Ten years ago ex-president Russia's Vladimir Putin, without much concern for public motivation, decided to close our last major military bases in Lourdes (Cuba) and Cam Ranh (Vietnam). Russia received nothing in return, but the dangerous military-political voids that have arisen are visible to the naked eye. However, few people remember that Moscow’s thoughtless voluntary geopolitical retreat began much earlier - from Port Arthur. These days marked another anniversary of the day when the last soviet soldier left this city on the Liaodong Peninsula, standing on Russian graves. On May 26, 1955, Port Arthur again became Chinese Lushun.
But first we will have to look into the deeper layers of history. For more than half a century, Russia has been trying to stand firmly on Far East were associated specifically with ice-free port Port Arthur. In 1896, China, in dire need of allies in the constant confrontation with Japan, signed a convention with Emperor Nicholas II, according to which, among other things, Beijing transferred to our country for full and exclusive use for 25 years the naval bases of Lushun and Dalianwan, and also allowed the construction of the China-Eastern branch railway from Harbin to these ports. The king, who also did not expect anything good from Japan, wrote about this in his diary: “This is so good that I can’t even believe it.”
However, much of what Emperor Nicholas II What seemed simply wonderful turned out to be a disaster for his people. Lüshen, which became Port Arthur and the main base for just a few years Pacific Fleet, by 1904 it contained a squadron consisting of 7 squadron battleships, 6 cruisers, 3 old sail-screw clippers, 4 gunboats (2 of them armored), 2 mine transports, 2 mine cruisers and 25 destroyers. 21 were put in defense of the city coastal battery of 116 guns. The total number of the Russian ground garrison on the day the war began was up to 24 thousand soldiers and officers. By that time, 15 thousand of our civilian compatriots and 35 thousand Chinese lived in the city.
How long can one endure such an impressive military force the Japanese could not and began a war in which Port Arthur was destined to play an outstanding role. The fight for Port Arthur, which lasted about 8 months, cost the Japanese army and navy huge losses, which amounted to about 112 thousand people and 15 ships of various classes. Russian losses amounted to about 28 thousand people. In December 1904, cut off from the Manchurian army and Vladivostok, the city fell.
Russia has been waiting for satisfaction for four decades. With the defeat of Japan in 1945, Port Arthur returned to Russia again. Commander-in-Chief Soviet Army Joseph Stalin assessed this fact this way: “Japan began its aggression against our country back in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War... As you know, Russia was defeated in the war with Japan then. It was clear that Japan was setting itself the task of tearing away its entire Far East from Russia... But the defeat of Russian troops in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War... left a black mark on our country. Our people believed and expected that the day would come when Japan would be defeated and the stain would be eliminated. We, the people of the old generation, have been waiting for forty years for this day.”
The most important base for the Pacific Fleet was again transferred by Beijing to our country - this time for 30 years. By that time main opponent on Pacific Ocean we have changed. It became the United States, which got involved in civil war on Korean Peninsula. Once again, Moscow spent enormous amounts of money on the development of Port Arthur. By 1950, the composition of the new Soviet naval base in the Yellow Sea, led by Rear Admiral Cipanovic, was this:
— Separate division patrol ships of six Lend-Lease American Tacoma-class frigates. (Soon the frigates were returned to the Americans when they moved under their own power from Port Arthur to the Japanese port of Maizuru).
― A brigade of torpedo boats consisting of several dozen combat units various types domestic and foreign construction.
- Brigade submarines consisting of twelve submarines.
― A water area security brigade consisting of six minesweepers and six large submarine hunters.
The garrison included units and formations of our 39th Combined Arms Army. The ships were supported by numerous coastal units and units, as well as the 194th Bomber Division, which included 126 Tu-2 aircraft produced in 1944-1948. In general, the garrison was impressive and allowed the Soviet Union to effectively resist naval forces USA, based on bases in Japan. All the more unexpected was what happened in the fall of 1954, when a government delegation led by the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev suddenly flew to Port Arthur from Moscow. Along with him came Bulganin, Mikoyan, Shvernik, the First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR - Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Kuznetsov, Commander of the Far Eastern Military District Malinovsky and others.
On October 13, the military, who did not suspect anything about the imminent evacuation, was invited to report. How did this happen? About this - in memories military counterintelligence general M. Belousov: “... From the beginning of the report of V. Shevtsov, commander of the 39th Army, not even three minutes had passed before Khrushchev hit the table with his palm and literally shouted: “Stop chatting! You’d better tell me why you’re standing here?”
Our entire Portarthur group was wary... The commander, being a sedate and respectful man... somehow looked incredulously at Khrushchev again and calmly said: “To protect the Far Eastern borders of our Motherland.”
Khrushchev cuts him off again and angrily declares: “This is a tsarist, imperialist policy. Who are you going to protect here and from whom? You better tell me how long it will take for not a single soldier of yours to remain here, not even your spirit.”
Shvetsov was silent... At this time, Marshal Malinovsky, who had just flown in from Primorye, entered... Khrushchev continued: “So how many months do you, army commander, need to get out of here?”
Shvetsov replied: “Three or four months.”
General Penionozhko, who was present, remarked: “Not enough!”
Khrushchev: “I give you five. And so that after this period none of you remain. Now let’s move on to the conversation: what to sell to the Chinese and what to give away.”
Bulganin, Mikoyan and Kuznetsov behaved calmly for now. One could assume that this issue had already been discussed with the leadership of the PRC... And Khrushchev continued: “Everything that here (meaning in Kwantung) was built by the Russian Tsar, us and the Japanese - barracks, warehouses, houses, reservoirs, etc. . - give it to the Chinese for free. And what we brought here from Soviet Union, - sell".
A. M. Penionozhko asked permission to ask the question: “As I understand,” he said, “give away the expensive things and sell the small things?”
Bulganin began to answer this question: “Yes, you understood correctly...” And Nikita Sergeevich continued: “Sell all weapons, all equipment and ammunition!”
Malinovsky finally intervened in this conversation. “Nikita Sergeevich,” he said, “all military equipment cannot be sold. Here we have one regiment with new T-52 tanks and one squadron with new interceptor fighters, I will take them to my district.”
Khrushchev agreed. Then Kuznetsov made a statement: “Our base also has one division with the latest high-speed and expensive armored boats. This equipment should not be sold either.”
But Khrushchev replied: “Sell!”
Then Shvetsov asked Khrushchev: “What should we do with those shells and three-inch guns (meaning 76-mm guns) that were brought here at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War?”
