Public-domain ebook
A secret agent in Port Arthur
by Wirt Gerrare
Language: en1,744 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #78388.
About this book
Gerrare’s work is a first‑person memoir that blends the gritty realities of the Russo‑Japanese War with the clandestine world of wartime journalism. The author opens by insisting that any truthful account must be rooted in personal observation, acknowledging the scarcity of reliable newspaper coverage and the reliance on official reports. Rather than attempting a comprehensive siege narrative, he limits himself to the impressions gathered while moving through Port Arthur, Manchuria, and the broader Far East, offering anecdotes, overheard conversations, and reflections on the people he encounters. The table of contents reveals a systematic progression, from the role of secret agents and correspondents to detailed chapters on life, hiding, and the final days in Port Arthur, suggesting a chronologically ordered, experience‑driven perspective rather than a detached strategic analysis.
The voice is that of a seasoned correspondent who writes with the measured, formal prose typical of early twentieth‑century reportage, interspersed with occasional bureaucratic detail about censorship and military regulations. Its tone is pragmatic and slightly self‑critical, aiming to inform readers while prompting them to form their own judgments about foreign policy. Readers who enjoy historical memoirs, the mechanics of wartime press operations, or the interplay of espionage and journalism during the 1904‑1905 conflict will find this account both illuminating and engaging.
The opening · free to read
Prefatory Note
No one who has seen anything of the fighting between the Russians and the Japanese needs to make any apology when presenting to the public a truthful account of any events of which he was an eye-witness. Very little was actually seen by any newspaper correspondent, and every history of the war, and even of each campaign, must depend for many particulars upon official reports, with which the public are familiar. I do not profess to have attempted to compile anything like a detailed story of the siege. Instead, I have preferred to give merely my own experiences in Port Arthur and elsewhere in Manchuria and the Far East; to describe what I saw, to repeat something of what was told to me, to say what I thought of such happenings as interested me, and to write of the people whom I met when in quest of information. Some of the things I have set down may throw sidelights upon certain phases of the war, and if what I have written induces readers to think for themselves what ought to be the policy in the Far East of Great Britain and the United States, then my object will have been attained.
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