objectives and deployed for the attack.  All this time his movements would not in any way mask the fire of the Japanese batteries.  It was expected that by the time Nishi was ready to advance, the guns of the I-tzu forts would have been silenced and their garrisons very much demoralised by the Japanese shellfire.  The forts would then be attacked by Yamaji’s two brigades, Nishi moving against the flank and Nogi against the front of the plateau, the artillery meanwhile concentrating its fire on the ridge, especially on Sung-shu-shan and the Erh-lung forts.  As soon as the I-tzu forts were taken, Yamaji’s and Hasegawa’s column would make a converging attack on the western forts of the ridge, and, after clearing Sung-shu-shan and Erh-lung of the Chinese, rush down into the town.  Once the land defences were captured, it was expected that the rest of the forts would surrender rather than face the combined attack of the army and the fleet.

              The troops began to fall in the march at one a.m.  It was very dark; the moon was in the first quarter, a horned crescent, and high over the Port Arthur hills, and giving very little light.  In the bivouacs coolies stood holding aloft the blazing torches, and here and there in the ranks of the regiments, and beside the gun teams, a soldier held a lighted lantern of painted paper, giving to the scene of preparation for battle rather the air of a holiday fete than of the stern business of war.  At last all was ready, and the long columns tramped off in the darkness, their movement still marked by hundreds of paper lanterns, for surprise was no part of their plan.                  

             Even with the help of these lights Nogi’s brigade on the left Yamaji’s division began to bear too much towards the sea, and had to be put right by one of Oyama’s staff officers, who rode up to the general and told him to incline to the right, as he was getting on to the ground assigned to Haswgawa and the centre column.  The incident is worth noting as an indication of the difficulties that attend all night marches, even with the best-trained troops.  By five o’clock all the troops were in position, the guns had unlimbered, and the men were lying down waiting for the dawn, many of them snatching a short sleep, after the wearying muster at midnight and the march in the darkness over the broken ground.

            Oyama and his staff were in the centre, with the reserve battalions in rear of the long line of guns formed of Yamaji’s batteries and the siege train.  About half past six the sky began to whiten with the dawn over the sea, and soon the sharp outlines of the Chinese forts could be made out, crowning the dark masses of the I-tzu plateau on the right front and the long ridge of the “two Dragons” and the “Cock’s Comb” to the left.  Word was sent to Yamaji to begin the bombardment.

            The first gun was fired from one of Yamaji’s field batteries.  It was the signal for all the others to open fire, and a rain of shells was soon falling on the plateau forts.  The Chinese replied in a very leisurely way, and their aim was wild and wide of the mark.  The Japanese fleet lay off the harbour mouth about six miles out to sea.  It had been arranged that it should not fire upon Port Arthur during the first stage of the attack, lest shells flying over the hills should reach the Japanese lines on the other side.  Ito’s fine cruiser squadron had now with it a flotilla of ten torpedo boats, but it was not necessary for it to take aby serious part in the attack.

            The cannonade continued for more than an hour.  By half past seven the forts on the I-tzu tableland were all but silent, and the order was sent to Nishi’s infantry to advance to the attack.  There were very few correspondents with the army, but amongst them was one of the most experienced English war correspondents, Mr. Frederic Villiers.  His letters give a vivid impression of the scenes during the advance of Yamaji’s division against the key of the Chinese defences.

             “It was not until half past seven,” he writes, “as far as I can remember, that the skirmishing lines moved up.  Then they swept up towards the three forts, which surmounted Table Mountain.  From our guns on the knoll in Suishi Valley a hail of shrapnel crowned the heights of Table Mountain with wreaths of smoke.  Shell after shell burst in these works.  The great mountain, seemingly asleep, slowly awakened from its heavy slumber and began to reply in a ponderous, sleepy sort of way.  Then on our right, where Yamaji stood, a mountain battery began shelling; and this was answered by two or three shells in our vicinity, which were too far off their mark to be pleasant for the sight seers on the left of Yamaji’s position.  Nishi’s columns moved up on the right to the first earthwork on Table Mountain, which was the western attack.  Nogi moved up from the left, which was the eastern attack, very slowly; so for the moment the battle formation was at an angle of about thirty-five degrees from the ridge of the fort.  Nishi in about fifteen minutes carried his objective, and a few minutes after Nogi had swept up under a very galling fire, though of short duration, and the Table Mountain was I the hands of the Japanese.  But this was only affected with considerable loss for the short period during the rush, the Japanese losing thirty-five by casualties.  Among those placed hors de combat were two officers.” 