Khrushchev: “Sell!”
Next began active conversation about what price to sell for - at cost or according to our price list. “At cost” the price of a tank was said to be 400-500 thousand rubles, a fighter aircraft - about one million rubles...”
A few days after the Soviet government delegation left for their homeland, numerous Chinese commissions visited our military units, including government ones with high-ranking guests, among whom were the famous writer Guo Mozhuo, the commander of the PRC armed forces Peng Dehuai, the widow of Sun Yat-sen Song Jingling. Many Soviet military personnel were presented with awards from the People's Republic of China. There was a continuous series of concerts at the Officers' House famous artists. At the same time, there was a “sale” of military property and equipment, which eventually turned into a real circus and was stopped. Everything - every hanger, bed, washbasin, kitchen and fire-fighting equipment, every little thing - was “described and documented” in six copies. And every morning began with a fierce bargaining for the extra yuan. The next day everything was repeated all over again...
It ended up that only in our “department” the Chinese were given for free dozens of torpedo boats, six lathes and planers, the same number of metalworking machines, a forge, an electrical shop with all the equipment. In a word, we left literally everything, from tanks, submarines, barracks, ammunition and ending with a pillow, a mug, a spoon."
In a word, the flight initiated by Khrushchev Soviet troops from Port Arthur was very reminiscent of what, more than three decades later, arranged for our Armed Forces in Eastern Europe Nikita Sergeevich's successor Mikhail Gorbachev - with noise and uproar, throwing billions of dollars worth of property into an open field. What was Khrushchev thinking about when he gave orders to front-line generals in his characteristic boorish manner? It is clear that he sought to consolidate the “centuries-old”, as it seemed to him, friendship with like-minded communists in Beijing. And he also pursued the policy of de-Stalinization, which is still fashionable today. The Americans beat Khrushchev like a boy here.
When Stalin was still in power, Western leaders actively discussed how to change the world after the Generalissimo's apparently approaching death. In January 1953, negotiations on this topic were held in Washington by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Harry Truman. It was decided to paint a rosy picture for the post-Stalin leadership of the Soviet Union: you are withdrawing your troops from Austria, Finland and China. In return, we will lift economic sanctions from the war-weakened USSR and help accelerate the socio-economic development of your country. In confirmation of the sincerity of its intentions, the West indeed weakened such sanctions in May 1953, and in June of the same year refused to help anti-Soviet forces who tried to raise an uprising in the GDR.
To make the carrot more tangible, after Stalin's death in the fall of 1954, new commercial lines of credit were opened for the USSR in NATO member countries, Australia and New Zealand. In 1955 German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in Moscow, he promised Khrushchev long-term economic cooperation and the inviolability of Soviet zones of influence in the world. Reparation payments to the USSR from Germany, interrupted in 1949, were resumed. In return, the West asked for very little: to demonstrate at least a small departure from Stalin's policy and the reduction of the Soviet military presence in China and the Baltic.
Khrushchev tried very hard at first. Since 1954, the publication of Stalin's works ceased. At the end of 1955, the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties, created on the initiative of Stalin, Zhdanov and Molotov, was abolished. There is nothing to mention about Nikita Sergeevich’s anti-Stalin report to the 20th Congress of the CPSU.
Against the backdrop of these global political games What was Port Arthur? Pawn. Khrushchev sacrificed it easily. As well as the Soviet naval base in the Finnish Porkalla-Udd.
The landscape after the battle did not please him. Subversive work The West's opposition to the USSR soon even intensified. In 1958-1959 In the United States, the Congressional Resolution “On Enslaved Peoples” was adopted. In accordance with this document, the development of plans to dismember the USSR into several puppet states in the near future began.
American troops did not even think of leaving their military bases in Japan, South Korea, in Taiwan and the Philippines. According to the recognition of the overseas military, it was the absence of the Soviet Union in Port Arthur that became one of the “incentives” for American aggression in Indochina in 1966-1974. And the memorable events for our people on Damansky Island in 1969 would hardly have occurred if soviet planes would be stationed at airfields a couple of hours flight from Beijing.
General Stoessel, who surrendered Port Arthur to the Japanese in 1904, was sentenced to death in Russia. The court found that during the entire period of defense, Stessel did not direct the actions of the garrison to defend the fortress, but, on the contrary, deliberately prepared it for surrender. The sentence was later replaced by a 10-year imprisonment, but already in May 1909, the kind-hearted Russian Tsar finally forgave the disgraced general. Khrushchev remained in the history of the country as a political madman, who did a lot of things not only in the Far East. Putin's assessment is yet to come.
From the "SP" dossier
Lourdes is a southern suburb of Havana. Soviet and then Russian Center radio interception was deployed here shortly after Cuban missile crisis. About a thousand employees of the 6th Directorate of the Main Directorate constantly served on it. intelligence agency General Staff of the RF Armed Forces and the 3rd Main Directorate of Electronic Intelligence of Communications FAPSI. They collected not only the most valuable data about the American missile program at Cape Canaveral, but also intercepted many telephone conversations in most of the US. According to former Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro, our country received up to 75 percent of intelligence information about the United States from Lourdes. In 1996, at hearings in the US Congress, Chief military intelligence DIA Patrick Hughes stated that FAPSI “uses Lourdes extremely closely and in the interests of Russian economy" The center was modernized in 1997. In 2002, under the pretext of the need for austerity budget austerity, it was finally closed by the decision of President Vladimir Putin on the eve of his next meeting with US President George W. Bush. In 1999, China entered into an agreement with the Cuban leadership to open its own radio interception center to monitor US territory.
Cam Ranh is a bay separated from the South China Sea by the peninsula of the same name. The deep-water harbor of this bay is one of the largest in the Far East. During the Indochina War it served as a major logistics base for the US Navy. In 1978, Cam Ranh came under the control of Socialist Republic Vietnam. Since 1979, it has been used jointly by Soviet and Vietnamese naval sailors. The presence of this base, located 2,500 miles from Vladivostok, greatly facilitated our Pacific Fleet’s combat service in Indian Ocean. According to agreements reached back in Soviet times, until 2004 Cam Ranh could be used for free. Soviet specialists reconstructed the airfield there, on which even Tu-95 strategic bombers began to land, making patrol flights in those parts. About 40 of our fighters were constantly based here. missile carriers, anti-submarine and reconnaissance aircraft. At the berths there were always up to 20-25 Soviet ships and submarines. A residential town, large ship repair shops, and radar reconnaissance and radio interception stations were built. Overall, Cam Ranh served as a strategic counterweight to the most important naval base for the US Navy in the region at Subic Bay (Philippines). In 2001, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said: “The preservation of this naval facility was considered inappropriate due to changes military-political situation in the world".
