But there is no single instance in history of any fort that has withstood siege permanently; sooner or later it must either capitulate or else lose all its men and fall. The same will also be the case in the future. The only question is whether a fort will fall as easily as a castle of _amé_.[30] Sebastopol withstood the allied armies of England and France for more than three hundred and twenty days, but eventually fell after the docks had been destroyed, the forts blown up, and the town utterly demolished. At _Kars_ the gallant General Williams, with only three months’ provision and three days’ ammunition, supported by the Turkish soldiers, withstood for seven months the Russian army of fifty thousand men; but it fell at last. The Russian General Muravieff admired the hero of _Kars_ and sent him this message:— “All the world and future generations will marvel at your valor and discipline. Let us have the glory of consulting together about the way of satisfying the requirements of war, without doing harm to the cause of humanity.” Paris resisted the Prussian siege for one hundred and thirty-two days before surrendering. These are only a few remarkable examples in history; but all besieged places have fallen sooner or later. The only purpose a fort can serve is to resist the besiegers as long as possible, so as to hinder the general plan of the enemy. This principle applied to Port Arthur; it had to detain as many as possible of the Japanese in the south, for as many days as possible, in order to let Kuropatkin develop his plan in North Manchuria without hindrance. For this great object, General Stoessel held fast to the marvelously fortified place and tried his best to keep off the besieging army. Supposing that Port Arthur had not fallen before the great battle of Moukden, what would it have meant to our general plan of campaign? This supposition will make the true value of Port Arthur clear to every mind. Therefore they tried to hold it, and we endeavored to take it; a desperate defense on one side and a desperate attack on the other. General Nogi bought the fortress at a tremendous price—the sacrifice of tens of thousands of lives; but once in our possession, its value became greater than ever.