The Truth About Port ArthurNozhin, E. K. (Evgenii Konstantinovich)
History
The Truth About Port Arthur
Nozhin, E. K. (Evgenii Konstantinovich)
Lüshun (China) -- History -- Siege, 1904-1905
The enemy made great efforts during the whole of the night of the 19th
to seize Water Supply Redoubt, and held the parapet till daybreak.
On the 20th there was desperate fighting round Angle Hill and Water
Supply and Pan-lun-shan Redoubts, in which we lost 500 men. At midday
we heard that we had lost Angle Hill. When Kondratenko reported this
personally, Smirnoff was very angry. It appeared that the men had
retired without orders, and had left eight guns of sorts on the hills,
which Kondratenko engaged to try and recapture. At 9 p.m. a series of
unsuccessful attacks were made on Temple Redoubt, and at midnight on
Water Supply and Pan-lun-shan Redoubts, and the enemy got possession
of the north-east corner of the former. At daybreak on the 21st two
companies of Frontier Guards went to the assistance of Water Supply
Redoubt and surprised the enemy, who retired suddenly on their own
reserves. They came under fire from Erh-lung-shan Fort, and left more
than 1,000 dead on the ground.
[Illustration: INSIDE A TRENCH ON THE EASTERN FRONT.]
It was about this time that the enemy wore us down and captured
Pan-lun-shan Redoubt. This redoubt was so important to us that Smirnoff
resolved to retake it at all costs, and its recapture was one of
the bloodiest fights that had yet occurred. Colonel Prince Machabelly
commanded the battalion entrusted with this work, and the redoubt
was taken on the night of the 21st. In the midst of the hand to hand
fighting, when grenades were bursting on all sides, and machine guns
were firing point-blank, the bomb-proofs were set on fire. The place
blazed up like a torch, and our men had to retire to trenches in rear.
The Japanese could not get into it either, and so it became neutral,
Pan-lun-shan Hill remaining in our hands till the fall of 203 Metre
Hill in December.
Prince Machabelly, who was killed in this assault, was the _beau-ideal_
of a soldier, and the circumstances under which he met his death were
sad. He was under a cloud, having been made a scape-goat for the
failure on Wolf's Hills, and having been deprived of the command of his
regiment, the 13th East Siberian Rifles, which he had led with such
gallantry at Kuen-san. In spite of this he led his companies at the
attack of Pan-lun-shan as he had led his battalions on Green Hills; he
won the redoubt for us, and was killed in the attempt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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