SOVIET-CHINESE COMMUNIQUE
ABOUT THE WITHDRAWAL OF SOVIET MILITARY UNITS FROM JOINTLY
USED CHINESE NAVAL BASE PORT ARTHUR
AND ABOUT THE TRANSITION OF THIS BASE TO FULL DISPOSAL
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Given the change international situation in the Far East in connection with the end of the war in Korea and the restoration of peace in Indo-China, as well as taking into account the strengthening of the defense capability of the Chinese People's Republic, The Government of the Soviet Union and the Government of the People's Republic of China, in accordance with the established and increasingly strengthened relations of friendship and cooperation between both states, have agreed that Soviet military units will be withdrawn from the jointly used Port Arthur naval base and installations in the area free of charge transferred to the Government of the People's Republic of China.
Carrying out activities related to the withdrawal of Soviet military units and the transfer of structures in the area of the Port Arthur naval base to the Government of the People's Republic of China, both Parties agreed to entrust the Soviet-Chinese joint military commission in Port Arthur, formed in accordance with the Agreement of February 14, 1950.
In the top photo: a government delegation headed by the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev flew to Port Arthur from Moscow, 1954.
The defeat of the Russian army in the war with Japan in 1904-1905, shameful world, concluded as a result of it, the first Russian revolution and the anti-patriotic sentiments that reigned in the then Russian society ignored the war itself, in particular, one of its most important and heroic episodes - the defense of Port Arthur.
The whole history of that distant one, now by everyone forgotten war still raises many questions, doubts and disputes among researchers, and just amateurs military history.
From various sources it is known that Port Arthur was never properly prepared for defense, main reason The current situation is associated with the lack of necessary government funding; in those days, the Russian army was plagued by the same funding problems as now.
According to the plans of the military department, it was planned to completely complete all construction work and other measures to bring the fortress to full combat readiness only by 1909, however, the tsarist Ministry of Finance began to allocate money for construction work only with the beginning of the war; in total they managed to allocate about 4.5 million rubles out of 15 million planned, which was approximately less than one third of what was needed.
As a result, by the beginning of hostilities in the fortress, only a little more than half of all work had been completed, and greatest attention was turned to the coastal front, that is, they were going to defend themselves from the enemy mainly from the sea, and not from land.
Another miscalculation during the construction of Port Arthur is the fact that it defensive line was too closely adjacent to the city and the harbor, this gave the Japanese the opportunity to subsequently shell most of the fortress, almost from the very first days of the siege, including the sea harbor itself with the warships of the fleet.
It turned out that in terms of military engineering, Port Arthur simply did not fit in its engineering parameters to the standards of the then modern fortress like Verdun or Brest-Litovsk, the so-called classical fortresses. Port Arthur was not a fortress, but most likely was a complex of various defensive positions and structures. The Russian military command, fully aware of everything weak spots defense of Port Arthur, the entire system of main fortifications was built based on the terrain, which was quite favorable for defense.
Most of the fortifications were mainly built on dominant heights, opposite which to the north of the fortress there was a relatively flat space, which, as it approached the fortifications, turned into open sloping terrain, the entire this area, was turned by the defenders into a zone of continuous artillery and rifle fire. The rear slopes of the heights provided good cover for people and guns.
With the outbreak of hostilities, the construction of fortifications accelerated, work was carried out day and night. Trains with troops, artillery, machine guns and ammunition continued to arrive at the fortress until the very last moment. But it was not possible to completely complete all the engineering and construction work in five months, which was expected to take five years.
It is also known from various sources that by July 1904 the Port Arthur fortress was armed with only 646 artillery pieces and 62 machine guns, from this total number 514 guns and 47 machine guns were installed on the land front.
There were about 400 shells for each gun. For transportation of cargo, materiel, combat supplies, food, etc. there were over 4.5 thousand horses in the fortress.
By the beginning of the defensive battles, the garrison of Port Arthur was provided with food, incl. flour and sugar for six months, meat and canned food for only one month. Then they had to be content with horse meat; there were few supplies of greens, which is why during the siege there were many cases of scurvy in the garrison.
The total number of the fortress garrison numbered 41,780 soldiers and 665 officers. In addition, in Port Arthur Bay there were 6 battleships, 6 cruisers, 2 mine cruisers, 4 gunboats, 19 destroyers and the Amur mine transport.
There were up to 8 thousand personnel on the squadron and the Kwantung naval crew; it was a truly well-trained, professional army, consisting of conscript soldiers, average age who were no older than 30 years old, therefore the soldiers from the Port Arthur garrison, unlike the soldiers of Kuropatkin’s army, which consisted mostly of reservists, fought professionally, with minimal own losses, while causing maximum damage to the enemy.
The defense of Port Arthur was led by General A. M. Stessel, to whom all ground and engineering troops, as well as fortress artillery. However, what was interesting to note is that the fleet, which was based in the bay of the fortress, was not subordinate to Stoessel, but to the commander-in-chief, who was in Manchuria and could not really control it.
Even in the absence sufficient quantity Long-term, well-fortified structures, Port Arthur met the enemy with organized defense and, as subsequent events showed, became a real grave for the Japanese ground army.
The Japanese sought to capture Port Arthur, first of all, in order to destroy it as the main base of the Russian navy, that is, ground army acted in the interests of the fleet, the events of the war showed that the Japanese fleet fought much better than ground troops. For the siege and capture of Port Arthur, the Japanese formed a special 3rd Army, which consisted of three infantry divisions, two reserve brigades, one field artillery brigade, two naval artillery detachments and a reserve engineer battalion.
On initial stage siege, not counting special troops, the commander, General Nogi, had under his command over 50 thousand bayonets, more than 400 guns, of which 198 were special siege artillery barrels.
Subsequently, the siege group Japanese troops was constantly growing and soon reached about 100 thousand soldiers, and this is not counting the reserves, with which the Japanese kept up to 200 thousand soldiers and officers at Port Arthur.
