INTO THE EAST

Reclining in my deck chair on the N. D. L. liner Bayern, bound for Singapore, I was smoking a pipe and idly speculating. I had cultivated the acquaintance of my table neighbor, a Japanese, Baron Huraki, and was at the moment, expecting him to come up the companionway and take his place in his deck chair beside me. Instead came two officers of the Second Siberian Rifles, strolling along the deck. It was obvious that, although it still lacked three hours of noon, these gentlemen had been quite frequently to the shrine of Bacchus. I had no fault to find with that, as long as they did not interfere with my own personal comfort. When they began tacking along, talking at the top of their voices on that part of the deck known by experienced travelers to be reserved for repose and reading, however, they began to irritate me. When one of them threw himself into the Baron's chair and displayed that beastly annoying habit of continually wriggling and creaking the chair, meanwhile shouting to his companion at the top of his lungs, I lost all patience. It only needed Baron Huraki's appearance and quiet request for the evacuation of his deck chair, and the insolent stare and non-compliance of the Russian, to make me chip in with:

"Damn it, sir! You don't own the whole world yet."

I went on in terse military German which eighty per cent. of all Russian officers know and the trend of which is never misunderstood. I pointed out that any further encroaching would be resented in a most drastic and sudden manner. The usual farcical exchange of cards, permitting all sorts of bluffs, does not impress a Russian, but the imminent chance of blows from fists does. A pair of astonished bulging eyes, a muttered apology and quietness reigned.

With a mild smile Baron Huraki dropped into his chair, but I did not like the expression in his eyes. Knowing the prowess of the Baron as an exponent of his national system of self-defense (I had seen him harmlessly toss about the biggest sailor on the Bayern, the chief butcher, who was as strong as an ox), I said:

"It's a wonder to me, Baron, that you didn't throw that boor half way across the deck."

I shall never forget his answer.

"We of the Samurai never fight when there is nothing behind it. It is not the time."

I did not like the expression in his eyes.

All this transpired because I was on the road to Singapore, away from Berlin, on my first important mission in the German Secret Service. The Intelligence Department had instructed me to ascertain the extent of the new docks and fortifications in course of completion in the Straits Settlements--an assignment calling for exact topographical data, photographs and plans.

Leaving port, I had found the Bayern comfortably crowded. In the East war clouds were gathering and among the passengers were a number of Japanese called home, as I afterwards learned, for the impending struggle. At Port Said we had taken on a Russian contingent, quite a few of whom were officers bound for Port Arthur, Dalny and Vladivostock, and in view of the gathering conflict I found the relative conduct and bearing of representatives of these races that were soon to clash, vastly interesting.

And after my experience with the Russians, I was to know more. From that time on, I began to notice a subtle change in Baron Huraki's attitude toward me. Quite of his own accord he discussed with me the customs, ideals and aspirations of his caste and country. Wrapped in a Shuai kimono, his gift to me, we spent many hot and otherwise tedious nights, sprawled in our deck chairs, discussing unreservedly the questions of the East. What I learned then and the insight I got into the aims and character of Nippon, were invaluable to me. Baron Huraki, now high in the services of the Mikado, is my friend still. Once a year he sends me Shuraino-Ariki, a wonderful spray of cherry blossoms, the Japanese symbol of rejuvenating friendship.

A Secret Service agent, although making no friends or acquaintances, always makes it his business to converse with and study his fellow travelers. Following my usual habit, I went out of my way to cultivate the acquaintance of the Japanese, particularly Huraki. A scholar of no mean attainments was the Baron.

