CHAPTER XXXVI.

The Army and Navy of Russia

Russia's Dilatory Tactics Favored War Preparations-Her Bases of Supplies—Transportation of Troops-The Colossal Russian Army-Cossack Cavalry-Her Strength at Sea.

BY

Y dilatory tactics of every kind Russia tried to postpone the inevitable war until she had firmly entrenched herself in Manchuria and felt secure enough to crush any antagonist. She was not ready for war when it came, though five valuable months had been won by diplomacy and spent in strengthening her position. Pledged though she was to withdraw from Manchuria on October 8, 1903, Russia let the date pass uncalendared. Asked by Japan to show her purpose, she succeeded in putting off the Mikado until the New Year had gone by, and while the situation was growing more strained she was repairing shipyards and fortifications, strengthening the supposedly impregnable Port Arthur, and increasing the natural facilities of Dalny and Vladivostok.

Vladivostok, the Eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway, with the tidewater port of its southern branch at Dalny, were the chief Russian strongholds. The former enjoyed a harbor, an arsenal, a dry and floating dock, and a base of coal supply, while at Dalny were to be found a harbor, a refitting yard, and a coaling station, together with the beginnings of other facilities and enterprises recently laid out by Russia on an extensive scale.

Port Arthur has been called the Gibraltar of the Far East, and notwithstanding the fact that the Japanese had stormed it in 1895 it is considered a formidable stronghold,

of which Russia had greatly improved the security during her occupation, and had so refurnished the tidal basin, drydock, refitting and coaling yard that it was in reality a point of great strategic importance.

Fortified by an elaborate scheme of defences, Port Arthur was the most powerful southerly naval station which the Muscovites possessed in Asia. The entrance to Port Arthur is also guarded by nature. It is extremely narrow, in some places, not more than two hundred yards wide. For this reason Russians had boasted that it was as nearly impregnable as any naval station in the Orient.

When Russia took possession of Port Arthur, at the end of the Liau-Tong Peninsula, she found a Chinese arsenal, which had been originally constructed under the direction of European engineers. The Russians, however, were not satisfied with the plan of fortifications, and practically rebuilt the fortress.

Like Vladivostok, Port Arthur lay at right angles to the main channel. The outer harbor is deep, but the water in the inner harbor would not float the largest vessels. All ships having a draught of over twenty-four feet must lie outside in the outer roadstead, where they were open to attack.

Russia occupied Port Arthur on December 18, 1897. In explaining her act she said that she regarded the possession of Port Arthur as a compensation for her grievance with China.

The Russians strengthened the series of fortifications known as the Hwang-Chinshan forts, which commanded the entrance of the harbor to the east, and directly behind they rebuilt a chain of batteries, which were intended to pour down shot and shell into the inner harbor. The Laomuchu battery was so placed that it swept the approach of the port diagonally and commanded both the outer and inner basins. The village of Port Arthur was situated opposite the entrance to the harbor.

Despite the powerful equipment of cannon which were to

play on vessels approaching Port Arthur, Japanese strategists asserted that the fortress could be stormed and taken by a concerted land and sea attack. Situated on a peninsula, its batteries might be isolated and cut off from supplies. The peninsula is joined to the mainland by a narrow strip of land only eighteen miles wide in some places.

Japan was deprived of Port Arthur as the result of the intervention of the powers at the close of the China-Japanese War. When Russia stepped in and took possession of the peninsula later, the act awakened in the Japanese a certain hatred of the Muscovites, which had been smouldering up to the time of this war.

One weak point in the Russian's war line was the uncertain capability of the great railroad with which they had recently spanned Siberia. Though built by supposedly competent engineers and equipped with the finest rolling stock of American factories, the single-track line was generally considered a failure by foreigners who had opportunity to inspect it. Since almost all of the Russian soldiers, arms and supplies had to be carried over this route from the large cities of European Russia, it was early evident that on its efficiency would depend the Czar's power to stand the demands of a long and exhausting war.

While on American heavily ballasted roadbeds a rail weighing from sixty to ninety pounds to the foot is the accepted standard, it has been stated on good authority that a forty pound rail was used in crossing the Steppes, on a roadbed of none too solid foundation.

The unbiased opinion of an experienced American trav- · eler who crossed Siberia shortly before war was declared may be quoted as giving succinctly the conditions in this important connecting link as they were just before hostilities commenced.

"This talk," said he, "about Russia rushing troops and supplies across the country on the Trans-Siberian Railway is

amusing to one who has been over that road. The rails are the lightest that can be laid, and can be washed away by the heavy rains that fall frequently, or the thaws that flood portions of the country through which the road runs. It stands to reason that a roadbed in this condition cannot take the strain of such heavy traffic as would be imposed by the transportation of troops and war munitions. Why, the maximum speed of the trains is twenty miles an hour, though the engines and cars can stand a forty-mile speed without being pressed to the limit. Then there is another reason which, I think, is quite as potent as the condition of the roadbed against the transportation of troops in great numbers, and that is a break in the road at Lake Baikal. This break is 125 miles long, and you can imagine the congestion that would result. Even in the course of ordinary business the travel between the two points in the road is bad enough. Lake Baikal is about thirty miles wide, and there are four small boats about as large as your ocean-going tugs for the transportation of passengers and freight from the western shore to the eastern. It would be impossible to carry more than 600 men a day across this lake with the present facilities, and heaven only knows how they would manage to get the field guns, horses and supplies over. Then, on the other side, is the 125 miles break in the railroad. Passengers are now carried over this stretch in carriages, sledges and sleighs, but the soldiers would have to march and drag their supplies with them.

"I had an amusing thing happen to me the last time I went over the Trans-Siberian. Our train had jumped the track, and I remarked to an official that such a proceeding was dangerous business.

"Oh,' he said, that's nothing; we have run off the rails as often as eleven times a day.""

Notwithstanding the many insecurities of her position,