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THE CAPITULATION 291
not necessary and scarcely justifiable, but that
General Stoessel’s decision to a certain degree
was excusable, because circumstances over which
he had no control, and which it was impossible to
foresee—for the weather was cold enough during
the whole month of December—made fatal a step
that under ordinary circumstances could have in
no degree influenced the strategical situation in
Manchuria.
But the real reason of surrender was neither
lack of men, ammunition and provisions, nor the
state of the hospitals, nor the difficulty of dealing
with the civilian population. The more informa-
tion I have been able to glean from all sources,
especially from conversations with officers and
men and civilians in Port Arthur, the more I feel
convinced that the cause of the surrender is to be
found in the deep discouragement which had taken
hold of the garrison, especially the private soldiers,
during the last few weeks of the siege. The
successive explosions of their forts and trenches
had deeply impressed them ;
they felt, quite
naturally, as if living on a volcano, with a constant
apprehension that their turn for a heavenward
journey might come next. The long strain, the
privations of many kinds, the sanguinary, in-
human fighting, the never-ceasing bombardment,
also began to tell heavily on their nerves, and the
irresistible progress of the Japanese, the certainty
of having to surrender shortly, the hopelessness
of the struggle, with the prospects of a possible
massacre to crown their misery, plunged them in
the deepest gloom.
This moral factor, in connection with the more
physical causes, predisposed them to a remarkable
degree to the attacks of scurvy and other diseases.
It is a noteworthy fact, corroborated by Japanese
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