hat the capture of the city would not prove the long, arduous task
that had been expected, and he abandoned forthwith his plans for a
long, slow siege and made preparations to take the place by assault.
At the same time the Japanese commander showed no disposition to
sacrifice his men unnecessarily, and while waiting for their big guns
the Japanese worked like beavers with pick and shovel protecting their
positions and digging saps and zigzag trenches up to the very face of
the German defenses. They labored under a storm of shells but so
little exposed that losses under the bombardment were small compared
with the casualties of the actual assault operations.

For eight days the Germans poured projectiles into the enemy's works;
but for the most part their shooting was a waste of ammunition. Just
why the defenders of Tsing-tau were so prodigal of ammunition at this
time never has been satisfactorily explained. Military correspondents
estimated that during one period of twenty-four hours the forts on the
three hills containing the main defensive positions fired more than
2,000 shells without inflicting any loss whatever.

But by October 8, 1914, the German fire slackened perceptibly. They
had found that they were wasting their resources and that several
positions were almost out of ammunition. The warfare of that period is
described in a letter written by an officer with the British
expeditionary force:

"That night," he said, "we were working in trenches along a river bed
at the bottom of the slope, where the others had been wounded, and
_sans doute_ most darnation close to the enemy. A beginning had been
made on this trench the night before, so there was a little cover. The
two redoubts were about 800 yards on our right and left respectively,
the enemy's trenches about 350 yards to our front.

"Well, for the first hour after getting down we were left severely
alone. Then they started throwing star rockets and sort of Roman
candle things which lit up the place like day, and at the same time
they peppered us with Maxims, pompoms, and rifle fire from all three
places. We had some men hit further back in the communication trench,
but funnily enough none in the forward line.... We were entertained by
a certain amount of shell fire during the rest of the night. Next
night we were due to leave for the forward trenches at dusk to carry
on, having had our usual entertainment in the afternoon from the
Germans, when suddenly t