Defense port arthur battery electric cliff. Views of Port Arthur and adjacent water areas. But the caponiers remained with the Russian-Japanese

While traveling around Port Arthur, when we were looking for a way to the Electric Cliff, we came across a submarine off the coast of the Yellow Sea, which the Chinese were clearly preparing for museumification (they were attaching gangways to it at the entrance and exit, and equipping a swimming pool). What kind of story does she have, why exactly this - I don’t know; maybe someone can explain. Below are small travel sketches from that place and the surrounding area.

2. We started there from someone already familiar to you. We drive towards the sea, skirting the Eastern Basin and the dry dock.

3. Having gone around the docks, we go down to the Yellow Sea.

4. There is a submarine ahead, installed in a pool fenced on all sides. At the entrance there is a typical Chinese gate in an industrial area, with numerous hieroglyphs on top and on the sides. And traditional colored flags.

5. We go around the boat basin on the right and approach almost to the shore. Here it is, the Yellow Sea. At this place I went to the water and ritually washed my hands in it. So, a new sea in my collection :-) To the right, beyond the border of the frame is the cliff of the Electric Cliff, literally 100 meters from me. But for some reason none of us took a picture of it from here.

6. For clarity, here is a diagram that clearly shows where the submarine is located (blue stripe) and where I reached the Yellow Sea (red circle). Arrows are our way out of the city, around the dock area. To the west is the Electric Cliff, on which Battery No. 15 is located, where the father of the writer Stepanov, the author of Port Arthur, served. Next rises the Golden Mountain hill, on the top of which is Battery No. 13. Golden Mountain is the whole military zone, you can't get there. And it was possible to get to the 15th battery on foot, as she said yablonka , but we were confused by some private mansions and barriers on the road leading there. In general, they lost their way and didn’t get there - despite the fact that there were only 300 meters left to reach it in a straight line. There was a cliff face right next to the coastline, and no paths were visible.

7. Our path, superimposed on the map of military operations in 1904. As you can see, those places at the time of the defense of the fortress were stuffed with coastal artillery positions.

8. After looking at the cliff, we return to the submarine.

9. At the time of our visit, the construction work was in full swing: the hard workers didn’t even look back at us.

10. The bow of the hull and wheelhouse.

11. Let's go back. Having risen, we cross the saddle and run into the docks and slipways of the Eastern Basin. The road to the right - to the Old City, to the left - runs along the shore at the foot of the Golden Mountain, and will lead us to the Chinese military, to a dead end. In the distance, workers are marching in formation.

12. The same view, but from the other side and 110 years ago (1903). At that time, Russian warships of the Pacific Fleet were being repaired at the docks. Photo No. 11 (previous) was taken from the other side of the pool, in a place slightly to the right of the high pipe - where the slope of the Golden Mountain begins.

Construction of a naval base and fortress in Port Arthur

At the time of the Russian capture, Port Arthur was a small Chinese city with a population of about 4 thousand people. These Chinatowns were later called Old Town. The Russian administration and troops were initially housed in Chinese administrative buildings, barracks and residential buildings abandoned by their inhabitants.

Thanks to the Russians, the civilian population of Port Arthur began to grow and by the beginning of the war there were already 15 thousand Russians and at least 35 thousand Chinese.

Near the Old Town in 1901 a Russian New city. The names of its streets differed little from the names of streets in the cities of European Russia - Morskaya, Pushkinskaya, Bulvarnaya, etc. The port and city were illuminated by the central port power plant. Port Arthur published its own newspaper, “Novy Krai,” almost until the very end of the defense.

The shallow harbor of Port Arthur began to be deepened by the Chinese, who built the artificial Eastern Pool, which could accommodate up to a dozen medium-sized ships. In 1901, the deepening of the Western Basin, intended for battleships, began, but by the beginning of the war this work, like the construction of a new dry dock, had not been completed.

