Show S I BADLY IN ERROR e Thought Kuropatkin Was Corn Com Coming ing to His Relief ASKED AFTER BALTIC FLEET I I GREATLY SURPRISED WHEN HE HELE LE LEARNED NED THE TRUTH p Hea quarters o of the Third Japanese Army at Port Atthur Jan 1 Ties Tsin Tam Jan a atho the tho Japanese staff r who waS wa sent to Port Arthur to inform General Stoe sel Sd of the contents or of the message of the emperor ot of Japan that hut the Son Sn should be treated with the great groat est eat consideration says General first inquiry w was s about the whereabouts of General Ku I said I dl did riot not know exact eart Iy 13 hut but understood he was somewhere about General remarked that he had last h uld from General Kuropat kin Oct G 6 saying h he would come to re lieve Pot Pott Arthur soon General sel sd added that ho had sent cut Chinese spies who returned and reported that General Kuropatkin with a relieving army was at twenty miles north of Port Arthur Stoessel Was Amazed General Stoessel was plainly at my mJ statement that General had been defeated and driven back toward Mukden so I pia maps him the I positIon on or of the two armies near the ii el ei and gave gae him details of kins defeat with the loss Joss of oC to men at which the HU gen eral expressed amazement and an remarked that he Jad lad misled General Stoessel el then asked the Baltic fleet was and I told him that some of the ships had not the Cape of Hope With n a hopeless ion General Stoessel said Nou ow that Port A Arthur ur has fallen there Is no use for the coming coining any further r I then asked General Stoessel what had bad caused the most d mage to the garrison during the siege Riege and he re plied Your howitzers After they arrived our defense works became useless Knew the General Stoessel then pointed out that he and Admiral Ir had been through the Boxer trouble dud had s the work of the Japanese army G n nural ural raI Stoessel also said lie he had been as sedated with the Japanese e generals Yamaguchi and Fukushima at t that time expressed tho th that the Russian and Japanese forc s h had p borne the lions share of the work Since then he had a hIgh Idea of the organization and fighting qualities of the Jap Japanese nese arm army The rea cause of the war was In General opinion the ance of the Russian people of the fight ing of the Japanese The first attack on Port Arthur in February b by the Japanese fleet was a tremendous surprise ThE forts Corts he explained were only partly garrisoned by 2000 At this point General ral Stoessel said he had alas opposed the scheme or of Governor of Port Dalny in spendIng money Y In building up Dalny instead of finishing th the defenses s of Port Arthur tf who wa as an engineer officer died of dysentery dUr lug Ing the siege Praised the Infantry Continuing General Stoessel praised the ingenuity pluck and patience of the Japanese infantry especially In making siege amI tren hes to the forts Referring to tD the artillery General Stoessel said that at first he did not think the artillery practice good but he was soon compelled to recognize how good It was General and anda a colonel of engineers Irman G Gen General n eral Stoessel pointed out were killed In North fort n Japanese Japan Ee shell just prior to time the exPlosion of Dec IS G General Stoessel feit their loss greatly as Kondratenko was a clever engineer General Stoessel said he had served his In three wars and he had been b en thrice wounded first in the war second In the he Box Boxer or er trouble nd third at Por Art Arthur ur Now ht he felt h he had earned the right to return to Russia to live In his old age with his famil family The general added addel that lie wa takIng home with him hini five children of officers who had bad been killed dUring the siege After his conference With General Nogi General Stoessel expressed grat at meeting so 50 pleasant a gen gentleman gentleman He had not expected the con consideration accorded him General Nogi appeared to General Stoessel as ao an old friend rather than as the commander of oC an arm army which had forced him to surrender |