The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-12-10
TRIAL lOf GENERALS
GEN. sT0EssEL TO BE COURT
 MARTIALED,
He is Accused of Having surrendered Port Arthur Bef6re He Had Exhausted All Resources
 of Defence.

St. Petefsburg. Dec. 9--The final
 stage ofthe court-martial of Lieuten- ant General stoessel will begin in this city tomorrow.
 l There have been protracted delays in
 taking the testimony in the Far East
 but now this material is In order and
 proceedings will go ahead rapidly. General Stoessei is accused of having
 surrendered the fortress at Port Ar thur before he had exhausted all the resources of defense.
 The punishment, for this, under the
 Russian code, is death. He Is to be
 tried also on the charge of lacking ini- ative and with having exceeded his
 powers. General Fock and General
 Reiss are co-defendants with him. The first is accused of Ewing conspired to- ward the surrender of the fortress and the second with having exceeded the
 order of surrender. General Smirnoff,
 General Stoessels most bitter enemy, IS to be tried on 8 minor count. The court will be composed of nine gen. erals under the. presidency of Vice. Admiral DoubasSff. It will include
 Generals Kuropatkin, Biiderling, My loff and others.
 General Gursky will be Judge Advo-
 cate. General Stoessel will be defend
 ed by Deputy Syrtlanoff and Colonel Vcliamoff - The basis of the indictment is prac- tically identical with that set forth in
 the secret report of the defense of
 Port Arthur, made by General Syrmoff. The trial is exciting the most intense interest in the army circles. General SsQassel Is in pitiable state of excite ment@nd tbs~doctors are apprehensive of the effect upon the veteran officer, who | as suffered two para1ytic strokes since the fall of the fortress. The general said today that he was glad
 that the trial was coming to a close. He expects 10 be fully rehabiIitated. The indictments against Generals Stoessel. Reiss, Fock and Smyrnof are full of sidelights on the final stages of | the siege of the fortress and on the l confusion which existed in the direc- ton of the defense on account of the
 am mbiguous position of General Syr-
 noff. Nominaily this general held the | chief command of the fortress but ac- tually he was supplanted by General Stoessel, who was little more than the mouthpiece of General Fock.
 Before communication with Port Ar thur was finally cut of, General Kuro- patkin; bothl telegraphed and wrote to General Stoessel, instructing him to hand over the command of the fortress
 to General Syrnoff and rejoin the Man
 
 not follow these instructions. On the contrary he remained at Port Arthur and arrogated to himself the supreme authority. General Syrnoff found his hands completely tied. His sugges- tions were ignored. his orders coun-
 sternanded and his subordinates re-
 ceived direct \ orders from General
 Stoessel, without any reference to him.
 self. Much of the evidence at the pre- Iiminary inquiry turned on the allega- tions against General Stoessel of mili-
 tary incapacity, lack of foresight in re- gard to the collection of food supplies
 and failure to make the best uso of his troops by providing them with ade- quate rations.
 Der 2. the food condition was thorough.
 ly canvassed and the first idea of sur- render was formulated in General StoessePs name by General Reiss. chief of staff. This proposal was fejected by I the council. A week lateFs General l Fock was appointed chief of the land ? defenses in succession to General Kon | drakanto who had been killed. Gen | eral Fock is conceded to be responsi- | ble for the evacuation of vitally irn- | portant forts between December l E and | January 1 and the evidence on this
 point is incontrovertible.
 The last military council before the | was fClu Ut HA thoi O'i | the evening of Decepber 29 The | council voted 19 to 3 in favor of hold | ing out to the last extremity. General | Stoessel took no active part in the dis- 1 cussion but General Reiss, who recited
 a number of reasons for surrender, une
 doubtedly spoke in his behalf.
 1 The most sensational part of the in- | dictments relate to the immediate cir | cumstances of the capitulation. On 1 January 1, the day after the evacua- 1 tion of the Eagles Nest and other l points General Stoessel sent Lieutenant 1 Malchenko with letter to General | Nogi, proposing to enter into negotia-
 tions for the surrender of the fortress. | Generals Reiss and Fock appeared to have been the only superior officers | cognizant of General Stoessers fnten- l ton to capitulate. The news of the despatch of this letter. when it came out >three hours iater, caused great i'm
 dignation among the generals and ad-
 mirals Some of them protested by tel
 egram to Admiral Aliexieff and Gen. eral Kuropatkin. Admiral Wiren de-
 nounced General Reiss as traitor. The same day General Stoessel sent his much commented telegram to the Emperor. beginning with the words,
 Great sovereign, forgive us. We. have done everything within human limits. Judge us, but judge us mercifully. General Reiss was given full power by General Stoessel in the final ne- gotiations. Stoessel did not bid alre- we'll to the troops when they marched | out of the fortress after the surrender. l He retained for his own use ten of the eighteen cars placed by the victors at the disposal of the Russian women in | Port Arthur His only solicttude, wit nesses have affirmed, was for his own baggage.
 1t will be the duty of the court
 martial to determine whether the cap | itulation of Port Arthur on January l | was justified according to the Russian military code There were probably | some IT 900 fighting men left at the | time of the surrender. The sick and wounded numbered about 15,00O. There is evidence to prove that in
 the matter of provisions Port Arthur i could easily have held out another | month @nd the reserves for even long, CT than this. The garrison had three
 hundred effective guns when the fort
 ress was surrendered.
 1 "The standpoint talk eh by Generals | Stoessel, Reiss and Fock is that the | fate of Port Arthur was sealed with
 the capture of the Eagles Nest and
 two other positions by khe Japanese l I.,N |. T