The Irish standard., 1904-09-03
Greatest Change Brought About BY til.
Use of Electrical Inventions In
Discharging Mines.
The Russian Fortress Equipped With StonQest
Artillery is Held With Heroic
Resolution.


spects is the great contest now being
waged on the Kwang-Tung Peninsula,
says the New York Herald. There
have been similar operations in which
more troops have been engaged and in
which the losses, both total and pro-
portionately to numbers engaged, were
greater than Port Arthur's death roll
can be reasonably expected to show.
But in no modern war ut least have
any leaders shown such absolute dis
regard for soldiers lives as has mark
ed the policy of the MIikado and his
paladins, and no regular soldiers have
shown any such utter contempt for
death since the fanatical followers of
the Caliphs and the early Sultans
sought an entry to paradise through
the slaughter Of "infidels."
Furthermore, the marvellous i'm
provement in weapons since even the
days of Sebastopol, Vicksburg, Peters,
burg, Strasburg and Belfort would
alone differentiate this siege from all
others. Huge steel rihed guns of great
range, throwing giant shells with high
explosives, have replaced the old iron
smooth bores and mortars; barbed wire
entanglements are more annoying than
the old time abattis and chevaux dc
frisc, and magazine rifles have made
it almost impossible for an assaulting
column to hope ever to reach a defcn-
sive work.
Electrical and chemical inventions
also have made great changes in siege
operations. Heretofore land mines
were uncertain defences. Low DOW
dcred explosives were used to be de-
tonated by concussion or percussion.
They had to be placed so near the
works as to imperil the defenders, they
they might be exploded by the cnemy's
artillery, and seldom were they fired
at the right moment. Now, installed
far from the forts or trenches, filled
with explosives of tremendous energy.
the mine waits till current Of cleo
tricity controlled from a safe distance
is properly applied.
In the great wars of the last cen
tury saps and parallels were dug and
pushed under cover Of darkness Now
powerful lights play over the field of
operations and the besiegers are eX-
posed by night as well as by day to the
fire Of the defence.
In another respect the present con-
test is peculiar. 1t is doubtful if the
outside world will ever get true and
impartial account of the siege.
So far as is known there are no reg
larly attached correspondents Of the
Western press in Port Arthur or with
the japanese investing army. Whether
there are military attaches of other
nations with the Japanese forces is
doubtful. If there are such attaches
present it is not likely that the Japan
csc will permit them to observe the
operations. The United States and
Germany naval attaches have left Port
Arthur, and it is reported that their
opportunities for observation were
limited while in the fortress.
With their customary thoroughness,
there can be no doubt that in due
course, after the war, the Japanese
general staff will issue their own
official account of the operations, from
which the historian may obtain gen.
eral view Of the campaign, and in cold
blood and at leisure may review the
deathrOll in the lists of killed and
wounded. Whenever defeat, however.
overtakes an army, such records are
generally defective In the case of
France, as in that Of the Confederate
armies, the numbers given of the
losses were frequently merely an esti-
mate. So at Port Arthur there have
been no means of verifying the ac-
counts of desperate fighting that have
come from fugitive Cinnamon who
have escaped to Chefoo. Large round
numbers given of Japanese losses in
the assaults upon the forts are obvi-
'o,lsly exaggerated when compared with.