MY EXPERIENCES AT NAN SHAN AND PORT ARTHUR

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904 was a portent for the 20th century. Coming hard on the heels of the Boer War, it was a warning that European colonial powers would not have things all their own way as they had during the 19th century. Japan’s trouncing of mighty Russia at sea – in the battle of Tshushima – and on land at Mukden, Nan Shan and Port Arthur, gave the world notice of the inherent weakness of the Tsarist regime, and triggered the first Russian revolution that same year. This rare account of the war was written by one of the Russian commanders in the conflict, Gen. Nikolai A. Tretyakov, who helped in the heroic but doomed defence of Port Arthur – much of it in trench warfare which presages the western front in the Great War just a decade ahead. In the words of the book’s English editor, Capt. F. Nolan Baker : ‘Here we have the actual history of the firing line..we are transported from the dry bones of military history to the living realities of the battlefield.’ Plentifully illustrated with 32 photographs, two diagrams of trenches and six maps.