The estimate for the construction of a naval port was presented to Nicholas II in 1899. About 14 million rubles were required for deepening the harbor, purchasing a dredging caravan, constructing moles, establishing a port area, etc., but only 11 million were allocated. Work began only in 1901 and were divided into two stages. The completion of only the first stage was expected in 1909. Therefore, by the beginning of the war, Port Arthur had neither docks for large ships, nor an in-depth roadstead, and the construction of breakwaters for the outer roadstead had not even begun.

The port commander, Rear Admiral Greve, wrote in this regard: “Time passed mainly in various discussions and theoretical considerations, without final decisions and a real start to the rapid implementation of the planned plan. As a result, after four years of ownership of Port Arthur, almost nothing or very little was done there on the construction of the admiralty and port, and only about a year before the war, work on the construction of the port took on a more intensive character.” .

Thus, for the needs of the military port, only a fleet of dredges (5 dredges and 9 tugs) was created, with the help of which work began on deepening the internal roadstead and digging a pit for a new dock for battleships in the southern part of the Eastern Basin.

Reserves of Cardiff (English) and Chinese coal (35 thousand tons) were also created - the main fuel for ships.

The Russians restored the ship repair plant destroyed by the Japanese in 1895, where repairs of large ships of the squadron could now be carried out - replacement of fireboxes and boilers, steam engine cylinders, propellers, alignment and installation of propeller shafts; Spare parts and mechanisms were also manufactured there.

The Naval Ministry decided at the end of 1898 to begin assembling destroyers in Port Arthur, which were being built in St. Petersburg at the Nevsky and Izhora factories. Some of the Sokol-class destroyers were made dismountable by these factories, so that their finished sections could be delivered by steamship to the Far East.

According to the plan, it was planned to send 5 destroyers to Port Arthur in 1899 and 4 in 1900, with the last one no later than August. The deadline for their delivery in Port Arthur was set after five months from the date of unloading. But later it was decided to make not 9, but 7 collapsible destroyers.

However, due to the fault of the bureaucrats of the Maritime Department, the deadlines for the delivery of the destroyers were missed. Only towards the end of 1899 was the hull of the first of the destroyers built at the Nevsky Plant, as well as the hulls of three “Izhora” destroyers, sent on the steamship “Normania”. During 1900, the hulls of the remaining destroyers of the Nevsky plant, as well as mechanisms, boilers and other equipment, were sent to Port Arthur on the ships “Vladimir Savin”, “Eduard Bari”, “Malaya”, “Annam” and “Dagmar”.

At the beginning of 1900, construction began on a covered boathouse on the Tiger Tail Peninsula, designed for the simultaneous assembly of three destroyers at once, but full-scale work began only in October. On December 30, GUKiS entered into an agreement with the Nevsky Plant for its workers to assemble three “Izhora” destroyers. March 5, 1901 began preparatory work, and on April 11, the official laying of the first of the ships, the Cormorant, took place, renamed a few days later to the Condor. First of all, the destroyers of the Nevsky plant were assembled, delivered in better condition and in greater completeness.

The launch of the Condor took place three and a half months after laying, and on the remaining ships the work progressed extremely slowly, since parts of the hulls and mechanisms became covered with rust during transportation by sea and open-air storage in Port Arthur, which was difficult to remove. more than 122 thousand rubles were spent. The assembly of destroyers at the Izhora plant was considered “new construction,” since some parts were either hopelessly damaged or were missing altogether and had to be manufactured on site.

Testing of the Condor began in October 1901 and continued until the summer of 1902. The greatest average speed with significant machine vibration, it reached only 25.75 knots. But, despite this, on July 5, permission was given to accept the destroyer “in order to avoid damage to the boilers.”

In 1902, two more destroyers of the Nevsky plant were tested, and in 1903, three “Neva” and three “Izhora” ships were tested. The last three surrendered after the Japanese attack on Port Arthur: “Terrible” - February 20, “Stroyny” - March 1, “Statny” - July 14, 1904.

