The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-01-12
SOME FAMOUS SIEGES.
EVENTS IN HISTORY WITH
 WHICH
The Fall Of Port Arthur is Com
 parable.

parable.
 The fall of Port Arthur, after siege lasting about eleven months, naturally recalls the famous sieges of world his tory. They all contrast strikingly with this, the first great siege of the twen- ueth century, since modern weapons, modern appliances and all the latest in Eentions of defence and offence have been employed for the first time. The stages of the nineteenth century furnish interesting points of compar- ason, and the more famous wars have all been marked by important invest nents. The sieges of Spanish cities in dhe Peninsular war are the most strik- ing of the Napoleonic era. Saragossa. Badajoz and Burgos were all desperate and bloody, and it is recorded that the French in Badajoz ate even their shoes before they finally succumbed. Sevas- topol, in the Crimean war, was the first great seize in which the Russians par ticipated, and Todleben, who defended that city against the British, French, Turkish and Sardinian troops, by his defence became the most famous mili- tary engineer of his time, and his name will be linked with that of Stoessel is future histories of investments.
 Seyastopol held out for three hundred and thirty-four' days. Its defenders were not captured, but withdrew from the city after destroying all the war ships in the harbor. At the close of the seize the allies had two hundred and twenty-rine thousasd men in the field, and the Russians one hundred and fifteen thousand men. The capture cost the allies ninety-eight thousand, the defenders one hundred and fourteen thousand men, On both sides the loss as a result of disease greatly exceeds that from wounds. The siege of Plev- ma, in the Turko- Russian war, shows the Russians on the offensive, and the prodigal sacrifice of life by them sug- gests comparison with the Japanese ex- penditure of blood before Port Arthur. In single day in this siege the Rus sians lost 13,50O officers and men. The siege lasted one hundred and fourteen days, and the total RusSias loss was forty thousand, against thirty thousand for the Turks, The defence made by Osman Pacha here certainly rivalled that of Todleben at Sevastopol, and it Is an interesting circumstance that the defender of Sevastopol shared with Skobeleff the honor of reducing Plevna.
 The American civil war was marked, by two desperate sieges-those of Vicks- burg and Richmond Tn a single as sault at Vicksburg Grant lost over four thousand men. The rebel stronghold held out for two hundred and thirteen days, and surrendered, not as result Of assault, but of starvation. Consequent ly the losses on both sides were compar- atively mall; that of the rebels was seventeen thousand, while the Union soldiers lost nine thousand. The siege of Richmond was a much more pro longed and desperate struggle It last ed three hundred and forty days from the time the, Union army appeared south of the Apponattox, before Peters burg, until the capture of Five Forks forced the evacuation. The Union army never fell below one hundred and twenty thousand men, while that of the. rebels never rose much above sixty thousand. The Union losses -aggrega- ted eigfty-seyen thousand, the Confed- crate SlXLyE InOuSdlfU.s WHltS tLlO Sits was evacuated, the rebel army failed to escape and surrendered a few days af- ter the evacuation.
 The F'ranco-Prussiam war was marked by two memorable investments, that of Metz and that of Paris, the latter the greatest siege in the mere detail of the size and importance of the place be- sieged since the days when Rome was invested by the northern hordes. The siege of Metz was exceedingly brief, but at the fall of the city the French sur rendered three marshals, twenty gene rals, three thousand officers asd one hundred and seventy-three thousand men, five hundred field pieces and eight hundred fortress guns. This was the greatest surrender of modern history. For his conduct in the defence of the city the French commander, Marshal Bazaine, was condemned to death His surrender practically eliminated the regular French army from the conflict. ' The siegeiof Paris in vastness of scope exceeds anything in modern history-a capital city, containing two million peo-- pie and defended by over three hundred thousand troops, largely raw levies to be sure, held out from September l9 to January 2s and yielded only when star