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PREPARATIONS 41
able to gauge the immensely strong resources of
the place and prevent any such step being taken.
The Japanese in this case made one of the
very few errors of judgment which they com-
mitted in this marvellously planned and admir-
ably conducted campaign. At Port Arthur,
as everywhere, they had every step and every
move planned out beforehand, to the minutest
details, even to a day, an hour, a man. When
the hour came the general had only to say the
word to set the entire large, complicated, but
beautifully constructed machinery going, and the
wheels would begin to turn, and the cogwheels to
interlock, and the big rollers to start their crush-
ing process. Only, in the case of Port Arthur,
the Japanese had miscalculated the strength and
hardness of the material they sought to crush.
Their rollers got jammed, and the strain on some
parts of the machinery became too great. A
cogwheel got jammed here, an axle broke there,
throwing everything out of gear, and the machine
had to be stopped, repaired, and totally re-
constructed, before any further progress could
be made.
But assuming that the error of judgment lies
principally with the Japanese Intelligence De-
partment, and that the reports General Nogi had
to hand were incorrect or incomplete, he certainly
had great inducements to try to take the place by
assault, apart from the strategical considerations
which urged him on. He had been fighting the
Russians so long now that he had a pretty clear
idea of what they were worth, and what his own
men could achieve against them. He admitted
that they fought both gallantly and stubbornly,
and had succeeded in greatly delaying his progress
and inflicting heavy losses on his troops. But,
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