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THE LIBRARYOFTHE UNIVERSITYOF CALIFORNIALOS ANGELESGIFT OF

UNIVKRS1TYOP GAL IFOR

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THE 'NOVIK

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THE NOVIKAND THE PART SHE PLAYED INTHE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR, 1904

BY LIEUTENANT A. P. STEERIMPERIAL RUSSIAN NAVY

TRANSLATED BYL. A. B.

TRANSLATOR AND EDITOR OF RASPLATA 1

NEW YORKE. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY

1913

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Copyright by Augustin Challamel, Paris

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S*l

ACKNOWLEDGMENTMY cordial thanks are due to Captainde Balincourt of the French Navy, whorendered the book into French, forkindly permitting me to translate it intoEnglish.

L. A. B.

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PREFACETHE author of this little work, AndrewPetrovitch Steer, was born in 1878.Entering the Imperial Navy, he becameSub-Lieutenant in 1897, Lieutenant in1901. In December 1903 he joined the3rd class cruiser Novik, Commandervon Essen, of the Pacific Squadron,after previous service on that stationin the Djigit and Rossia. BetweenMarch 1905 and March 1906 Steer com-manded the submarines Delphin andSom at Vladivostok. Returning to St.Petersburg, he commanded a torpedo-boat in home waters for a year, then, inFebruary 1907, once more proceeded toVladivostok to assume command of thedestroyer Skory. On 17th October the

*

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vi PREFACEsame year the crew mutinied, and apetty officer shot Steer dead while inbed in his cabin.

Readers of Easplata will find many ofSemenoff's statements corroborated inthis account, which was written soonafter the war was over, with the princi-pal object of setting right the manyincorrect or purely fanciful statementswhich had appeared in the RussianPress.

It is believed that Steer never sawany of Semenoff's books.

L. A. B.October 1912.

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CONTENTSCHAP. PAGEI. THE TORPEDO ATTACK IN THE NIGHT

OF FEBRUARY 8-9, 1904 . . iII. ACTION OF FEBRUARY 9, 1904 . . 14

III. THE SQUADRON AWAITING ADMIRALMAKAROFF'S ARRIVAL THE FIRE-SHIPS . . . . .27

IV. ARRIVAL OF ADMIRAL MAKAROFFBOMBARDMENT BY INDIRECT FIRETHE Loss OF THE PETROPAVLOVSK 48

V. THE BATTLESHIPS HATSUSE ANDYASHIMA BLOW UP Loss OF YENISSEI AND BOYARIN . 73

VI. THE SHIPS CANNONADE THE JAPANESETROOPS THE SQUADRON SAILS ONJUNE 23 . . 91

VII. NAVAL ACTION OF AUGUST 10. . inVIII. THE LAST DAYS OF THE Novm

UNDER THE RUSSIAN FLAG . .130IX. ACROSS SAGHALIEN . . .154

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THE 'NOVIKCHAPTER I

THE TORPEDO ATTACK IN THE NIGHTOF FEBRUARY 8-9, 1904

I ALWAYS look back with a feeling ofbitterness to the time of my service inthe cruiser Novik at Port Arthur. Istill feel the sting of that indescribableill-will of which our squadron was theobject, and I can still hear the echo ofthat libellous legend to the effect thatthe Japanese were able to carry outtheir torpedo attack so easily becauseour officers were feasting and dancingon shore at the house of AdmiralStarck, who then commanded the

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2 THE TORPEDO ATTACKsquadron. But what is still moreastounding to me is that a public, whichhad so readily swallowed so preposterousa tale, received with a sceptical smileon its

lips not only the contradictionswhich we sent to the entire Press, buteven a letter of protestation written byMadame Starck ; so much so that tothe present day our conduct on thatoccasion is made the subject of the mostdisagreeable comment.One moment's reflection should con-

vince any honest person that, ball orno ball, the sequence of events wouldhave been precisely the same. Let usconsider the first incident : the admiral'sentertainment on shore. Whoever pos-sesses the most elementary knowledgeof the navy and the life on board, isaware of the fact that permission togo on shore is given only by the second-in-command, who keeps the captaininformed ; that an immutable regula-

