The Times (London, England), Thursday, December 17, 1914, p. 7
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VIVID STORY OF THE FIGHTING.
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GERMAN HATRED OF ENGLAND
The following accounts are the first to reach this country reporting in detail the operations which led up to the capture of Tsingtau by the combined Japanese and British forces.
(From our Correspondent.)
Peking, Nov. 17.
The triumphant forces of Japan and Great Britain entered the captured German fortress of Tsingtau yesterday. On November 7, 76 days after Japan had declared war, but just one short week after the Japanese siege guns had been placed in position effectively to commence a bombardment in conjunction with the Allied fleets, the white flags of surrender fluttered above the various forts.
The last breath of the last German man and horse were not requisitioned for the defence. The end came, in fact, with unexpected, if not dramatic, suddenness, some 4042 German officers and men—healthy, if somewhat tired—ceasing operations promptly upon the appearance of the business-like Allied infantry at the breaches in the main line of fortifications.
The Governor of Tsingtau, Captain Meyer-Waldeck, was awarded the inevitable Iron Cross amd a congratulatory telegram by the War Lord, but no particular lustre has been shed upon Prussian militarism by the defence. It was in reality somewhat of a damp squib.
The landing of the Japanese was effected on September 2, yet it was the 27th before they could reach the first important position of the enemy. The British contingent did not land until September 23 and 24, and having a much shorter distance to travel they arrived just as the Japanese were finishing their first engagement in force on September 28.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Army, General Kamio, was prepared to meet violent and powerful opposition, and his surprise can be gauged when he found that the outer defence, that in which Prince Heinrich Hill was included, fell to his force within a day, instead of the three days which he had allotted for its capture. Prince Heinrich Hill was a dominant position. From its crest all the forts around Tsingtau could be bombarded, and it is incredible that the Germans should have so readily evacuated it if they intended to carry our the boasted no-surrender policy.
The Japanese, however, did not form the opinion from their easy capture of Prince Heinrich Hill that the game of the Germans was one of make-believe, though their suspicions were strongly aroused during the succeeding month, when what was obvously a wanton waste of shells was being industriously indulged in. On an average 1,000 to 1,500 shells were daily fired away.
DEPARTURE OF NON-COMBATANTS.
While waiting for the siege guns to be mounted on the positions selected for them on Prince Heinrich Hill the attacking forces sapped closer and closer to the fortress, occasionally having slight encounters with the Germans. From the sea the blockading fleet occasionally bombarded, and as October drew on the Japanese decided to afford non-combatants an opportunity to leave the fortress, even then believing that the Germans would resist to the last and thus bring upon themselves a wholesale and prolonged bombardment which would raze the costly work of German ambition in the Far East to the ground. On October 15 the American Consul, several ladies and children, and a few Chinese were given safe conduct out, and their departure seemed to suggest that the German garrison had determined to die to a man.
By the end of October the siege guns had been installed, and October 31, the anniversary of the birthday of the Emperor of Japan, was settled upon for the beginning of a general bombardment by both fleet and land artillery. Daylight saw the Royal salute being fired with live shell at Tsingtau. Particular attention was paid by the besiegers to Forts Iltis and Siaochanshan, but all the forts were shelled. Fires broke out in the region of the outer harbour, and oil tanks took fire and filled the heavens with black smoke.
On the harbour the cruiser and gunboats were also active, though one gunboat disappeared on the 31st, and the cruiser Kaiserin Elizabeth sank on November 2. On this date, too, Iltis Fort was silenced and a portion of the infantry advanced and occupied an eminence held by the enemy. November 3 saw the electric light installation and wireless station wrecked, and under a terrific shell and rifle fire the besiegers advanced still closer.
By the night of the 6th the end of the defence, though unbeknownst to the besiegers, was near.
Throughout the night the guns of the enemy roared at intervals. The infantry, pushing up, occupied the central positions on the main line of defence, and a fortress at the west, by 1:40 a.m. on the 7th. At 5:10 a.m. the north battery of Shaotan Hill was captured and 25 minutes later the east battery of Tahtungehin was taken, as well as Chungchiawa Fort on the west.
