EDITORIAL
Copyright, Underwood, N. Y.
Whenever he asked for guns and ammuni-
tion for the weakly armed position, for engi-
neers, labor, and building materials to repair
the unserviceable batteries, or pointed out the
necessity for constructing bomb-proofs, and
urged that new positions on the hills might
be fortified, the general would fly into a pas-
sion and shout: “Traitors! All traitors! Who,
says that Kinchou is badly fortified? I will
destroy their whole army if they only dare
to land. We all know they are fools, but
they will never send a large force here, and
so weaken their main army.” Being con-
vinced of the futility of dealing with the
general, Tretiakoff, himself a “sapper,” to-
gether with another engineer officer, Schwartz,
set to work with his regiment to try to get
the place into order. Although he continued,
at every convenient opportunity to point out
the unsatisfactory state of the position against
which the first blow of the besieging army
must fall, not only was he not given more
labor, materials, or engineers, but those that
he did have were taken away from him. This
View in a Japanese Trench before Port Arthur
sounds impossible, but is literally true.—N\o-
Jine, Ibid., 37-38.
Train loads of supplies were actually
shipped out of the fortress by order of
General Stossel, although the place was
greatly under-supplied. Plenty of good,
wholesome food, so necessary for the de-
fenders of a beleaguered fortress there
was not, but by the beginning of May
all the troops were put upon short ra-
tions. Yet, though the necessary provi-
sions had not been railed into Arthur
the line had not been idle. By the station
was an immense mound of packing cases
filled—not with food, but with VODKA
—the Russian whiskey.—Nojine, pp. o,
14, 46.
General Stossel never seemed to get
the situation through his head. ‘The
Japanese army intended for the invest-