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WATCH-KEEPING 3tion demands that one-half of the officersshall always be on board ; and that thecaptain and his second-in-commandmay never go on shore at the same time

excepting, of course, in small craft,like destroyers, torpedo-boats, gunboats,etc. On board all men-of-war watch-keeping duties are carried out by one,and most of the time by two officers(if the numbers of these permit), whonot only may not go on shore, but whomay not leave the bridge or upperdeck, who have their meals only afterthey have been relieved ; a fortiori, theymay not turn in. To admit for onemoment that the officers of the watchwere not at their stations appears tome monstrous ; to bring this about, thewhole of the senior officers must haveconnived at it. But this is not all :in addition to the officer actually onwatch there must always be on boardtwo other officers : the one who has

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4 THE TORPEDO ATTACKjust come off watch and the one aboutto relieve the deck. I think I haveshown conclusively that the whole of theofficers could not have been on shore,even supposing that all the captains, ina fit of extreme good-nature, had de-liberately shut their eyes. Togetherwith theofficer of the watch there arealso on duty a certain number of men,including signalmen, whose business itis to keep a close watch on all that isgoing on at the anchorage and in theoffing. Even if, in times of peace, thewhole of the officers of a ship had beendancing on shore, enough people wouldhave remained on board to ensure thesafety of the vessel.On going over my correspondence, Ichanced upon one of my letters datedfrom the Novik on 5th February ; in itI complain that for several days pastwe had been ordered to be on boardby eight o'clock in the evening, and I

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PRECAUTIONS 5mention that an officer, who arrivedall out of breath at the landing-place,from which his ship's boat had onlyjust shoved off, had hailed it and madeit come back for him. But the admiral,who had most unfortunately overheardthe whole thing, sent a reprimand tothe captain the next morning for slack-ness in carrying out his orders. It isquite clear, therefore, that on theevening of 8th February all our officershad been on board since eight o'clock,and that the admiral never dreamt fora moment of inviting anyone to danceat his house. I would add that, althoughhostilities had not officially broken out,the defences of the anchorage hadbeen strengthened and all lookoutsdoubled. A proportion of the gunswere kept loaded, ammunition handy,bugles and drums for calling to quar-ters at the officer of the watch'selbow.

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6 THE TORPEDO ATTACKIt may be asked : How was it possible

for the Japanese destroyers to approachwithout having been made out ? Orwere they seen too late ? I have nodifficulty

in replying to this. Let usimagine that we are taking part in oneof these big battues in a forest. Anold sportsman has as his neighbour inthe line of guns a novice at the game,to whom he explains that so long as theline of beaters has not begun to advance,there is no need to worry. Still thenovice loads and cocks his gun, whilehis mentor repeats that the beaters arestill too far off and that the game is notyet on the move. As the young manpersists, he is told bluntly to keep quiet,to sit down and light his pipe, that thebig game won't come upon him with-out some warning, that he will see theground game come along first. Thewords are hardly spoken before a wildboar charges past, amidst the noise of

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NO WARNING 7broken branches. Our young friendloses his head, but manages to get offa snap-shot, though too late : theanimal is already out of range. Furious,he turns round to upbraid the old sports-man, but the latter has prudently dis-appeared and his voice is presentlyheard retailing the incident to some ofhis friends. Well, this is exactly whathappened to us at Port Arthur. Weought to have been told over andover again that war might breakout at any time, that we ought totake proper precautions and redoubleour vigilance. On the contrary, wewere assured that there would beno war, and that everyone being atpeace we could sleep soundly in ourbeds.To accuse the admiral commandingthe squadron would be unjust, for hewas not in supreme command, and re-sponsibility must be looked for higher

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8 THE TORPEDO ATTACKup. I know perfectly well that a juniorflag officer can show a certain amountof initiative, but one has no right todemand it, especially as there was atPort Arthur a Viceroy and commander-in-chief of all naval and military forces,who alone was in a position to warnthe squadron that war was imminent.Precisely on that day, 8th February,at 11 p.m., his chief of the staff hadcome on board the flagship with atelegram from St. Petersburg giving theassurance that the negotiations weregoing well and that any fear of armedconflict was mere chimera. Exactlyone hour and a half later the first gunswent off As the people who had telegraphed

from St. Petersburg were negotiating ontheir own account, without condescend-ing to consult those who, being on thespot, thoroughly knew the situation, wehave no right to put the responsibility