THE SURPRISE OF THE SURRENDER.
This gave the besiegers the opportunity to advance in mass. Shortly after daylight it was decided to charge the remaining forts, and the troops were tensely waiting the order to storm the positions when, between 6 and 7:30 a.m., white flags were run up on the various forts. The first white flag appeared on the observatory at 6 o'clock, but this was not seen by the bulk of the troops, who were unaware that their flighting had ceased until they saw the flags on the positions in front of them.
At 7:50 p.m. on the evening of the 7th representatives of the two forces had signed the terms of capitulation, the Germans accepting those imposed by the Japanese unconditionally. Honours of war were accorded the garrison, and on the 9th the representatives arranged that the actual transfer of the garrison should take place on the following day. At 10 a.m. on the 10th, therefore, Governor Meyer-Waldeck formally transferred the garrison to General Kamio and Germany's possession of territory in China ended. The Govenor and 201 German officers and 3,841 non-commissioned officers and men, in addition to a number of non-combatants, remained with the Japanese as prisoners of war.
The Japanese land forces engaged in the operations numbered 22,980 officers and men and 142 guns.
LOSSES OF THE ALLIES.
The Japanese casualties reported reached a total of 236 killed and 1,282 wounded, a startling commentary upon the character of the fighting of the German garrison.
The British force, under the command of General Barnardiston, consisted of nine staff officers, 910 non-commissioned officers and men of the 2nd Battalion South Wales Borderers, and 450 non-commissioned officers and men of the 36th Sikhs.
The British casualties were 12 non-commissioned officers and men killed, one death from disease, and five officers and 56 non-commissioned officers and men wounded. Sergeants Payne and Miller were among the killed, while Major R.G. Munn, Major E.F. Knox, and Captain J.B.W. Hay of the 36th Sikhs, Captain Moreton Colyer (a volunteer Australian officer) and Lieutenant R.P. Petre, of the South Wales Borderers, were among the wounded.
So far no information has been given of the German losses, nor of the actual strength of the garrison at the beginning of the hostilities.
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INSIDE THE FORTRESS.
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The following details are extracted from an account given by Mr. A.M. Brace, the Associated Press Correspondent, who was the only correspondent within the city during the siege:
At the opening of hostilities between Germany and Japan there was an impression in many quarters that Tsingtau was another Port Arthur. It was to the German interest to foster that impression. But only the Germans who had constructed the forts and redoubts knew of the real weakness of the defences and the inability to withstand for any length of time an attack by such an enemy as Japan.
DESTRUCTIVE SHELL FIRE
On October 29 and 30 the shelling from the ships was particularly severe, and at 6 o'clock on the morning of the 31st—the birthday anniversary of the Mikado—the great bombardment from the land guns was begun. The Japanese had 140 guns in all, including six 28c. howitzers, mortars, and a large number of 21c. and 15c. siege guns, field and mountain guns. The projectiles started a great fire on the naval wharf and in the tanks of the Standard Oil Company and the Asiatic Petroleum Company. Shells passing over these fires drew up columns of flame to a great height, and one could see Chinese coolies running before the spreading and burning oil. The tops of the forts were soon concealed in clouds of dust and smoke, the shells bursting with a crash over the hillsides and whistling overhead on their way to an observation point which the Germans had constructed on a hill in the city. The heaviest fire was upon the redoubts and infantry works, and on the first day 100 Chinese were caught by the shell fire in the village of Taitungchien, near the redoubts, and killed.
From the first morning until November 7, when the garrison capitulated, the Japanese fire, directed by an observation balloon, aeroplanes, and observation stations on the hills, was heavy during the day. The men in the Tsingtau forts sought shelter in the bombproof caverns, and at night and during the pauses of the Japanese issued forth to return the fire. One by one they exhausted their ammunition. A projectile from the Japanese flagship Suwo killed eight men and destroyed a 24c. gun of Huitchienhuk: shells from the big siege guns put two of the Bismarck Fort guns out of commission; one gun at Tschanuwa and two on Iltis Fort were silenced.