Needless to say, the most important thing in Port Arthur was to be the construction of a powerful sea and land fortress, since the Liaodong Peninsula was a piece of Russian territory surrounded by hostile states.

A few words should be said about geographical location Port Arthur. The city and port are located in a basin surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges rising 175–210 m above sea level.

The terrain in the Port Arthur area is mountainous, very rugged, with a large number of deep ravines, steep slopes and cliffs, creating a lot of dead spaces when shooting. The highest mountains in this area are the Liaoteshan Mountains, reaching 465 m above sea level. From their peaks a wide panorama opens towards the sea and land for many kilometers. In addition to Liaoteshan, the dominant heights on the coastal and land fronts were also Bolshaya Gora, Dagushan, Bezymyannaya, Uglovaya and Vysokaya, from which Port Arthur and the approaches closest to it were clearly visible.

At a distance of 10–12 km from Port Arthur, the approaches to the city from the northeast are covered by the Wolf Mountains mountain range. The height of its peaks reaches 200–240 m above sea level. The Wolf Mountains represented an advantageous natural defensive position, since the northern and eastern slopes were steep and, in some places, precipitous, and mastering them presented great difficulties for the attackers. At the same time, with their capture, the enemy could control the northern approaches to Port Arthur. Therefore, the defense of the Wolf Mountains was urgently necessary.

On the distant approaches to the fortress, the Nangalinsky, Tafashinsky and Jinzhou ridges were important for its defense. Gradually descending towards the city of Jinzhou, all the ridges cross the Kwantung Peninsula, making access to Port Arthur difficult in the event of an amphibious landing and an enemy attack from land.

The Tafashi Heights, which cross the narrow isthmus of the peninsula from northwest to southeast, deserved the greatest tactical attention. Ridges of heights with an excess of 46 to 90 m above sea level abruptly end off the coast, thereby creating difficulties in bypassing them from the flanks. The northeastern slopes gradually decrease towards the valley, due to which dead spaces do not form when shooting. The terrain ahead was clearly visible from the heights and was under fire from machine guns and artillery. The opposite slopes of the heights are also sloping and descend into a vast valley, which made it possible to carry out a hidden concentration of troops and conveniently locate artillery firing positions, as well as its rear units. The installation of batteries in the Dalny area, on the Talienvan Peninsula and the left flank of the position, as well as mining of the bays, significantly reduced the danger of amphibious landings and shelling of Russian troops by enemy naval artillery.

The Jinzhou Hills also provided an advantageous defensive position. However, such disadvantages as their visibility from Mount Samson, the possibility of shelling the rear of the position from the sea and the lack of fresh water, to a certain extent reduced its tactical advantages.

Along with tactical benefits, the Kwantung mountain ranges also presented a number of difficulties to the defenders. In particular, due to the mountainous nature of the terrain, the possibilities of establishing communication routes on the Kwantung Peninsula were limited. The main communication linking Port Arthur with Harbin was the southern section of the Manchurian Railway with branches from Tafashin station to the city of Talienwan and from Nangalin station to the city of Dalniy. Among the dirt roads of Kwantung, important communications were such as the Mandarin Highway, which connected Port Arthur with Pulandyan, as well as the Middle Arthur and South Coast roads leading from Port Arthur to Dalne. It should be noted that during the summer rains, dirt roads became impassable.

When characterizing the terrain, one should keep in mind one more feature, the importance of which was that, despite the relatively large length of the coastline of the Kwantung Peninsula, there were few places for large amphibious landings. More convenient landing points were the areas of Bitszyvo, Talienvan, Dalniy and Port Arthur.

Consequently, due to its topography, the terrain on the near and distant approaches to Port Arthur was advantageous for creating a strong defense. With regard to the combat use of artillery, the terrain, on the one hand, provided great convenience, but on the other, created a number of difficulties in its use.