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LULLED TO SLEEP 9on Admiral Alexeieff, in fact weought to go higher still. However,I observe that I have already saidtoo much and that it would be danger-ous for me to

persistin this line of

argument.The squadron was thus in the position

of that young sportsman to whom onehad repeated ad nauseam that he hadample time, and who nevertheless, onhis own initiative, had loaded hisgun.How could we possibly be expectedto assume that at the very momentwhen we were reading these reassuringtelegrams from St. Petersburg theJapanese destroyers were actually afew miles off and heading straight forus ? Was it therefore not perfectlynatural that we mistook them for ourown, who, we knew, had gone out scout-ing ? The enemy had thus alreadyattained one-half of his object : our

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10 THE TORPEDO ATTACKoutermost ships, after a moment ofvery natural hesitation, had openedfire, while the remainder, anchored inthree or four columns (an arrangementwhich certainly would not have beenmade if an attack had been expected),were asking themselves with consterna-tion at whom or at what these couldpossibly be firing.

I had the middle watch that night[midnight to 4 a.m.]. The drummerwas close to me and at the first gun Ishouted to him to beat to quarters. 1The captain and officers rushed on deck,asking me what all the excitement wasabout. No sooner had the former seenthe flash of our guns than he gave ordersto light fires in all boilers, and that iswhy, when the admiral at last madeup his mind to make a general signalto that effect, we were already under

1 [In the Russian Navy our old custom still obtainsof beating to quarters on the drum.]

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' TOO SOON ' 11steam, and weighed at once so as tofall upon the enemy. Alas The birdhad flown

I was assured later on that AdmiralStarck had requested in writing theViceroy's permission to make allnecessary preparations for action,also to modify the complicated planof anchorage, which was barely per-missible in times of peace, seeinghow the vessels were masking oneanother.The Viceroy, it is said, merely returned

the paper with the marginal note : Toosoon. The chief of the staff, whoI trust has preserved so important adocument, would alone be in a posi-tion to guarantee the truth of this. Inmy opinion the blame for this blundershould be divided between the two flagofficers : the admiral commanding thesquadron had no need to ask permissionto carry out that which was altogether

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12 THE TORPEDO ATTACKhis business, but the moment he thoughtfit to do so, the Viceroy should not havereplied with a negative. Had the shipsbeen anchored in a single line parallelwith the coast, an attack by torpedo-craft need not have troubled them much.The attacks in the night of 23rd to 24thJune proved this. It was when anchoredon such a plan that we successfully beatoff the attacks which were deliveredcontinuously from sunset to sunriseby a host of destroyers, who paid dearlyfor their tenacity. Not one of themever got within effective torpedo range.I should add that our ships' companies,who had not turned in that night, lulledby pacific telegrams from St. Peters-burg, were indeed on the qui vive. Inthe attack of 8th to 9th February notone of our vessels was sunk, and thedamage was repaired in an astonishinglyshort space of time, seeing how feeblethe resources of Port Arthur were.

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NO VESSEL SUNK 13Why not admit at once that we mightvery easily have been sent to the bottom,one by one, if our men had not beenat their stations and had not done theirduty conscientiously ?

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CHAPTER IIACTION or FEBRUARY 9, 1904

HOSTILITIES effectively commenced onthat date. The night torpedo attackwas not, strictly speaking, an act ofwar ; it was at the best a ruse, quite asuseful as it was dishonest, invented forthe purpose of making the war inevit-able. The English, it is true, have saidthat they would have acted exactly asthe Japanese did, but then the Englishhave not, so far as I know, ever beenheld up as models of courtesy in theirdealings with other Powers. Did theynot express great surprise at our nothaving sunk in the Mediterranean (bymere accident, of course) the cruisers

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4 ENEMY IN SIGHT ' 15Nishin and Kasuga, which the Japanesehad bought from the Argentines ?

