View in a Japanese army camp

View in a Japanese army camp

153

The Japanese carried small, light tents, easy to transport, and their tents were put up in long rows and laced together, forming long, continuous shelters. They were only places to sleep in and for rest, because the soldiers were called upon to do an immense amount of work during the siege of Port Arthur. Eighteen miles of parallels were dug, six feet deep, and twelve feet wide, beside the zig-zag approaches from one parallel to the next. The service in the trenches, watching the enemy day and night and guarding against sorties, was very exacting and fatiguing, so that the regiments in front had to be relieved once a week. And day and night the heavy Russian guns barked and roared like a distant thunderstorm, making sleep impossible, except from sheer exhaustion. But the lot of the Japanese was preferable to that of the Russians, who were cut off from all communication from the outside world, and who knew that a relentless foe was closing in upon them with an unerring, systematic precision against which the most heroic valor could not prevail.

1 stereograph. 2 photomechanical prints on stereo card : halftone, stereograph, color ; 9 x 18 cm

1905 Ingersoll, T.W.

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