These, together with some of the ships' guns, were the total number silenced by the Japanese, the Germans dynamiting most of their guns after they had come to an end of their ammunition. Bismarck Fort was the last to cease firing, and as the Japanese climbed the steep slopes of the Bismarck Hill its guns were dynamited.
AIRMAN'S ESCAPE WITH MESSAGES.
The days that followed the opening of the bombardment were full of exciting incidents. One afternoon the signal hill was the objective of a heavy fire and the flagstaff was shot away. The men came from their bomb-proof and hauled the war flag to the top of the wireless mast with the shells bursting around them. On a ridge near the Iltis Fort was a battery of 9c. ships' guns. The battery was very exposed and attracted fire from both sea and land. On the third night of the bombardment Lieutenant Trendel, who was in command, constructed wooden guns 200 yards from his guns and in the morning exploded powder near them. By this ruse he saved his men and guns till the last. On November 6 early in the morning Lieutenant Pluschow, the airman, knowing that the fall of Tsingtau was not far off, flew away across Kiaochau Bay and escaped, afterwards interning his machine with the Chinese. In this way he took out the last German messages uncensored by the Japanese.
In the city, though most of the non-combatants had left, the life was quite normal till October 31. From that morning until the capitulation on November 7 the streets became deserted. The centre of what life continued in the city was at the German Club, where regularly few officers and non-combatants slipped in for luncehon and dinner and a glass of beer. On one occasion as we sat in the club at luncheon the whistle and crash of shells gave evidence that they were coming our way. One member gave way to instinct and rose nervously from his seat, but another deliberately lifted his glass and started a song, which was immedately taken up by the others—and the meal was finished.
THE SHOUTS OF THE CONQUERORS.
The last night there was no cessation in the firing, the Japanese artillery fire being particularly heavy, and rifles and machine guns crackling and pumping along the infantry line. The Japanese and British had dug their trenches to withing a score of yards from the redoubts. When the artillery fire of the Japanes ceased, and the Germans attempted to leave Redoubt 3 to face the Japanese infantry in what was left of the German trenches, they found Japanes rifles and machine guns already covering the door of the bomb-proof. It was at this point that the Japanese got through, and, once through, the city was theirs. The stocky men with the red shoulder straps climbed the hills, and at 6 o'clock on November 7, as the white flag went up over the forts, they came up the street, torn and dirty, with spades and rifles over their shoulders, shouting "Banzai."
Major von Kayser, the adjutant, accompanied by a trumpeter and another officer, left the staff headquarters with the white flag shortly before 6 o'clock and in the confusion his trumpeter was killed and his horse was shot under him. In the final negotiations, and in fact throughout the siege operations were carried on by the Japanese in accordance with the highest standards of civilized warfare.
BITTER FEELING FOR THE BRITISH.
The part that the 1,000 British of the South Wales Borderers and the 500 Sikhs played in the siege was interesting and illuminating in bringing out the bitter feeling of the Germans for the British. The British did good work considering their numbers, working in trenches of their own along a small section of the German front and advancing very near to the German trenches through the barbed wire entanglements. Their losses were 60 men killed and wounded, large in proportion to their numbers. If they did not get into the final assault it was because the Japanese left them behind. A British sergeant told me that he would lay a wager on his soldiers, many of whom were Welsh miners, as against the Japanese in sapping and trench building.
The Germans were anxious for a chance at British troops. The hitting of the British ship Triumph by a shell from Huitchienhuk caused rejoicing in Tsingtau that would not have been equalled by the sinking of a Japanese Dreadnought. The German airman, after locating the British camp by its white tents, singled it out for his bombs. The German artillery tried particularly to hit the British camp; and when the British entered the city and camped at the artillery depôt their name was anathema, and German prisoners showed their hatred in various ways.