In the early morning of 9th February,Admiral Starck had gone ashore to givethe Viceroy a full account of all thathad happened during the night, whenJapanese cruisers were sighted on thehorizon, come to take stock of theresults of their night attack. Receivedby a violent cannonade of our squadron,they retired with the satisfactory feelingof having carried out their duty, withthe added conviction that thanks totheir enterprise we were now severalunits short. Soon afterwards numerouscolumns of smoke appeared above thehorizon at different points : the con-centration of the fleet of Japan was anaccomplished fact At eleven o'clock the Bayan steamedtowards us at full speed flying thesignal, The enemy is heading forPort Arthur in strength. Our admiral

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16 FEBRUARY 9, 1904had only just time to jump into his boatand to make us weigh for our firstaction in the war.Notwithstanding that three of our

big ships had been seriously injured afew hours ago, we were, though inferiorin numbers, in a much better positionthan our adversaries, who had come soclose that the greater part of our coastbatteries could have joined in the action.We felt that we had behind us a fortresswhose confidence and warlike ardourwere unimpaired, whereas any damagedJapanese vessel, being far from home,had no other refuge but the bottom ofthe sea. The moral effect of this wasenormous.The enemy had to divide his shots

between our ships and the works on theseafront. Hence on this occasion hewas unable to carry out any concentra-tion of fire. It was, however, only muchlater that he discovered the advantage

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FIRST DAMAGES 17of a method which he subsequentlymade much use of. His fire, badlycorrected, was a long way short, andthe few projectiles which reached us didnot do very much damage.

Nevertheless, the Novik, having beenstruck by an 8-inch shell, had to retireprecipitately into port, where she re-mained for ten days making good herdamages.Our being put out of action was, inspite of all the captain's valour, anevent of very small importance. Thesix 4-7-inch guns which formed ourarmament did not permit us to pretendto lie in the line. In truth, we weremerely a tolerably good fleet scout, butespecially a good destroyer of de-stroyers

; such, at least, was theopinion of the Japanese destroyers,

whose bugbear we speedily became.From this first engagement on, ourreputation was established.

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18 FEBRUARY 9, 1904With guns which were as nothingcompared to those of the Japanese

armoured ships, our intrepid captainnever hesitated to throw himself atthem full tilt, and he only turned off atthe shortest range which I have beenable to observe throughout thecampaign.It is therefore to him alone that ourcelebrity was due.

I must state once more that, notwith-standing our weakness, we were thatday in a better position than ouradversaries. Who was it, then, whoallowed an opportunity to slip by whichwas never to occur again ? The admiralcommanding the squadron or the Vice-roy, who had assumed control of theaction from the heights of Golden Hill ?The entire Japanese fleet steamedpast us in one well-kept line ahead,

the cruisers bringing up the rear ; alwaysfollowing in the wake of their battleships,they very quietly steamed away, com-

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LOST OPPORTUNITIES 19plete in numbers, after they hadtraversed the arc of fire of our gunsashore and afloat. Any sea officerwith the slightest notion of what warmeant, or simply possessing someenergy, would not have hesitated tofall upon this tail of the line, so as tocut it off from the main body, whichwould then have been obliged to turnback. Everyone was expecting thismanoeuvre, when the signal was broken : Destroyers to attack the enemy.This was sheer folly, seeing that it wasabsolutely impossible for the smallflotilla we possessed to get unharmedwithin torpedo range in broad daylight.This signal, which was negatived aftersome moments of hesitation, before evenour destroyers could get under weigh,had only served to furnish the proof thatour leaders had on that day lost alljudgment.As was only to be expected, the Japan-

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20 FEBRUARY 9, 1904ese squadron had prudently retired,after having satisfied themselves thatnothing more was to be got out of us.They did not intend returning for sometime, as several of their damaged shipshad been obliged to make for home.To the present day I remain con-vinced that, if instead of obstinatelysticking to a passive defence, we hadshown the slightest spirit of enterprise,things might in the end have perfectlywell turned to our advantage.