The fighting for Port Arthur began in the first half of May 1904 on the distant approaches to it, with the so-called Battle of Panshan. This place was called the Jinzhou Isthmus, about 4 km wide (the most bottleneck Kwantung Peninsula) positions were defended by the reinforced 5th East Siberian rifle regiment 4th East Siberian rifle division, which totaled about 3 thousand 800 people with 65 guns and 10 machine guns. For 13 hours, the regiment confronted units of the Japanese 2nd Army, about 35 thousand people with 216 guns and 48 machine guns. At first, the Japanese acted according to a template, tried to storm the heights head-on, literally walked over the corpses of their dead soldiers, 8 consecutive attacks were repulsed by the Russians without much difficulty.
In the end, without receiving reinforcements, the regiment was forced to retreat from the tactically advantageous and well-fortified position it occupied. As a result of the first battle, the troops of Lieutenant General Yasukata Oku lost 4.5 thousand of the 30 thousand people who participated in the battle. The losses of Russian troops amounted to about 1 thousand people. This was just the beginning; the main casualties of the siege were still to come for the Japanese.
Further, the assaults on the fortifications of Port Arthur were carried out by the Japanese in strict order, as if according to a schedule, so, for example,
the assault, carried out from August 19 to 24, ended in the complete defeat of the Japanese, one of the reasons for which was the remarkable night shooting of the Russian artillery. The result of the assault - in two weeks of continuous fighting, the Japanese killed more than 15 thousand of their soldiers, some units, or even entire units of General Nogi, simply ceased to exist or were no longer ready for combat, Russian troops also suffered serious losses of approximately 3 thousand people.
In the period from September 15 to 30, General Nogi launched his next dense, massive frontal attack, this time successfully. The Japanese even managed to capture some secondary positions, but the key point of the entire defensive system - Hill 203 - repelled all attacks. The shock columns were swept down again and again until the hillsides were covered with the corpses of Japanese soldiers. In this battle, the Japanese lost 7 thousand 500 people, the Russians - about 1 thousand 500 people.
Particularly successful and effective in repelling all these Japanese assaults were units of Russian machine gunners, line after line they mowed down countless chains of Japanese, sending them in dozens, or even hundreds, to heaven to their Japanese gods, the barrels became red-hot and did not have time to cool down, from the intense operation, the machine guns were out of order, the carriers barely had time to bring cartridges with belts, there was the roar of battle all around, the corpses of the enemy lay in bulk, the Japanese soldiers, like zombies, continued to move forward, and only death awaited them.
In November, the next so-called “fifth general” offensive of the Japanese took place and again it was repulsed by the Russians in all positions and cost the Japanese more than 12 thousand lives.
And only, finally, on November 22 (December 5) the enemy completely occupied height 203 (Vysokaya Mountain). Total losses The Japanese during the assault on the mountain amounted to about 10 thousand people. Russian troops lost 5 thousand soldiers and officers, these were the largest one-time losses of Russian troops for the entire defense of Port Arthur.
From the captured mountain, the Japanese began to adjust the fire of heavy siege weapons on the Russian ships. Soon, most of the ships of the 1st Pacific Squadron were sunk in the Port Arthur roadstead. The fate of the fortress was predetermined. The failure of the constant assaults, as well as the entire siege of the fortress as a whole, sharply complicated the situation in the Japanese siege army. In many formations the “limit of so-called stability” was exceeded, as a result of which the morale of the Japanese troops dropped sharply.
There were cases of disobedience and even an attempt at rebellion, and this was among the always disciplined Japanese, who had their own philosophy of life and death, unique from all peoples, who, as Japanese experts say, were never afraid to die for their emperor, apparently not all were so - they were afraid and how they were afraid. The behavior of the Japanese high command itself, which abandoned tens of thousands of its soldiers directly to slaughter, is also interesting; one can directly say that the Japanese literally overwhelmed the defenders of the fortress with the corpses of their soldiers.
According to various sources, it is known that during the siege of Port Arthur Japanese army lost from 90 to 110 thousand of its soldiers killed, wounded, and died from wounds and diseases - these were truly horrific losses. Russian losses amounted to only 15 thousand dead, of which directly combat losses amounted to 7800 soldiers and officers.
On December 23, 1904 (January 5, 1905), a capitulation was concluded, according to which the garrison of 23 thousand people (counting the sick) surrendered as prisoners of war with all supplies of combat equipment.
In those days, knightly traditions were still in effect and the Japanese allowed Russian officers to return to their homeland. To those who agreed to give honestly that they will not participate in hostilities.
Still remains controversial issue, could Port Arthur continue to resist, or were the garrison’s resistance forces really completely exhausted? Who is the head of the garrison, General Stessel - a criminal who surrendered the fortress to the enemy or a hostage of the prevailing circumstances. Some researchers argue that further resistance by the defenders of the fortress was futile; completely blocked from sea and land, without ammunition and sufficient food supplies, Port Arthur was doomed, and Stessel’s actions as a commander were justified; they made it possible to save the surviving defenders of the fortress. There is another opinion that Stoessel committed treason, since he surrendered all his artillery to the Japanese, which was at least 500 units. artillery pieces of various calibers and systems, large reserves of provisions and other material assets, which at the time of surrender continued to remain in the fortress.
Stoessel nevertheless appeared before a military tribunal, which sentenced him to death for the surrender of the fortress and port. The court found that during the entire period of defense, Stessel did not direct the actions of the garrison to defend the fortress, but, on the contrary, deliberately prepared it for surrender. However, the sentence was later replaced by a 10-year imprisonment, but already in May 1909 he was forgiven by the tsar. The society of that time Russia was not at all interested in the details of the lost war; students and female students were then more interested in bombers and revolutionaries of various stripes, and heroic defense Port Arthur, located on the other side of the world, the war with some Japanese - all this was perceived by a large part of society as exotic and nothing more.
At the end of 1897, the Russian squadron occupied Port-Arthur, and on March 15, 1898, in Beijing, an agreement was signed by the representatives of Russia and China, by virtue of which Port Arthur and Talienvan, with the corresponding territory and water space, were ceded to the use of Russia for a 25-year period. a period that can be extended by mutual agreement; At the same time, Russia was granted the construction of a railway branch to connect these ports with the Siberian highway. It was decided to make Port Arthur a military port.
By the beginning of the war of 1904-1905. the front of the coastal batteries was almost completed, numbering 22; 9 were made of concrete, the rest were temporary.
SAILORS VS SAMURAI
Port Arthur is located at the southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula. Liaodong is connected to the mainland by a narrow (only 3 versts) isthmus near Jinzhou, 50 versts from Arthur. If you compare Liaodong with Crimea, and Port Arthur with Sevastopol, then Jinzhou is Perekop...