Quietly, without being didactic, he upheld his end in most discussions on applied sciences or philosophic arguments, putting forth his deep knowledge in an unobtrusive way. I found this trait to be an invariable rule with most of the Japanese with whom I came in contact. Once or twice during our lengthy and pleasant chats I tried to veer the subject round to the all-engrossing Eastern question, only to be met with the maddening bland smile of the East. I was rather inexperienced in the fathomless, undefinable ways of the Orient, but on the Bayern I learned rapidly the truths that Western methods and strategy are absolutely useless against the impenetrable stoicism of an Asiatic and that only personal regard and obligation on their part will produce results. In striking contrast to the Japanese, small and sinewy, any two of them weighing no more than one Russian, quiet, taciturn, genial and abstemious, were the children of the "Little White Father." The Russians were an aggressive, big, well set up, heavy type of men, by no means teetotalers, talkative, with overbearing swagger, always posing, talking contemptuously about the possible struggle in the East, invariably referring to the Japanese as "little monkey men." Fortunate for me was it that the Bayern was carrying both Russians and Japanese; the knowledge I acquired from Baron Huraki of the Asiatics was invaluable in Singapore; what I learned of Russians, I needed at Port Arthur. But I am anticipating my narrative.

Arriving in Singapore, I put up at the Hotel de la Paix on the Marine Parade. I posed as an ordinary tourist with a leaning toward hunting and a fad of doing research work in tropical botany. I gradually became acquainted with a number of English officers and was introduced at their clubs. The information obtained through these channels about the new naval base was merely theoretical and I soon found that to obtain practical results I would have to get in touch with the native clerks. In the English Eastern possessions, you see, most clerical and minor mechanical positions are held by natives. It soon was brought home to me, though, that this cultivating natives was by no means easy and a rather dangerous thing to do. To be in any way successful, I had to find a native of a higher caste, one with sufficient influence to command the clerks. If I could get hold of one of the numerable discontented petty rajahs, for instance, there might be a chance of obtaining what I sought.

In one of the clubs, I found a clue. A young Rajah, one of the numerous coterie of petty princes--fair play compels me to withhold his name--had got himself into some trouble and the paternal government had promptly suspended his income. Here was my chance. I soon ascertained young Rajah's haunts and made it my business to frequent them. One day I found him on the veranda of the Marine Hotel and asked him for a match, making a return compliment of a cigarette. This was a procedure against established British social usage in the East, where it is considered infra dig to meet a native on a social footing. Herein lies a grave danger to English colonial policy. Your semi-European educated native, having partly absorbed European manners, resents this subordination and ostracism. So, with this high-spirited, rather clever young rajah. I accepted his invitation to whiskey "pegs" and subsequent dinner at his bungalow. One visit led to another and we were soon rather intimate. The young Rajah, having the usual native taste for luxury well developed and his income stopped, I became of some monetary assistance to him. Also, judiciously fostering his discontent against the government, I soon had him in a desired frame of mind. Through his influence on the native clerks, I was able to gain all the plans, data and photographs of England's new naval base in the Straits Settlement.

By this time my close association with this notorious young Rajah was marked and I found it advisable to pull up stakes, which I did in short order, arranging passage on the N. D. L. liner Sachsen, homeward bound. Having a week to spare and finding that by leaving the Sachsen at Colombo, I could catch the Prinz Regent Leopold of the same line, coming up from Australia en route for Europe, I had my ticket transferred. This would give me a ten-day vacation in Ceylon, where I had a number of acquaintances, having hunted there during my early travels. Accordingly, at Colombo I put up at the Galle Face Hotel, and the first man I met was Allan MacGregor, one of Lipton's tea estate managers, in Kandy and Newara Elya. MacGregor and I were old pals, having done much hunting and bridge playing in days gone by. I planned to spend a week with him and go after some leopards. By the by, I'd like to see the MacGregor's face when he learns that his quondam friend and boon companion was an international spy!

"Dinna get sair, Mac. You're no the only chiel what'll tak a wee surprise."

I was just arranging a hunting trip with MacGregor when Bill Peters, manager of the hotel, another old acquaintance, handed me a cable knocking all my plans to bits. It was a cipher message from Captain von Tappken, and shortly I was again on the high sea, bound not for home, but for Port Arthur. My orders were to ascertain how far the Port Arthur fortifications were completed and to report on the general conditions as I found them. I wondered not a little at this mission, as I could not then see what close interest Germany could have in a possible war between Russia and Japan. Also, I by no means relished the assignment, for it was a perilous business and I judged the Russians to be extremely suspicious--which I afterwards learned they were not.

