THE FINAL SCENE AT PORT ARTHUR.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 29, 3 February 1905, Page 5

THE FINAL SCENE AT PORT ARTHUR.

A LONG CONFERENCE. RELIEF RATHER THAN EXULTATION. ENEMIES FRATERNISE. (Received 10.40 a.m.) FREMANTLE, this day. The R.M.s. Ortona'a files give an interesting account of the final scene at Port Arthur. General Stoessel sent to General Nogi under a flag of truce a message stating that he considered further resistance useless, and asking General Nogi to appoint commissioners to meet him. The conference took place in a little Chinese hamlet at Suessi, two miles 'from Port Arthur. General Ijichi and Colonel Reiss deliberated in the compound of a tiny thatched cottage. Thrice the officers engaged in the conference separated, and went to their respective tents, before the document was ready to despatch to General Stoessel. The conference was a long one. There was no parade or formality beyond the posting of a single sentry near the entrance to the compound. A strange stillness reigned in the belligerent lines, broken occasionally by a detonation telling of the destruction of the Russian fleet in the harbour.Finally, when dusk set in, Stoessel signed the document, and telegraphed informing his Imperial master of the course he had been forced to take. The conference broke up after the envoys on both sides had dined together. Their final success was not quickly realised by the Japanese. For a while nothing seemed to interfere with their routine. The feeling was one of relief rather than exultation, but when a telephone message informed the investing army that their task was accomplished this almost weird self-control was in a measure relaxed. "Banzaia ' echoed throughout the camp. Bengal lights flared on the captured ridges, and were lit up at night, while bivouac fires were for the first time allowed to blaze up. There was now no need for concealment of positions; many Russian soldiers came out of the fortress and joined the Japanese at their camp fires, exchanging vodka for sake.