The presence of a number of command heights made it possible to carry out, with relatively small forces and means, careful observation of the enemy’s actions, thanks to which a surprise enemy attack could be prevented both from land and sea. On the reverse slopes of the heights, it was possible to equip durable long-term structures for coastal and fortress artillery, hidden from enemy observation.

Alas, the War Department hesitated too long before starting construction of the fortress. By October 1898, the garrison of Port Arthur was still small and consisted of the 3rd East Siberian Rifle Brigade (4 two-battalion regiments), 6 companies of fortress artillery, the East Siberian Artillery Division (24 guns), 4 hundred Cossacks and 1 sapper company. The garrison was entrusted with the task of not only guarding Port Arthur, but also monitoring important objects on the Kwantung Peninsula. Therefore, parts of the garrison did not have the opportunity to conduct a wide front of engineering work. This also explains the slow armament of the fortress with artillery.

At the beginning of 1898, a local commission was created in Port Arthur to develop a project for coastal and land fortifications of Port Arthur. In her opinion, the first thing to do was to use some of the old Chinese coastal batteries, improve them and properly arm them, and then gradually replace these batteries with new ones. As for the land front, it was considered necessary to move the line of forts of the designed fortress to the Wolf Mountains, about eight kilometers from the outskirts of the Old City.

However, the Military Department rejected the project, and in October 1898 a new commission was sent from St. Petersburg to Port Arthur, chaired by General Kononovich-Gorbatsky.

But even before the commission left, on September 17, 1898, the Highest Order was issued, according to which, even before the final plan for the naval fortress in Port Arthur was drawn up, 189 guns of the Military Department were temporarily assigned there.

Of these guns, 133 were intended for coastal fortifications. Among them were:

10-inch (254/45 mm) guns - 5;

9-inch (229 mm) guns mod. 1867 - 12;

6/45-inch Kane guns - 10;

6-inch guns of 190 pounds - 28;

57-mm Nordenfeld coastal guns - 28;

battery (107 mm) guns - 8;

11-inch (280 mm) mortars mod. 1877 - 10;

9-inch mortars mod. 1877 - 10.

56 guns were intended for land fortifications:

42-linear (107 mm) guns mod. 1877 - 18;

light (87 mm) guns - 24;

6-inch (152 mm) field mortars - 6;

3-line (7.62 mm) Maxim machine guns - 8.

As you can see, out of 133 coastal guns, only 10/45-inch and 6/45-inch guns were modern guns capable of harming the Japanese fleet, not to mention the English, and even then with shells filled with powerful explosives - pyroxylin, melinite, etc.

The remaining guns could only be used effectively on the land front, but again with the availability of appropriate shells. The exception was the completely useless 57-mm Nordenfeld coastal guns; they were of no use either on land or at sea.

All these guns were supposed to be delivered to Port Arthur within three years, from 1898 to 1900

In 1898 the following were to be sent for coastal fortifications:

12 - 9-inch guns mod. 1867. Of these, 6 guns were taken from the Emergency Reserve in Odessa, 4 from the Sevastopol Fortress and 2 from the Kerch Fortress. But for these ancient guns, brand new Durlyakher machines with an elevation angle of 45° were taken from the St. Petersburg warehouse (6 machines were made for the Libau fortress and 6 for Kronstadt);

28 - 6-inch guns, 190 pounds. Of these, 4 were taken from the Ochakov Fortress, 4 from the Vladivostok Fortress and 20 from the Special Reserve in Odessa;

28 - 57 mm Nordenfeld coastal guns. Of these, 14 were taken from the Special Reserve in Odessa, 10 from the Sevastopol Fortress and 4 from Vladivostok;

8 battery guns were taken from the Special Reserve in Odessa;

32 mortars mod. 1877 were taken from the Special Reserve in Odessa.

For land fortifications in 1898 the following were to be delivered:

18 - 42-line guns mod. 1877. For this purpose, 6 guns were taken from separate siege parks in Dvinsk, Brest-Litovsk and Kyiv;

24 light guns were taken from the fortresses - Kovno (12), Novogeorgievsk (6) and the Alexander Citadel in Warsaw (6);

6 - 6-inch mortars were taken from the Novogeorgievsk fortress.