I decided to travel under the cloak of a doctor of natural history and botany, my medical training giving me the necessary knowledge to impersonate the character. The reader will understand that if Doctor Franz von Cannitz is subsequently mentioned, it refers to me. Almost everybody, especially my government, knew that war between Russia and Japan was inevitable. I say, all, except Russia.

To make this situation clear, let me hark back a little. Japan, beating China in the war of 1895, took and occupied Port Arthur. Japan later, compelled by hostile demonstrations on the part of Russia backed up by France and Germany, restored Port Arthur to China. Note the holding aloof of England here. The actual text of the ultimatum delivered was that the possession of ceded territory by Japan would be detrimental to the lasting peace of the Orient. Japan was bitterly humiliated and an Asiatic never forgets or forgives. Japan bided her time. Russia's duplicity in the Boxer Campaign, and her seizure of Port Arthur, gave Japan the needed casus belli. Result, the Russian-Japanese War.

Arriving in Port Arthur, I established myself at the Hotel l'Europe and with prospecting spade, botanical trowel and butterfly net, I sallied forth around the hills of Port Arthur. The first thing which struck me was the enormous number of Chinese and Chunshuses (bad Coolies) employed everywhere. I came to know that they were not all Chinese Coolies and that almost every tenth man was a disguised Japanese. To an observer, trained in the facial characteristics of the Oriental, it was not difficult to pick out the Japanese from the mass of Coolies. They fairly swarmed in Port Arthur right under the very noses of the Russians. As Baron Huraki had told me during our passage on the Bayern, his countrymen were actually employed in the building of the Port Arthur defenses! These Japanese were later able to give invaluable information in directing the Japanese batteries. Numerous other alleged Coolies were acting as servants to Russian officers. I also found that on the Lioa Teah Shan Railway and at Pidgeon Bay the very porters were Japanese. In fact, the entire Russian stronghold was infested with them.

This carelessness, lack of knowledge or suspicion, with a total lack of belief on the part of the Russian officers, that the "little monkey men" would ever dare attack, is in my opinion the chief cause of the comparatively quick fall of Port Arthur. For even with the incompleted defenses the place was tremendously strong. Everywhere I could see the most elaborate plans incomplete. For instance, as I wandered through the hills seeking my botanical specimens, I found that the chain of forts on the hills of the Quang Tong peninsula south and west of Dalny, were totally unfinished and that the Kuan Ling section of the Port Arthur and Dalny railway was not even adequately protected from capture by a hostile force.

The lack of adequate supervision and the general slovenliness prevailing made it easy for me to go about unchallenged. I mixed freely with officers and men. The expenditure of a few rubles on vodka, in the case of the men, and the never-rejected invitation on the part of most officers to join in a jamboree, made me a very popular figure indeed. Through them I learned that the provisions of Port Arthur were in a most deplorable state. To use but one instance: Out of 1,420,000 pounds of flour, nearly one-half was bad with sour cords, which caused part of the enormous amount of sickness even then prevailing in the Port Arthur garrison. During the war forty-five per cent. of the troops were incapacitated because of unsanitary food. I found 600,000 pounds of maize were wormy and over 700,000 pounds of corned beef were putrid. Women and wine, however, abounded.

Never in any place--and I know all the gayest and fastest places on earth--have I seen, comparatively speaking, such an enormous amount of wine in stock, or such a number of demi-mondaines assembled. Most of the officers had private harems. I often sat in the Casino and watched the officers of the First Tomsk Regiment, the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Siberian Rides practicing with their newly supplied Mauser-pistols on tables loaded with bottles containing the most costly vintage wines and cognacs. At such times the place literally ran ankle deep in wine. There were over sixty gambling houses and dancing halls supporting more than a thousand filles de joie. In fact, the general intemperance was such that on the night of Admiral Togo's attack more than half the complement of the Russian fleet was ashore, dead drunk, in honor of one of the tutelary Russian saints.