             The Chinese really made no stand once they saw the long lines of the Japanese attack closing on them.  They abandoned all three forts one after another, on an average giving up a fort every five minutes.  Some of the Japanese who fell in the attack were not hit by shots from the I-tzu forts, but by bursting shells fired over the town from the fort on Golden Hill, in order to cover the hurried retreat of the fugitives.  It was afterwards ascertained that the Chinese had about 1,600 men in the three forts on the tableland and the fort on Pine Tree Hill, an average of about 400 in each work.  Another 1,600 held the two Dragoons and the Cock’s Comb on the north ridge; 2,000 more, fugitives from Kin-chow and Ta-lien-wan, prolonged the line of defence along the ridge to the sea, and a reserve of 1,200 men, belonging to the same unfortunate force, lay behind Pine Tree Hill, near the parade ground.  Thus the Chinese were hopelessly out numbered, the 1,200 men who held the I-tzu tableland being rushed by at least 6,000, with as many more threatening their right; moreover, shut up in a series of separate forts, small detachments of less than 500 had to face the rush.  Of course, if they had struck to their works, fired low and steadily, and brought a cross fire of rifles ad machine guns to bear on the attack, they might very well have repulsed the foe.  But they were Chinese troops, with very scant ideas of mutual support, and little trust either in their officers of their weapons, so it is no wonder they went.  Although the correspondent calls the Japanese loss serious, the capture of the table land was surely cheaply bought with only two officers and thirty three men killed and wounded out of a whole division.  With any real defence the capture of the forts would have meant the fall of some hundreds of men and officers in the columns of assault.

             For the wounded, not only these brought down from the hill, but those also who had been hit by the shells from the Chinese forts during the cannonade, prompt and ample provision had been made by the Japanese medical corps.  To quote again from Mr. Villier’s letter:

             “During the fight I was watching a hamlet of about half a dozen houses at the end of the neck of the ravine (near the artillery position).  When the first shots were fired the Red Cross flag was run up, and by its side was the national flag of Japan.  The doctors were already preparing for casualties.  About that time a sharp fusillade was going on down our right flank.  The only decent tactics the Chinese showed in this miserable business was an attempt at a flanking movement, started too late on our attack upon the Table Mountain.  For the moment it was utter confusion.  The Chinese from the small forts on the Port Arthur inlet were firing shell after shell at the fort that had already been occupied, but these missed and burst in the vicinity of the Red Cross hamlet, and a tremendous fusillade was going on in the valley on the right of us.  Nogi, with two regiments, was sent out to turn this flanking movement of the Chinese, and the mountain battery which had done such execution in the taking of Table Mountain was hurried down from the heights, thundering through the ravine down to the valley on our right to assist Nogi’s column.

            “The little Red Cross hamlet was beginning to fill up with casualties.  The men were brought down on stretchers, dripping with their blood, and laid on straw in front of the small gardens of the houses.  Within one of the gardens were tables already erected, at which the doctors were busily at work.  In my considerable experience of many armies in the field, I have not seen more excellent work done on the actual field of battle by surgeons.  Nothing was wanting.  The latest improvements in antiseptic lint, in the sterilising of the instruments, were there, right on the field of battle.  The Red Cross boxes were filled with the latest necessaries for the treatment of the wounded.  Each man who was treated had his name checked, and a little tag with his name and the nature of his wound tied to one of his legs, and then he was forwarded to the field hospital.  And all this was done under circumstances the most trying for delicate surgical work.  Shells from the great Eastern Fort on Golden Mount were bursting in our vicinity, though why so much good ammunition was wasted no one could tell.  Many of the stretcher-bearers had to –pause from their work and seek cover behind the walls of the houses, but the doctors calmly went on.  One horse, belonging to a doctor, standing just outside the little garden of which I have been speaking, had its neck broken by a fragment of shell, and lay there weltering in its blood, with the rest of the wounded lying about on the street.  Speaking of this Red Cross work to Colonel Taylor, who has been specially sent out by the British Foreign Office to report on the Japanese system of ambulance, he told me that what he saw in the Shui-shih Valley was quite equal to anything he had ever witnessed under similar conditions.”