In 1899 the following were to be sent to Port Arthur:

10 - 6/45-inch Cane guns, including 6 from the Special Reserve in Odessa and 4 from those ordered for the Vladivostok fortress;

10 - 11-inch mortars mod. 1877 on Durlyakher carriages from those made for the Kronstadt Fortress.

In 1900 the following were to be sent to Port Arthur:

5 - 10/45-inch guns, of which 4 were ordered for the Vladivostok fortress and 1 for the Kronstadt fortress.

It’s not for nothing that the author cites these seemingly boring lists of weapons. From them it becomes clear how the artillery of the Port Arthur fortress was assembled “from the woods to the pine trees”. But it was known that the 9-inch guns mod. 1867 were outdated back in 1877. And the 9-inch (228 mm) caliber was weak for fighting battleships, and there was practically no chance of hitting a maneuvering cruiser with them (even on Durlyacher’s machines). Rhetorical question: why drag unnecessary heavy guns and machine tools far away and even build expensive coastal batteries for them?

I note that this is not the only case criminal, there is no other word for it, the activities of our generals. For example, in 1897–1898. Eight 8-inch guns mod. were sent from the Odessa branch of the Emergency Reserve to arm Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. 1867

Such guns, unsuitable even for land batteries, were to be sent from Odessa for scrap or to a museum. These guns were dangerous only for their own servants, but not for the enemy.

As for coastal mortars, by the beginning of the 20th century. the class of such weapons itself became useless. 9–11-inch mortars could only effectively hit large ships at anchor, and even then after a long period of shelling. Firing at maneuvering ships was a waste of shells.

Please note that a significant part of modern guns was sent to Port Arthur from Vladivostok, i.e. the Military Department was simply patching up the “Trishkin caftan” in the Far East.

It was impossible for Khlestakov on the throne and the Khlestakovs in the Military and Naval Departments to understand that, having gotten involved in a serious game in Manchuria, there was nothing to think about capturing the Bosporus for at least 20 years, not to mention the Libau adventure. If the funds allocated from 1898 to 1904 for Libau and the Special Reserve had been spent on the construction of the Port Arthur fortress, then it really could have become impregnable.

But let’s return to the new commission of the Military Department, sent in October 1898 to Port Arthur. Under the leadership of General Kononovich-Gorbatsky, a new fortress project was developed. When drawing up the project, the commission proceeded from the fact that, due to the remoteness of Port Arthur, communication with Russia by sea could be interrupted in the very first days of the war, and assistance from land could be provided only four months later. Therefore, the commission pointed out the need to have a fortress “with a solid fortification and a strong garrison that could withstand a long siege by superior enemy forces” .

According to the well-founded conclusions of the commission, the construction and armament of 22 batteries was planned on the coastal front. In its project, the commission paid special attention to the construction of defensive structures of the land front, the line of which was supposed to run along the heights of Xiaogushan, Dagushan, Uglovaya, Vysokaya and Solyanaya. To arm the fortifications and batteries of the coastal and land fronts, it was planned to deliver 593 cannons and 52 mortars, which were to be serviced by fortress artillery battalions. The fortress garrison was to consist of 20 infantry battalions. At the same time, the 70-kilometer land front had to be defended by 528 guns and 70,000 troops.

The War Ministry rejected this project, explaining this by allegedly too large requirements for the number of garrisons, artillery armament and the construction of fortifications. Minister of War Kuropatkin decided to build only a few forts on the land front, impregnable "to attack with open force" .

The “special meeting” was of the same opinion, in which representatives of the Diplomatic, Financial and Military departments took part. The meeting decided to minimize the costs of defending Port Arthur, and to carry out the work in such a way as to “not irritate” the enemy, taking into account “the impressionability of foreigners in general and the Japanese in particular” .