In early November, Nogi's army was strengthened by a new (7th) infantry division. On November 13 (Old Art.), General Nogi launched the fourth - general - assault on Arthur. The blow was directed from two sides - to the Eastern Front, where it boiled down to a desperate, frantic onslaught, and to Vysokaya, where a nine-day battle took place. general battle the entire siege.
The assault on the 13th was repulsed on both the Eastern Front and Vysoka. Then Nogi, who decided to deal the final blow to Arthur with a surprise night attack in the gap between the Eastern and Northern fronts, summoned all the brave men of his army to this task. 3,100 hunters gathered - worthy descendants of ronin and samurai - calling themselves the “white pomochi squad.”
On the night of November 14, the “detachment of white pomochi”, having gathered at the Kumirnensky redoubt, rushed with bayonets without firing a shot, captured the Kurgan battery and went to the rear of the Eastern Front, Port Arthur hung by a thread... But here in front of the Japanese detachment, as if... underground, half a company of Russian sailors grew up - 80 people, rushing at them from the mountain with rifle butts in pitch darkness. The onslaught of this handful of heroes was so unexpected, swift and furious that the stunned detachment gave up the rear. The fortress was saved by these grandchildren of Khrulev’s “benefactors”. White helpers served the Japanese to recognize each other in the dark. The heroic naval half-company was commanded by Lieutenant Misnikov, the Japanese detachment was commanded by General Nakamura.
FOURTH STORM
When it became clear that the assault on the eastern fortifications had not produced any results, the siege artillery fire was transferred to the Kurgan Battery; Hundreds of shells fell at her location over the course of two and a half hours. The destruction on the battery was enormous: all the covers were destroyed, many guns were knocked out, and companies suffered losses.
At 6 1/2 pm Nakamura gave the order to march. Enemy soldiers approached the Kurgan Battery in the dark unnoticed and were accidentally discovered on the approaches by a searchlight from the Cemetery Battery. Immediately the fortress artillery opened fire. However, not paying attention to the losses, the Japanese, without shooting, walked straight towards the target. IN last minute the alarm sounded on Kurgannaya, and before people had time to take their fighting places, as the Japanese climbed over the parapet and appeared at the guns. The man on duty at one gun shouted “Japanese!” fell, struck by the butt, but while falling, he managed to pull the lanyard, and the cannon, loaded with buckshot, fired. The other surviving guns immediately began firing point blank at the Japanese. Grenades and bayonets were used, but the number of Japanese did not decrease, but increased: they began to push back the defenders, but a company of sailors in reserve entered the battle, and the enemy was thrown back behind the parapet.
Nakamura, regrouping his battered forces, again launched them into the attack. He did not notice that at the critical moment of the battle, three landing companies of sailors from Pobeda, Peresvet and Bayan appeared on his flank and in the rear from fortification No. 3. 500 sailors attacked with bayonets on the move. A few minutes later, a panicked flight of the remnants of Nakamura’s detachment began. The general himself was wounded and, taking advantage of the darkness, barely escaped with the remnants of the detachment from the sailors pursuing him.
The night battle on Kurgannaya ended the first stage of the fourth assault on the fortress. The next morning, 37 enemy officers and 743 enemy soldiers were found killed just in front of the battery; of these, 150 burned on the electric fence, which was equipped by the mine officer of the battleship Peresvet, Lieutenant Krotkov. It was an ordinary wire fence through which a high voltage current was passed.
In one day, the enemy lost up to 4,500 soldiers. Big losses The Russians also had them. Some companies ceased to exist that day. In the 3rd company of the 25th regiment there remained a wounded commander, an ordinary warrant officer, a non-commissioned officer and one soldier. The sailors on November 26 lost 417 people killed and wounded.
PORT ARTHUR DEFENSE 1904-05
Defense by Russian troops and naval forces 01/27/02/9/1904 - 12/20/1904(01/2/1905) of the seaside fortress of Port Arthur (Lüshun) in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-05. On the night of January 27, Japanese destroyers suddenly, before war was declared, attacked the Russian squadron stationed on the outer roadstead of Port Arthur, and disabled 2 battleships and 1 cruiser. Attempts by the main forces of the Japanese fleet (Vice Admiral H. Togo) on the morning of January 27 to destroy the squadron and block it on the internal roadstead of Port Arthur on February 11 (24) were unsuccessful. On April 22 (May 5), the Japanese 2nd Army landed north of Port Arthur, which in early June, having inflicted defeats on Russian troops at Jinzhou and Wafangou, cut off Port Arthur from the Russians. Manchurian army. In addition, the Japanese landed a new 3rd Army (48 thousand people, 386 guns; General M. Nogi), which on July 17 (30) began the siege of Port Arthur from land. The fortress was defended by a garrison (42 thousand people) and up to 12 thousand sailors, 646 guns (Lieutenant General A.M. Stessel), which repelled 4 enemy assaults: August 6-11 (19-24), 6-9 ( September 19-22, October 17 (30), November 13-22 (November 26 - December 5). But on December 2 (15), the organizer of the Port Arthur defense, Lieutenant General R.I., died. Kondratenko (chief of the ground defense of the fortress), which had an extremely negative impact on further events. The Russian squadron was destroyed by Japanese artillery at the end of November. On December 20, Stoessel surrendered Port Arthur. Losses of the parties: Russians - approx. 27 thousand people killed and wounded; Japanese - St. 110 thousand people and 15 ships; another 16 ships were heavily damaged. During the Port Arthur defense, defense with the use of long-term engineering structures and various obstacles, artillery firing from closed firing positions, mine weapons, incl. and at sea, interaction between ground forces and navy. It also showed that long-term defense of a seaside fortress is possible only if it works closely with the fleet and land army.
RETURN
On the night of August 7-8, 1941, Colonel E.N. Preobrazhensky, at the head of the flagship crew, participated in the first bomb strike at military facilities in the capital Hitler's Germany- Berlin. The regiment under his command in August-September, in 7 group raids of 1941, carried out 52 combat missions against Berlin, the crews of 33 aircraft reached the target and bombed Berlin.
By Decree of the Presidium Supreme Council USSR on August 13, 1941, Colonel Evgeniy Nikolaevich Preobrazhensky was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.
From April 1945 - deputy commander, and from February 1946 - commander of the Pacific Fleet Air Force. He distinguished himself in the Soviet-Japanese War by preparing and personally leading a raid of a seaplane detachment to Port Arthur. Having splashed down in the harbor, the crews landed a landing party of sailors who occupied the port and disarmed the Japanese garrison.