              When Nogi’s brigade had cleared the northern end of the Table Mountain of the last of the Chinese, there was a brief lull in the engagement.  The fleet now began to fire long ranging shots at the seaward forts, and on the land Yamaji’s batteries and the siege train concentrated their fire on the fort on Sung-shu-shan (Pine Tree Hill), the mountain-guns being taken up to the top of the Table Mountain to assist in the bombardment.  The Chinese abandoned the fort under the heavy artillery fire, after lighting a fuse near the magazine, in order to blow the work up.  This occurred a little after eleven, while the Japanese infantry were moving to the attack of the north ridge.

             General Hasegawa was, meanwhile, advancing across the valley in front of these forts and the Cock’s Comb.  He had only his mountain batteries with him, but was assisted by the fire of Yamaji’s guns, which were now enfilading the ridge from the first artillery position, and dropping shells on to it from the captured Table Mountain.  Hasegawa’s infantry crossed the valley below the ridge in successive lines of skirmishers, being exposed to a heavy fire as they traversed the open ground, and suffering a good deal of loss.  As they reached the base of the ridge they were able to get cover under its steep sides.  Here they massed and prepared for the assault.  Above them the rocky hillsides rose abruptly to the forts, which stand at a height of about 300 feet above the level pf the valley.

              By ten o’clock the three battalions of the 24^th Regiment (sturdy fighting men from the southern island of Kiu-shiu, which boasts that it has produced more of the heroes of Japan than any other district) were massed at the base of first they were protected by the very steepness of the hillside, but about half-way they came under fire from the forts at a range of 600 yards.  There was a temporary check at this point, and then the regiment went on again.  An English officer who watched this assault of the Two Dragons and Cock’s Comb forts thus described the scene: -

              “We reached a hill to which the Japanese artillery were moving, just in time to watch a most magnificent attack by the Japanese infantry from the north straight up at a fort facing them, and under the fire of guns and rifles from three others as well.  It was a scene to remember forever.  The Japanese artillery were in a good position now for enfilading these forts, and did so with the nearest fort with the best effect.  It was evacuated by the Chinese at 11.10 a.m., and blew up immediately afterwards.  The artillery then fired at the next fort, at which the main infantry attack was directed; but the range was long, and the shooting not quite good enough to be effective for some time.  Meanwhile the Japanese infantry were climbing the slope, taking advantage of whatever slight cover could be found.  The Chinese projectiles ploughed the ground round them up, but they never stopped, and seemed to quite unhurt.  At last they rested for a few minutes about 300 yards below the fort in a fold of the ground, which gave time for the slower ones to come up to the front.  Then once more on.  But just as they moved forward a row of land mines exploded right in front of them.  They seemed to stagger for a moment, and then rushed on.  But by this time the Chinese were beginning to suffer from the Japanese artillery fire, and just before the Japanese infantry reached the fort the Chinese left it.  This was at 11.25 a.m.  That settled all the forts which faced north.”

             The fort blown up at 11.10 was Sung-shu-shan, the Chinese having fired the magazine as they left it.  The fort captured at 11.25 was one of the works in the Cock’s Comb (Chi-huan-shan).  The Chinese rapidly evacuated the Two Dragons forts and the rest of the works on the ridge.  By half past twelve all the land defences had been abandoned except the great fort on Shang-chin-shan (Golden Hill), whose batteries not only defended the harbour mouth, but also looked towards the land over the roofs of the town.