← Memoirs, diaries and letters
memoir
Human bullets, a soldier's story of Port Arthur
Tadayoshi Sakurai, 1907
Named on the page for Battle of Mukden.
machine-read Machine-read (OCR) from a scanned book at the Internet Archive: expect misread words and names. The scan itself is at the library.
draft Matched to the battle automatically; not yet reviewed.
Passages that name the battle; the whole book is at Internet Archive.
20 February – 10 March 1905 (7–25 February Old Style)
Battle of Mukden
THE VALUE OF PORT ARTHUR
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 be- siegers as long as possible, so as to hinder the gen- eral plan of the enemy. This principle appHed 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 gen- eral 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
Public domain. Text from Internet Archive.