In essence, the demands of the Minister of War and the “special meeting” boiled down to excluding in advance the possibility of a long-term defense of Port Arthur. At the meeting it was established that the garrison of Port Arthur should not exceed 11.3 thousand people. Based on this, it was planned to reduce the perimeter of the fortress with the exclusion of a number of command heights from the defense plan.

These erroneous considerations should have guided the newly created commission chaired by Colonel K.I. Velichko.

In the summer of 1899, Velichko arrived in Port Arthur with a new commission and in the same year drew up his design for the fortress. Velichko believed that he had created the ideal project for the area. “Similar relief, soil and surface features, he wrote, never met in any of our fortresses". According to the design, the land defense line would extend along the heights of Drakensberg Ridge, to the heights in front of Cemetery Mountain, to Jagged Mountain, to the heights of Sanshugou Village, to Woodcock Hill, to the heights at the southern corner of the Western Basin and to White Wolf Mountain, a total of about 19 km. In 1900, this project was approved.

The center of the arc along which the forts of the land defense line of the fortress were located was the entrance to the inner roadstead at the tip of the so-called Tiger Tail, and the radius of this arc was about 4 km. The arc of the fort line went around the inner basin, bypassing the Liaoteshan mountain range, and closed with an 8.5-kilometer coastal position in the form of an obtuse reentrant angle of about 12°.

In addition to the main defensive line, which consisted of forts, intermediate fortifications, batteries and redoubts, it was also envisaged that the Old City and the Eastern Basin would be surrounded by a continuous central fence consisting of temporary strongholds at command posts and broken lines connecting them - curtains of cremalier, bastion and polygonal outlines - in in the form of a rampart with a ditch, having a steep counter-scarp and flank defense, partly open, and partly from flanking buildings.

First of all, it was planned to build the main defensive line. But since this line had obvious shortcomings caused by economic considerations, various advanced buildings and positions were secondarily provided, for example on Mount Dagushan and in front of the northwestern corner of the fortress.

On the coastal front, Velichko designed the construction of 25 coastal batteries, which were to be located in three groups: the Tiger Peninsula group, the Golden Mountain and Plosky Cape group, and the Cross Mountain group. In addition, a separate battery was envisaged on Perepelochnaya Mountain. All coastal batteries were equipped with 124 guns, including 10/45-inch, 152/45-mm Cane, 6-inch 190-pound guns, 57-mm Nordenfeld and battery guns, as well as 11- and 9-inch mortars.

On the land front, it was planned to build 8 forts, 9 fortifications, 6 long-term batteries and 8 redoubts. In total, Port Arthur was planned to have 542 guns and 48 machine guns to arm long-term structures and batteries. The construction of the fortress was to be carried out in two stages and completed by 1909.

The commission’s draft did not include the Xiaogushan, Dagushan, Uglovaya and Vysokaya heights in the defensive line, however, on Velichko’s initiative, it was envisaged the creation of forward strongholds armed with artillery there. In his report, Velichko made the absolutely correct conclusion that when defending Port Arthur from land, the main attention should be paid to the defense of Talienwan Bay, the Dalniy port and the Jinzhou Isthmus. Having created a strong defense there, it would be possible to abandon the construction of an extensive land fortress in Port Arthur and limit ourselves to the construction of only a number of long-term structures at commanding heights. However, these important conclusions of Velichko were not taken into account when the tsar reviewed the project. The fortress plan he approved on January 18, 1900 had a number of significant shortcomings.

First of all, the plan was based on the idea of ​​​​creating defensive structures depending on the size of the garrison located there in peacetime. The favorable terrain conditions on the distant approaches were not taken into account, where there were a number of natural positions, where even field structures and the installation of the required amount of artillery could inflict significant losses on the enemy and facilitate the defense of Port Arthur.

