Nogi (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV WITH the failure of the August assaults on the sullen heights of the Russian stronghold, came disillusionment as to the method of attack which must prevail if Port Arthur were to be taken from the Muscovites who sat stolid and determined behind their hills, crowned with masonry and concrete, and bristling with latest inventions of man for the destruction of his species. Where dash and human courage I and sacrifice had failed, there remained the skill of the engineer, and the patient, plodding endurance of the private soldier, who forthwith abandoned the sword and bayonet for the less spectacular but ultimately more potent weapons, the pick and shovel. The quarry, as it were, had "gone to earth," and it was for the hunter to dig him out. And so, almost with the 31 same enthusiasm with which in August they had advanced over the shell-swept slopes, the soldiers settled down to mole their devious ways up under the Russian forts. The storming parties were not abandoned, but under the new programme the distances to be traversed in the assault were reduced to the minimum. Trenches would be run well up under the point to be attacked, and when but a few hundred yards remained to be covered, the Japanese would swarm out of their protected trenches and, under cover of artillery fire, sweep the Russians from the position. When they came to the more difficult places where forts of steel and concrete construction blocked their pathway, they drilled tunnels beneath the works, exploded mines, and assaulted through the breaches. But it is not my intention to discuss the hundred details, each a pitched battle in itself, which made up the remainder of the siege. Scarcely a day elapsed that, on some point or another of the investment, where the...