On August 22, 1945, in accordance with the order of the front commander dated August 18 to seize ports on the Liaodong Peninsula, airborne troops from the 9th Guards were landed in Port Arthur mechanized corps led by the Deputy Chief of the Operations Department of the Guard Corps Headquarters, Major I.K. Beloded. After the landing, the landing force, numbering 200 people, captured port facilities, large warehouses and bases and disarmed the garrison of more than 5 thousand soldiers, officers and generals. One of the Japanese officers solemnly handed over to I.K. Beloded received a heavy bunch of keys to Port Arthur, which was taken from Russia by Japan at the beginning of the century. By the evening of August 23, the 21st Tank Brigade of the 6th Guards arrived in the city. tank army led by Lieutenant Colonel I.L. Tretyak, and two days later the ships of the Soviet Pacific Fleet entered the port.
The Port Arthur fortress was located at the extreme southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula. This area was leased by Russia from China in 1898, after which the construction of the urgently needed Russian non-freezing military port on the Pacific Ocean. (Vladivostok froze in winter.)
Japanese advance to Port Arthur in the first months of the war
On the first day Russo-Japanese War The Japanese attacked the Port Arthur squadron without warning, causing it severe damage. On April 21-22, 1904, the 2nd Japanese Army of General Oku landed in the north of Liaodong and moved towards Port Arthur to attack it from land. On May 13, Oku, having lost about 5 thousand soldiers, took the strategically important Jinzhou Heights in the center of the peninsula. Russian commander-in-chief Kuropatkin tried to prevent the siege of Port Arthur with skirmishes at Vafangou and Dashichao, but was unsuccessful. In the face of the inevitable encirclement of the fortress, the Port Arthur squadron tried to break through from it to Vladivostok. However, the Japanese squadron of Admiral Togo blocked her path and, after the battle in the Yellow Sea on July 28, forced her to return.
After the capture of Jinzhou, the Japanese ground army accumulated strength and did not disturb the Russians for a long time, who took up positions on the Green Mountains (20 km from Port Arthur). Delay Japanese offensive was partly due to the fact that the Russian Vladivostok detachment of cruisers sank a large Japanese transport, which was carrying 11-inch guns to the army intended for the siege. Finally, having received reinforcements, the Japanese 3rd Army of Nogi launched a powerful assault on the Green Mountains on July 13, 1904. Russian troops were thrown back from their positions and retreated to the fortress area on July 17. From this day on, the defense of Port Arthur began.
Russo-Japanese War. Port Arthur. Video
The beginning of the siege of Port Arthur and its first assault
Port Arthur was not only a naval port, but also a powerful land fortress. It had 3 lines of defense, even with concrete structures. The city was surrounded by a line of forts, as well as a network of redoubts, defensive ditches, and batteries. This system of structures was based on the mountainous terrain favorable for defense. But not all of the fortifications were completed. At the beginning of the defense, the garrison of the fortress numbered approximately 50 thousand. The defense of Port Arthur was headed by the head of the Kwantung fortified area, General Stessel.
On August 6, the first assault on the fortress began. It was carried out mainly at night, but for the first time, searchlights and rockets, used to repel a night assault, helped the Russian defenders destroy the attackers. After five days of furious attacks, the Japanese penetrated deep into the Russian defenses on the night of August 11, but were driven back by a decisive counterattack. During the first assault, the ships of the Russian Pacific squadron took to sea for the last time. The battleship Sevastopol, led by Captain 1st Rank Nikolai Essen, left the port, accompanied by two destroyers. He supported those besieged by fire from the bay. However, on the way back, the Russian ships ran into mines, and both destroyers sank from the explosions. The first assault ended in failure for the Japanese. They lost about 15 thousand soldiers in it. Russian losses amounted to 6 thousand.
Second assault on Port Arthur
Having failed to take Port Arthur on the move, Nogi began a systematic siege. Only a month later, on September 6, 1904, having received reinforcements and carried out serious engineering and sapper work, Japanese troops launched a second assault on the fortress. In three days of fighting, they managed to capture two redoubts (Vodoprovodny and Kumirnensky) on the Eastern “front”, and also captured Mount Dlinnaya on the Northern “front”. But the Japanese attempts to capture the key defense objective - Mount Vysokaya dominating the city - were defeated by the fortitude of the defenders of Port Arthur. When repelling attacks, the Russians used new means of combat, including mortars invented by midshipman S. N. Vlasyev. During the second assault (September 6-9), the Japanese lost 7.5 thousand people. (of which 5 thousand people during the assault on Vysoka). Russian losses amounted to 1.5 thousand people. Great assistance in defense was provided by the ships of the Pacific squadron, which supported the defenders with fire from the internal roadstead. Part naval artillery(284 guns) was transferred directly to the position.
Third assault on Port Arthur
On September 18, the Japanese began shelling the fortress with 11-inch guns. Their shells destroyed fortifications not designed for such a caliber. But the Port Arthurians, fighting in the ruins, repelled the third assault (October 17-18), during which 12 thousand Japanese were killed.
The position of the blocked fortress became more and more difficult. Food was running out, the number of killed, wounded and sick was constantly growing. Scurvy and typhus appeared and began to rage more severely than Japanese weapons. By the beginning of November, 7 thousand wounded and sick (scurvy, dysentery, typhus) had accumulated in hospitals. The main battle in November unfolded over Mount Vysoka on the Northern Front, as well as for the 2nd and 3rd forts on the Eastern Front.
Fourth assault. Capture of Mount Vysokaya by the Japanese
Nogi directed the main attacks on these key defense targets of Port Arthur during the fourth assault (November 13-22, 1904). 50 thousand Japanese soldiers took part in it. The main attack was on Mount Vysokaya, which was defended by 2.2 thousand people. led by the hero of the battles for Jinzhou, Colonel Nikolai Tretyakov. For ten days, Japanese assault units, regardless of losses, attacked wave after wave of Vysokaya. During this time, they twice managed to capture the height strewn with corpses, but both times the Russians returned it back with counterattacks. Finally, on November 22, after another attack, Japanese soldiers captured the mountain. Almost all of its garrison perished. The last night Russian counterattack on Vysokaya was repulsed. During the 10-day battles, the Japanese lost 11 thousand soldiers.
