[Footnote 45: Written by the author in October, 1907. This was the official indictment then published, and contains the main charges upon which the officers stood their trial.--E.D.S.] [Footnote 46:? January 1, 1905.--E.D.S.] APPENDIX I General Fock's Memorandum _re_ the Surrender of Fort No. 2. [Chi-kuan-shan.] In order that General Fock's motives may not be misunderstood, the Memorandum written by him, in which he essayed to clear himself of the charge of wrongfully abandoning Fort No. 2, is reproduced. It needs, however some elucidation, both for the sake of clearness and accuracy. Those who are not well acquainted with Fock's proceedings in Port Arthur, both as a General and as an individual, and with all the circumstances of the defence, might possibly misunderstand this document, as the authors possessed a great power of persuasion, both with pen and speech, and even now has a considerable number of adherents and advocates. Memorandum. 'Fort No. 2 was abandoned on December 18, 1904, with General Stössel's permission and by my order. Next day I had a conversation on the subject with General Smirnoff, who said: '"Why did you surrender the fort? I would have sent you as many reinforcements as you wanted; I have some 30,000 in the Fortress. By abandoning it you have undermined the root of my principle--that no fort should pass into the enemy's hands except after the death of all its defenders."' In saying this General Smirnoff was quite in the right. Fock did not reinforce the garrison either in time or sufficiently, although quite able so to do. The whole essence of the defence at the end consisted in the use of mobile reserves for the reinforcement of threatened points. It was by his intelligent anticipation of Nogi's tactics and his skillfull movement and employment of reserves that Smirnoff was able so long to check the attack. ' ... Later, when giving evidence before General Roop's Commission, I was asked: '"Did you take any steps to prevent the example of Fort No. 2 being followed, and to ensure that the principle that a garrison should resist to the last should not be forgotten?" 'I was amazed at such a question, and that a principle, of which I had never before heard and which is not to be found in any text-book on tactics or field-service manual, should be assumed by the Commission to be an irrefutable axiom, to ignore which was a crime. 'But I was still more astonished a short time ago when, in a paper submitted by General Smirnoff to the War Minister and circulated amongst officials and other educated men, I saw the following: