THE HERO OF PORT ARTHUR

Evening Star, Issue 12870, 20 July 1906, Page 6

THE HERO OF PORT ARTHUR

SENTENCED TO DEATH.

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. BE. PETFrIsBURG, July 19. .. (Received July 20, at 11.11 a. m.)

• The report of the Commission of Inquiry on the fall of Port Arthur proposes that General Stoessel shall besentenced to death, General Fock to twenty years' imprisonment; General Reuss to be expelled from the army, and Prince Alexeieff to be reprimanded.

General groessel reached the zenith of bis fame when, while all the world regarded him as the hero of the siege of Port Arthur, he wrote to the Czar, "Great Czar, forgive." . A wave of sympathy wont through England. Then stories came aerosß the wires of how thoroughly he was hated in the town. How he would career through the streets like a whirlwind, shouting, commanding, blustering, striking civilians who did not immediately recognise and salute him. How be let his wife "feed her forty cows on much-needed bread, and Bold the milk at 2s.a bottle; bowi he also trafficked in turkeys at 70s each. Then it came out that Kondratchenko was the real hero of >the siege, and that Stoessel sprang the surrender on his officers as a surprise and greatly to their disgusts Finally, there came the scene when Smirnoff (commander of the citadel), asked to step into the same corapArtment of the train which was taking them away from Port Arthur, shouted out: " I have nothing to do with that general." Following on "this came a very chilling reception by the Czar, and Stoessel 1 s glory vanished. Thirty thousand pounds a year was Admiral Alexeieff's salary as "Viceroy of the Far East," and the price was a high one. In the first half of the war he was merely a spoke in the wheel of Kuropatkin, bombarding the Gear with secret complaints of neglecto and slights, retaliating childishly by stopping troops and stores for days and weeks at Mukden, or sending them in the wrong directiosa. Mono imperial oven than the Czar's was bis court in the Far East. It was not etiquette to speak before being spoken to. A contradiction was an unpardonable sin. Even the Chinese of Mukden laughed at the aire of '"the little Armenian." At last his. friends at Court could not shield him any longer. The day came wiben the Czar exclaimed: "That man brings us nothing but bad. luck." And then his star set ; his powers were cut short. But not the £30,000 a year; that he managed to retain.