The harbor defenses comprising submarine mines and searchlight stations, etc., I found to be in the worst condition. In pottering around, I visited many of the switchboard stations controlling the submarine mine fields. Everywhere the eye met evidences of defective work--rusty contacts, open insulations and exposed connections. There were carelessly exposed buoys betraying to the naked eye supposedly invisible submarine mines. The whole mine field was so badly laid that the Japanese were subsequently able to drag and explode three out of every five mines. This explains the astounding fact that during Admiral Togo's five dashes, some of them lasting thirty-six hours, all that he lost from torpedoes and mines was one ship, the Hatsuse, which struck a floating mine.

I did a great deal of investigating the composition and geological formation of the ground surrounding Port Arthur. I found most of the ground consisting of loose layers of lava scorÆ. The comparative easy capture of the otherwise immensely strong 203 Metre Hill did not surprise me. The texture of the ground, besides having a deadening effect on shell fire, made the approach to the forts by means of parallels surprisingly easy. The Japanese, by the way, also knew this peculiarity of the ground and used it to great advantage in their advances. I also found the forts on 174 and 131 Metre Hills as well as the north fort of East Rekwan in an incompleted state. The commander of the forts, General Smyrnoff, was using strenuous efforts to complete the work, but the personal animosity of General Krondrachinko, the commander of the general defenses, vetoed most of his suggestions. The vast sums of money which the Russian central government appropriated for the fortification of Port Arthur, honestly used, would have made the place completely impregnable. It is not too much to say--and this will be borne out by any trained observer and student of the conditions then existing in and around Port Arthur--that sixty per cent. of the money for defense purposes disappeared mysteriously.

All the Russian officers, however, were not grafters and drunken libertines. Among them I did find men of alert and earnest character who were quite aware of the frightful conditions existing, but who were so used to them right through Russia that they viewed things with true Slavonic composure. I even found the searchlight stations back on the hills to be in a deplorable state. Indeed, on the night of Togo's second attack on Port Arthur the power plant was out of order and the searchlights which should have flooded the harbor with light were dark. The plant was subsequently repaired under enormous difficulties and cost, but of no avail. Coolie spies had procured the exact location of the power house and searchlight stations and thus aided, the Japanese gunners riddled them with shell. A great deal has been said about the wonderful marksmanship of the Japanese, but for the most part it was due to data on exact distances and locations, furnished by their spies.

Although the officers were a careless, thoughtless lot, I found that the personnel of the garrison contained, on the whole, a good type of Russian soldier. They were not brilliant but faithful and obedient. A Russian regiment is never routed. They stand and are killed, being too stolid to run. I found most of the officers of Port Arthur to be brilliant dashing men of the world, personally of high animal courage, but self-indulgence, neglect, disbelief in hostilities and underestimation of their foe, undermined them.

Among the high officials at Port Arthur, Colonel Reiss, Commander of the Ordnance Service, stood out alone. He was the only officer, not excepting General Stoessel himself, who seemed to realize the gravity of the whole situation. In long chats which I had with him, he more than hinted at the lamentable state of his ammunition. Once I asked him why these conditions were not changed and he said:

"The Little Father (the Czar) is far away,"--he shrugged expressively.

Officers told me that tons and tons of ammunition bags did not contain full weight. Whole ammunition trucks had only a double layer of powder bags on top, the rest containing sand bags to be used only for bastions and escarpions, the money flowing into the pockets of the army contractors. I met General Stoessel at the Casino twice, and neither time did he impress me as a military genius. A soldier of the Buller type, he was bluff, hearty, courageous and stupid. His florid bearded face, thick-set figure and his deep guttural growls reminded me of a Boer Dopper.

