The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-10
DECEIVED BY KUROPATKIN StOeSSel Expected Army
 of Relief. SURPRISED BY WAR NEWS Port Arthur'S Defender Highly
 Praises Japanese. Says Russia Underrated the Bravery and skill of Their Adversaries
 and This Caused the (
 War Now Raging.
SURPRISED BY WAR NEWS

Headquarters or the lnirQ Jdpahese
 Army at Port Arthur. Jan. [. Via Tien Tsin, Jan. 9.-Captain Tsunoda, the
 Japanese stan ofhcer who was sent to
 Port Arthur to inform General Stoes-
 sel of the contents of the message of
 the Emperor of Japan, saying that the
 garrison should be treated with the
 greatest consideration, gives the fol- lowing statement
 General Stoessels first inquiry was
 about the whereabouts of General Ku-
 ropatkin. said I did not know ex- actly, but understood he was some- where about Mukden.
 "General Stoessel remarked that he
 had last heard from General Kufopat- kin October 6. saying he would come to relieve Port Arthur soon. General Stoessel added that he had sent out Chinese spies who returned and re-
 ported that General Kuropatkin with a relieving army was at Kinchou, twenty miles north of Port Arthur. Surprised by Developments. General Stossel was plainly incred-
 ulous at my statement that General Kuropatkin had been defeated and driven back towards Mukden, so pro-
 duced maps showing him the position of the two armies near the Shakhe
 River and gave Stoessel details of
 Kuropatkin's defeat with the loss of 50.000 to 60,000 men at which the Rus
 sian general expressed amazement and quickly remarked that he had been misled.
 General Stoessel then asked where the Baltic fleet was and I told him some of the ships had not passed the Cape of Good Hope.
 with a hopeless expression General
 stoessel said: Now that Port Arthur
 has fallen there is no use for the fleet coming any further
 T then asked General Stoessel what had caused the most damage to the garrison during the siege and he re- piled:
 "'Your 11-inch howitzers. After they arrived our defensive work be- came useless"
 Fought With Japanese. General Stoessel then pointed out latiht he and Admiral AIexeiff had been through the boxer trouble and had seen | the work of the Japanese army. Gen era1 stoessel also said he had been as- | sociated with the Japanese Generals Yamaguchi and Fukishama at the time and expressed the opinion that the Rus sian and Japanese forces had borne the Hons share of the war. Since then he had a high idea of the organization and fighting qualities of the Japanese l army.
 "'The real cause for tho war. was, In General Stoessels opinion, the ignor-
 ance of the Russian people of the fight ing qualities of the Japanese. The
 first attack on Port Arthur in February by the Japanese fleet was a tremend- ous surprise. The forts, he explained,
 were only partly garrisoned by 2,000 troops.
 At this point General Stoessel said he had always opposed the scheme of Governor Sakerhoff of Port Dalny in spending money in building up Port Dalny instead of finishing the defences | of Port Arthur. Sakerhoff, who was an engineer officer died of dysentery during the siege.
 Continuing, General Stoesse1 praised
 the ingenuity, pluck and patience of the Japanese infantry, especially mak- | Ing the siege parallels and trenches to the forts.
 Japs' Artillery Practice. Referring to the artillery, General StoesseI said at first he did not think | the artillery practice good, but he was
 soon compelled to recognize how good | it was General Krontedako and a company of engineers, General Stoessel pointed out, were killed in North Neck
 wan fort by a Japanese shell just prior | to the explosion of December IS. Gen. eral Stoessel felt their loss greatly, as
 Krontedako was a clever engineer. General Stoessel further said that
 he had served his Emperor in three
 wars and had been thrice wounded, first
 in the RussianT Turkish war. the sec ond in the Boxer trouble, and the third at Port Arthur. Now he felt he had
 earned the right to return to Russia
 to live fin his old age with his family. The General added he was taking home with him five children of officers who
 had been killed during the siege.
 After his conference with General
 Nogi. General Stoessel expressed grat-
 iicatlon at meeting so pleasant a gem
 tleman. He had not expected the con-
 siderate treatment accorded him. Gen.
 eral Nogi appeared to General Stoessel
 as an old friend rather than as the
 commander of an army which had
 forced him to surrender" ."