The creation of a defensive line only on the heights closest to the city was one of the reasons for the insufficiently stable defense of Port Arthur. When approaching the fortifications, the enemy had the opportunity to hit important defensive objects, artillery batteries of the fortress and squadron ships in the internal roadstead with concentrated fire from both heavy and light guns. The capture of at least one of the command heights of the defensive line allowed the enemy to conduct observation and thereby increase the fire impact on the squadron and batteries by conducting targeted fire from their artillery.

The cost of all engineering buildings was 7.5 million rubles, the material part cost almost the same, and in total 15 million rubles were required for the construction of the Port Arthur fortress.

Although Velichko’s project was approved only in 1900, work began somewhat earlier. But since cash were released in small portions, the work was divided into three stages, with the expectation of completing the construction of the fortress in 1909. Before the start of the Russo-Japanese War, a total of about 4,250 thousand rubles were allocated for the construction of the fortress, i.e. less than a third of what is needed. Therefore, by 1904, a little more than half of all work had been completed in the fortress. The coastal front was in the greatest degree of readiness: 21 batteries and 2 powder magazines were erected there, and half of the buildings were in finished form. On the land front, by the beginning of the war, only 1 fort was completed - No. IV, 2 fortifications (4th and 5th), 3 batteries (letters A, B and C) and 2 food cellars. All other structures were either not completed or their construction had not even begun. Forts No. II and No. III, as well as the temporary 3rd fortification, remained unfinished, but were of primary importance in the defense of the fortress (since they were under a land attack).

The design of the Port Arthur forts was carried out on the basis of a certificate issued by the Asian part of the General Staff, according to which the Japanese assumed the absence of artillery with a caliber of over 15 cm. Therefore, for economic reasons, the thickness of the concrete vaults of casemated buildings adopted by the Engineering Department at that time was 1.5–1.8- 2.4 m were reduced by 0.3 m. But for the same economic reasons, the local Port Arthur authorities allowed military engineers to reduce the thickness of the vaults by another 0.3 m, and in some places by 0.6 m. And as a result, on the most important fortifications that were subjected to heavy bombardment, the thickness of the vaults in residential barracks and other important defense facilities was only 0.91 m. There were also complaints about the quality of concrete, but the competent commission recognized the injustice of these complaints. However, in any case, the 91-centimeter vaults could withstand shells of no more than 15-cm caliber.

The journal of the fortress armament commission No. 351 dated February 15, 1900 assigned the following artillery armament for the land front of the Port Arthur fortress.

The journal of the GAU Artillery Committee No. 518 dated October 7, 1902 ordered the use of captured Chinese cannons for the defense of the Liaodong Peninsula. “To arm the “outpost position” on the Jin-Zhou Isthmus and near the city of Dalniy, guns from military booty were assigned, a total of 59 guns made f. Krupp." Among them were:

1 - 24/35-cm/club with 150 rounds of ammunition;

2 - 21/35-cm/klb with 150 rounds of ammunition;

3 - 15/40-cm/club cartridge loading;

3 - 15/25-cm/klb;

2 - 15 cm arr. 1877;

4 - 12/35 cm/club cartridge loading;

16 - 87 mm siege cartridge loading;

28 - 87 mm field.

Despite the resolution of the Argkom, the bureaucrats from the GAU did not want to deal with Chinese guns, which before 1904 were quite formidable weapons. They wrote idiotic notes such as that one Chinese gun should be delivered to the Main Artillery Range (GAP) near St. Petersburg, tested there, technical descriptions, firing tables, etc. must be drawn up. etc. and then put on fortifications. Needless to say, the delivery of 8 guns from Port Arthur to St. Petersburg to Okhta and testing them there would have taken at least two years and would have cost tens of thousands of rubles. It would be much easier to send GAP specialists to Port Arthur and test the guns on site. But, alas, our Okhten heroes were too lazy to leave the capital “to hell with the middle of nowhere.” Finally, it was possible to request the Krupp company, where not a single gun left the factory without thorough testing. Relations with Germany 1900–1903 were good, and within a week the GAU would have received all necessary information. As a result, the Chinese guns were never put in order by the beginning of the war.

