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CHAPTER XVI
THE SECOND GENERAL ATTACK
HE second general attack on Port Arthur
was, like the first, premature. The first
A attack may have been justifiable because
strategical considerations of the utmost importance
made it imperative that the fortress should be
taken with the shortest possible delay, and because
there was at that time a chance, however remote,
of winning the prize by one supreme effort. But
there was, when the second general attack took
place, no such reason to justify the attempt.
There was no need for precipitating matters.
Liaoyang had been fought and Sha-ho won ;
the
auspicious moment had passed, and no addition to
the troops in the north, which might have been
furnished by the besieging army here, could have
materially changed the strategical situation there.
As my account of this event will bear out, the
Japanese were most inadequately prepared for the
attack. They must have known, or ought to have
known, that they were not in a position to make
the attempt. The second general attack on Port
Arthur was undertaken for purely sentimental
reasons ;
and while sentimentality is not of much
use in any circumstances in life, it is absolutely
fatal in the game of war.
The Japanese people were not pleased with
General Nogi. From the armies in the north.
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