Having installed long-range artillery on Vysoka (11-inch cannons fired at a distance of 10 km), the Japanese began shelling the city and port. From that moment on, the fate of Port Arthur and the fleet was decided. The remnants of the 1st Pacific squadron stationed in the roadstead were killed under Japanese fire. To protect against fire, only the battleship Sevastopol, led by the courageous Essen, decided to enter the outer roadstead. On November 26 he stood in the bay White Wolf, where for six nights he heroically repelled the attacks of Japanese destroyers. destroying two of them. After receiving serious damage, the battleship was scuttled by its crew. In December, a desperate battle unfolded for the 2nd and 3rd forts on the Eastern Front. On December 2, the head of ground defense, General Roman Kondratenko, died. By December 15, the line of forts on the Eastern Front had fallen.
Surrender of Port Arthur by Stessel
By the evening of December 19, after fierce fighting, the defenders of the fortress retreated to the third and final line of defense. Stoessel considered further resistance pointless and signed a capitulation on December 20. This decision had serious reasons. Continuing the defense with 10-12 thousand soldiers after the loss of key positions became pointless. Port Arthur was already lost as a base for the fleet. The fortress was also no longer able to pull significant Japanese forces away from Kuropatkin’s army. One division would now be enough to blockade it. The defenders of the fortress soon faced starvation (there was only enough food left for 4-6 weeks). However, upon arrival in Russia, Stoessel was put on trial and sentenced to death, commuted to ten years in prison. Such a harsh sentence was most likely a tribute public opinion, excited by military failures.
The influence of the defense of Port Arthur on the general course of the war
After the surrender of the fortress, about 25 thousand people were captured (of which over 10 thousand were sick and wounded). Fighting under conditions of complete siege, the Port Arthur garrison absorbed about 200 thousand Japanese soldiers. Their losses during the 239-day siege amounted to 110 thousand. In addition, during the naval blockade, the Japanese lost 15 ships of various classes, including two squadron battleships that were blown up by mines. A special award cross “Port Arthur” was issued for participants in the defense.
With the capture of Port Arthur and the destruction of the 1st Pacific Squadron, Japan achieved the main goals that it set in the war. For Russia, the fall of Port Arthur meant the loss of access to the ice-free Yellow Sea and the deterioration of the strategic situation in Manchuria. Its consequence was the further strengthening of the revolutionary events.
An outstanding Russian naval commander and leader of the White movement took part in the defense of Port Arthur
The defeat of the Russian army in the war with Japan in 1904-1905, the shameful peace concluded as a result of it, the first Russian revolution and the anti-patriotic sentiments that reigned in Russian society at that time left the war itself unattended, in particular, one of the most important and heroic episodes - the defense of Port Arthur.
The whole of that distant, now forgotten war still raises many questions, doubts and disputes among researchers, and simply lovers of military history.
It is known from various sources that Port Arthur was never properly prepared for defense; the main reason for this situation is associated with the lack of necessary government funding; in those days, the Russian army was plagued by the same funding problems as now.
According to the plans of the military department, it was planned to completely complete all construction work and other measures to bring the fortress to full combat readiness only by 1909, however, the tsarist Ministry of Finance began to allocate money for construction work only with the beginning of the war; in total they managed to allocate about 4.5 million rubles out of 15 million planned, which was approximately less than one third of what was needed.
As a result, by the beginning of hostilities in the fortress, only a little more than half of all work had been completed, and the greatest attention was paid to the coastal front, that is, they were going to defend themselves from the enemy mainly from the sea, and not from land.
Another miscalculation during the construction of Port Arthur is the fact that its defensive line was too closely adjacent to the city and the harbor; this gave the Japanese the opportunity to subsequently shell most of the fortress, almost from the very first days of the siege, including the sea harbor itself with naval warships.
It turned out that in terms of military engineering, Port Arthur simply did not fit in its engineering parameters to the standards of the then modern fortress like Verdun or Brest-Litovsk, the so-called classical fortresses. Port Arthur was not a fortress, but most likely was a complex of various defensive positions and structures. The Russian military command, fully aware of all the weak points in the defense of Port Arthur, built the entire system of main fortifications based on the terrain, which was quite favorable for defense.
Most of the fortifications were mainly built on dominant heights, opposite which to the north of the fortress there was a relatively flat space, which, as it approached the fortifications, turned into open sloping terrain; this entire area was turned by the defenders into a zone of continuous artillery and rifle fire . The rear slopes of the heights provided good cover for people and guns.
With the outbreak of hostilities, the construction of fortifications accelerated, work was carried out day and night. Trains with troops, artillery, machine guns and ammunition continued to arrive at the fortress until the very last moment. But it was not possible to completely complete all the engineering and construction work in five months, which was expected to take five years.
It is also known from various sources that by July 1904 the Port Arthur fortress was armed with only 646 artillery pieces and 62 machine guns; of this total, 514 guns and 47 machine guns were installed on the land front.
There were about 400 shells for each gun. For transportation of cargo, materiel, combat supplies, food, etc. there were over 4.5 thousand horses in the fortress.
By the beginning of the defensive battles, the garrison of Port Arthur was provided with food, incl. flour and sugar for six months, meat and canned food for only one month. Then they had to be content with horse meat; there were few supplies of greens, which is why during the siege there were many cases of scurvy in the garrison.
The total number of the fortress garrison numbered 41,780 soldiers and 665 officers. In addition, in Port Arthur Bay there were 6 battleships, 6 cruisers, 2 mine cruisers, 4 gunboats, 19 destroyers and the Amur mine transport.
The personnel on the squadron and the Kwantung naval crew numbered up to 8 thousand people; it was a truly well-trained, personnel army, consisting of conscript soldiers, whose average age was no more than 30 years old, so the soldiers from the garrison of Port Arthur, Unlike the soldiers of Kuropatkin’s army, who were mostly reservists, they fought professionally, with minimal losses of their own, while inflicting maximum damage on the enemy.
The defense of Port Arthur was led by General A. M. Stessel, to whom all ground and engineering troops, as well as fortress artillery, were subordinate. However, what was interesting to note is that the fleet, which was based in the bay of the fortress, was not subordinate to Stoessel, but to the commander-in-chief, who was in Manchuria and could not really control it.
Even in the absence of a sufficient number of long-term, well-fortified structures, Port Arthur met the enemy with organized defense and, as subsequent events showed, became a real grave for the Japanese ground army.
The Japanese sought to capture Port Arthur, first of all, in order to destroy it as the main base of the Russian navy, that is, the ground army acted in the interests of the fleet; the events of the war showed that the Japanese fleet fought much better than the ground forces. For the siege and capture of Port Arthur, the Japanese formed a special 3rd Army, which consisted of three infantry divisions, two reserve brigades, one field artillery brigade, two naval artillery detachments and a reserve engineer battalion.