Just before the start of the war, the Journal of the Commission on Armament of Fortresses dated December 12, 1903 defined a new “normal armament” for the Port Arthur fortress.

On the coastal fortifications they were supposed to install: 14 - 10/45-inch guns, 12 - 9-inch guns mod. 1867, 20 - 152/45-mm Cane guns, 4 - 6-inch 190-pound guns, 8 - battery guns, 9 - light guns, 28 - 57-mm Nordenfeld coastal guns, 10 - 11-inch mortars . 1877 and 27 - 9-inch mortars mod. 1877

The following were to be installed on the land fortifications: thirty-nine 6-inch guns of 190 pounds, thirty-eight 6-inch guns of 120 pounds, twenty-four 42-line guns mod. 1877, four battery guns, eighty-eight 57 mm Nordenfeld caponier guns, fifty-one pedestal light field guns (for caponiers) and one hundred sixty-six 6-inch field mortars, twenty 1/2-pound mortars, sixteen 7.62 -mm machine guns for caponiers, thirty-two 7.62-mm anti-assault machine guns (on high wheeled machines).

However, it was not possible to arm Port Arthur even according to such a report card. The most difficult situation arose with 10/45-inch guns, which were manufactured only at the Obukhov Steel Plant. The first five 10-inch guns were ordered to the plant on October 28, 1896, and according to the contract, the first gun was to be delivered within 12 months. However, after failures in testing the ship's 10/45-inch guns, the GAU decided to strengthen the barrel and on March 16, 1898, sent a new drawing of a 10/45-inch gun. Thus, by the grace of the GAU, the order remained idle for almost a year and a half. As a result, the first 10-inch gun was delivered by the plant in May 1899.

By 26 February 1901 the first three 10-inch guns were ready, and the remaining two were due to be ready in the winter of 1901/02. The first cannon was sent to the GAP, and the other two in the summer of 1902 were loaded onto the steamship Korea, en route to Port Arthur.

By the end of 1902, the plant began to deliver three 10-inch guns per month, and by the beginning of the war Port Arthur could well have received all fourteen 10-inch guns according to the report card, if they had not been sent to Libau and Kronstadt. As already mentioned, Libau was an absolutely unnecessary fortress, and no one even thought of threatening Kronstadt in 1902–1904, not to mention the fact that it was already too strongly fortified. To transport 10-inch guns, other steamships could be used besides the Korea.

Well, let’s say, mass production of 10-inch guns was just beginning and they were relatively expensive (the body of one gun cost 55,100 rubles), but the question arises: why did the Military Department treat the ground defense of Port Arthur so disgracefully?

Light field guns were removed in 1901–1903. from weapons, and there were a dime a dozen of them, but they were never delivered to Port Arthur. Instead of 217 light guns, there were only 146 of them! Even 20 1/2-pound smoothbore mortars mod. 1838. But hundreds of such mortars were stored in the fortresses and warehouses of European Russia. There is no doubt that these weapons are ancient and not very effective, but our wise generals did not accept anything else. (Let's remember the long-suffering 34-line mortar!) And taking into account the terrain, 1/2-pound mortars would have played a significant role in the defense of Port Arthur. And only after the start of the war, 1/2-pound mortars began to be sent from European Russia to Manchuria. So, in 1904, 25 such mortars were sent from the Kerch fortress to the Far East.

As for the caponier 7.62-mm Maxim machine guns, by 1904 they were not even available in prototypes. Several prototypes of the General Fabricius and other designs were tested between 1905 and 1911, but none were accepted into service. The stupidity of Russian generals is incomprehensible - any engineer can create a machine-gun pedestal machine for a caponier, and in order to design an armored cap with a machine gun, you also don’t need to be a genius.

As a result, at enormous expense, Russia received a fortress that was not ready to fight an enemy who had modern artillery.