Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/24

12 plans brought about the first great downfall of the white race after the threatened militant awakening of Asia.

At the beginning of the war the Commander of the fortress of Vladivostok, General Voronetz, invited a number of the town's residents to visit the forts upon which fell the defence of the extreme eastern frontiers of the Empire from the attacks of Japan. Over the ice of the frozen Golden Horn our party was conducted to Russian Island, where the military engineers had located the strongest fortifications designed to protect the city from the side dominated by the Bay of Peter the Great and Ussuri Bay. On the side washed by Amur Bay the city was guarded by forts built between the town and the mouth of First River.

The fortifications were shown us very superficially. We saw the exterior of massive walls, cement cupolas and apertures, from some of which projected guns of heavy calibre. General Voronetz and his aides made much of these forts and expressed the certainty that they would play an important part in the war.

Some months later, when I was in Manchuria, I returned to Vladivostok on an official errand and at that time I realized clearly why the authorities had permitted only a superficial inspection of the forts. The dénouement came to me through the arrival of a detachment of Japanese cruisers under command of Admiral Uriu, which approached Vladivostok from the Ussuri Bay side and with impunity dropped some shells into the Golden Horn, without being damaged or even interfered with by the Russian Island forts. Afterwards it was explained that the plans of defence were still incomplete and that the heavy pieces had not yet been placed in position.

It is easy for those who lived close to the actual events of this war to realize that the Russian Government and