At the initial stage of the siege, not counting special troops, the commander, General Nogi, had under his command over 50 thousand bayonets, more than 400 guns, of which 198 were special siege artillery.
Subsequently, the siege group of Japanese troops constantly increased and soon reached about 100 thousand soldiers, and this is not counting the reserves, with which the Japanese kept up to 200 thousand soldiers and officers at Port Arthur.
The fighting for Port Arthur began in the first half of May 1904. on the distant approaches to it, from the so-called Battle of Panshan. This place was called the Jinzhou Isthmus, about 4 km wide (the narrowest point of the Kwantung Peninsula), the position was defended by the reinforced 5th East Siberian Rifle Regiment of the 4th East Siberian Rifle Division, which totaled about 3 thousand 800 people with 65 guns and 10 machine guns . For 13 hours, the regiment confronted units of the Japanese 2nd Army, about 35 thousand people with 216 guns and 48 machine guns. At first, the Japanese acted according to a template, tried to storm the heights head-on, literally walked over the corpses of their dead soldiers, 8 consecutive attacks were repulsed by the Russians without much difficulty.
In the end, without receiving reinforcements, the regiment was forced to retreat from the tactically advantageous and well-fortified position it occupied. As a result of the first battle, the troops of Lieutenant General Yasukata Oku lost 4.5 thousand of the 30 thousand people who participated in the battle. The losses of Russian troops amounted to about 1 thousand people. This was just the beginning; the main casualties of the siege were still to come for the Japanese.
Further, the assaults on the fortifications of Port Arthur were carried out by the Japanese in strict order, as if according to a schedule, so, for example,
the assault, carried out from August 19 to 24, ended in the complete defeat of the Japanese, one of the reasons for which was the remarkable night shooting of the Russian artillery. The result of the assault - in two weeks of continuous fighting, the Japanese killed more than 15 thousand of their soldiers, some units, or even entire units of General Nogi, simply ceased to exist or were no longer ready for combat, Russian troops also suffered serious losses of approximately 3 thousand people.
In the period from September 15 to 30, General Nogi launched his next dense, massive frontal attack, this time successfully. The Japanese even managed to capture some secondary positions, but the key point of the entire defensive system - Hill 203 - repelled all attacks. The shock columns were swept down again and again until the hillsides were covered with the corpses of Japanese soldiers. In this battle, the Japanese lost 7 thousand 500 people, the Russians - about 1 thousand 500 people.
Particularly successful and effective in repelling all these Japanese assaults were units of Russian machine gunners, line after line they mowed down countless chains of Japanese, sending them in dozens, or even hundreds, to heaven to their Japanese gods, the barrels became red-hot and did not have time to cool down, from the intense operation, the machine guns were out of order, the carriers barely had time to bring cartridges with belts, there was the roar of battle all around, the corpses of the enemy lay in bulk, the Japanese soldiers, like zombies, continued to move forward, and only death awaited them.
In November, the next so-called “fifth general” offensive of the Japanese took place and again it was repulsed by the Russians in all positions and cost the Japanese more than 12 thousand lives.
And only, finally, on November 22 (December 5) the enemy completely occupied height 203 (Vysokaya Mountain). The total losses of the Japanese during the assault on the mountain amounted to about 10 thousand people. Russian troops lost 5 thousand. soldiers and officers, these were the largest one-time losses of Russian troops during the entire defense of Port Arthur.
From the captured mountain, the Japanese began to adjust the fire of heavy siege weapons on the Russian ships. Soon, most of the ships of the 1st Pacific Squadron were sunk in the Port Arthur roadstead. The fate of the fortress was predetermined. The failure of the constant assaults, as well as the entire siege of the fortress as a whole, sharply complicated the situation in the Japanese siege army. In many formations the “limit of so-called stability” was exceeded, as a result of which the morale of the Japanese troops dropped sharply.
There were cases of disobedience and even an attempt at rebellion, and this was among the always disciplined Japanese, who had their own philosophy of life and death, unique from all peoples, who, as Japanese experts say, were never afraid to die for their emperor, apparently not everyone was so afraid - they were afraid and how they were afraid. The behavior of the Japanese high command itself, which abandoned tens of thousands of its soldiers directly to slaughter, is also interesting; one can directly say that the Japanese literally overwhelmed the defenders of the fortress with the corpses of their soldiers.
According to various sources, it is known that during the siege of Port Arthur, the Japanese army lost from 90 to 110 thousand of its soldiers killed, wounded, or died from wounds and diseases - these were truly horrific losses. Russian losses amounted to only 15 thousand dead, of which direct combat losses amounted to 7,800 soldiers and officers.
On December 23, 1904 (January 5, 1905) a capitulation was concluded, according to which a garrison of 23 thousand people (counting the sick) surrendered as prisoners of war with all supplies of combat equipment.
In those days, knightly traditions were still in effect and the Japanese allowed Russian officers to return to their homeland. Those who agreed to give their word of honor that they would not participate in hostilities.
The question still remains controversial: could Port Arthur continue to resist, or were the garrison’s resistance forces really completely exhausted? Who is the head of the garrison, General Stessel - a criminal who surrendered the fortress to the enemy or a hostage of the prevailing circumstances. Some researchers argue that further resistance by the defenders of the fortress was futile; completely blocked from sea and land, without ammunition and sufficient food supplies, Port Arthur was doomed, and Stessel’s actions as a commander were justified; they made it possible to save the surviving defenders of the fortress. There is another opinion that Stoessel committed treason, since he surrendered all his artillery to the Japanese, which was at least 500 units. artillery pieces of various calibers and systems, large reserves of provisions and other material assets, which at the time of surrender continued to remain in the fortress.
Stoessel nevertheless appeared before a military tribunal, which sentenced him to death for the surrender of the fortress and port. The court found that during the entire period of defense, Stessel did not direct the actions of the garrison to defend the fortress, but, on the contrary, deliberately prepared it for surrender. However, the sentence was later replaced by a 10-year imprisonment, but already in May 1909 he was forgiven by the tsar. The society of that time Russia was not at all interested in the details of the lost war; students and female students were then more interested in bombers and revolutionaries of various stripes, and the heroic defense of Port Arthur, located on the other side of the world, the war with some Japanese - all this was perceived by most society rather as exotic and nothing more.