Among all the Russians I met at Port Arthur, the most interesting figure was to me the great battle painter Verestshagin. I am proud to be able to say that he called me "friend." I happened to be of some assistance to him in alleviating an attack of malaria. This, with a similar taste in the arts and literature, soon put us on a friendly and intimate footing. I have met many men of letters, artists and statesmen, but never one who impressed me so much with the profundity of his learning and thought as did Verestshagin, and I am not easily impressed.

One night we were sitting on the Casino veranda overlooking the wonderful Harbor of Port Arthur. It was one of those quiet, balmy, semi-tropical nights for which this part of the world is famous, one of those crystal, clear, soundless nights, and the silhouettes of Russia's grim silent battle monsters riding at anchor were sharply outlined on the moonlit waters of the bay. We were smoking our pipes, having just finished a long chat about the history of these regions--the old Manchu and Tartar dynasties, how far they had influenced and still influence the history of the world, the Volker-Wanderung--of the Huns, the Goths, and Vandals--a subject on which Verestshagin disclosed a deep store of knowledge.

As the night was far advanced, I suggested that I had probably trespassed long enough on his kindness and hospitality. He turned around in his chair and placing his hand on my shoulder said in his soft deep voice:

"No, Doctor Cannitz, you are doing me a service instead. I am restless to-night. I have a curious presentiment that before long these lovely hills will hear the roar of guns in earnest." Dreamily speaking as if to himself he continued, "And Russia will lose... but I shall not see it." Abruptly he looked up, sat erect in his chair and shook himself as if throwing off something that oppressed him.

"Do you believe in premonition. Doctor? I know I shall find my death here soon."

An indescribable shuddery sensation seemed to pass over me. I am by no means sentimental or easily moved, nor am I overly superstitious; but I have encountered one or two things in the course of my life which cannot be explained by rule and line. Throwing off my sudden strange mood, I told Verestshagin that his morbid fancies were due to his still feverish condition, and the depressing effect of over-doses of sulphate of quinine. He rose and smiled, and said:

"Of course you are right, Doctor."

Before parting, he gave me a little sketch of Port Arthur which I have still. I keep it as a treasured memento of one of the few really good men I have met, and one of the few from whom I had been able to part without harming.

Verestshagin's premonition was fulfilled. He died--a hero's death, going down with Admiral Marakoff on the flagship of the Russian squadron six weeks later.

I remained at Port Arthur for another five weeks, and exactly seven days before Togo's first night attack I received a cable from my government. It was in cipher, of course, and I was ordered to leave Port Arthur immediately and make my way home as there was danger of my being bottled up at any minute. It is significant that in the Intelligence Department at Berlin they knew an attack was imminent, although they did not know it at Port Arthur. Furthermore, Russian securities dropped eighteen points on the New York Stock Exchange, hours before the official knowledge of the attack came through. This information leaked out through the German Embassy in Washington. Seven days after I left, Togo made the torpedo attack in which he sank the Czarevitch, Retvitsan and Palada.

Before I took the steamer back to Europe, I went to Kiou-Chau, the German colony in China, and filed a long report by cipher cable. Six months later I had the satisfaction of having a talk with numerous officers of the German General Staff and of receiving compliments on the correctness of my observations, reports and predictions.

Later I learned the reasons why I had been sent to Port Arthur. Germany desired to ascertain the exact relative strength of the Port Arthur defenses and Russian positions in the Far East for the following reasons:

Since the time of Frederick the Great, the only power on the Continent which Germany has feared and has always been loath openly to quarrel with, is Russia. Through the setback she received in the Far East in 1905, her influence steadily decreased in the Balkans and the recent fiasco of Russian machinations during the Balkan war, has made her become a secondary factor for decades to come. Germany, through her keen Intelligence Department, foresaw the result of the Russo-Japanese conflict and immediately set about to undermine and destroy Russian influence south of the Austrian border.

By Russia's defeat in the East, the balance of the power was completely shifted. It gave Germany and Austria the desired opportunities and a free hand in the Balkans and Turkey. Had Germany through her Intelligence Department found Russia invulnerable in the East, the map of the Balkans would have to be painted in different colors--as you will see.