It is extremely difficult for anyonewho is actually engaged in a fight toanalyse, and above all to remember,the impressions which follow oneanother too rapidly to leave behindanything but a hazy recollection of alarge number of projectiles, some ofwhich pitch into the sea, throwing uphuge columns of water, sometimes sonear that everything is drenched, whilstothers strike the ship direct, causing a

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FEELINGS IN ACTION 21general upheaval. The brain overflowswith the thoughts which crowd in onit. Occupied with the search for meansto stop the sudden inrush of watersomewhere below, one unconsciouslyshudders at the dull roar of a big pro-jectile passing overhead, or at thegroans of some wounded close by ; thestampede of the stretcher party hustlesyou ; the deafening sound of your ownguns momentarily obliterates the distantthunder of those of the enemy. Theagonising thought that death is near,or that it will be your turn next to bemutilated, grips you by the throat andto some extent clouds your brain,without however preventing your keep-ing your head sufficiently to attend tocases of minor damage, to watch theeffect of your fire, correct the rangesand somehow the time does pass. Howshall I manage to give more than avery vague description of what struck

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22 FEBRUARY 9, 1904my senses, when all that is left in myinnermost being is the firm convictionthat modern war, especially at sea, isan abomination ?The fate of a battle does not, so to

speak, depend on individuals : thecommander-iii-chief alone has it in hishands. By this I don't mean that theskill of the gunlayer, the correct estimateof the range, and generally the systematiccontrol of fire do not play an importantpart, but this part is completely thrownaway if the admiral hesitates to forcehome the attack and confines himself towarding off the enemy's blows with theindolent gesture with which one drivesoff a troublesome fly. Now this gesturevery accurately sums up all our tacticsoff Port Arthur. Not once did ourleaders really assume the offensive.Their sole object apparently was, so faras possible, to keep their materiel, theirpersonnel, and above all their own

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MODERN TACTICS 23precious skins out of harm's way. Andin the end all these precautions led themdirectly to exactly the opposite result.The single line ahead, to which we

persistently clung throughout the cam-paign, destroyed the initiative, thecourage, and the individuality of thecaptains, who were reduced to stickingto their bridges, there to await withstoicism the fatal shot. The officersbecame simple machines, playing theirpart as at General Exercise. Nowa-days there is no room afloat for thatdash, that moral support, which is soinvaluable in a land fight. On the otherhand, in a duel between two vesselsa captain can use his skill in taking upa more advantageous position. Still,naval war conditions have been soaltered for some time past that hecould hardly hope to repeat the brill-iant manoeuvres of the sailing-ship days.Everything depends on the number of

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24 FEBRUARY 9, 1904lucky hits. The bravery or cowardiceof the crew are of no account. If thepoltroons (and there always are some)wished to save themselves or to hidein a corner, that would not help themin the very least. Their fate is fixedin advance : if beaten, unless killedbefore the final issue, they will bedrowned like the ships' companies ofthe Souvaroff, the Borodino, and theAlexander III. Individual bravery onlyhelps to cut a fine figure and to lookcalmly at death or the horrible sightswhich one is forced to witness andthat is why naval war is so revolting.On land one can attribute that madnessto kill, the kind of murder which oneindulges in, to nervous excitement, tothe sight of an adversary close by, andfinally to that instinct of self-preserva-tion which bids you kill your neighbour,so as not to be butchered by him likea sheep. At sea, on the other hand,

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THE BAND 25it is cold-blooded, calculated killing;death hurled from a distance of five orsix miles and more, at a man whom onedoes not see, whom one will never see,and whose ship one can barely makeout.When the Novik left Germany, where

she had been built, the captain andofficers had, at their own expense,started a band, which had a greatinfluence on the ship's company. Afterthe action we steamed into harbour withthe band playing the National Anthem,which brought on general cheering, es-pecially in the coast batteries, fromwhere the whole scene of the actioncould be seen. According to them, wehad approached the enemy so near(especially by comparison with the otherships) that it was believed we intendedto torpedo them, and with the assistanceof a certain amount of imaginationsome of the men even pretended they

3

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26 FEBRUARY 9, 1904had seen one of the Japanese vessels godown under our attack. Our band-master (an ordinary civilian) had scornedour offer to discharge him to the shore,and had asked leave to exchange hisbaton for a rifle, so as to enable him toremain on board.The same evening the Novik was

taken into the dockyard to have anumber of damaged plates on her sidereplaced. Thanks to frantic efforts,which lasted through ten days and tennights, the leaks were made tight, andthe Japanese had the disagreeable sur-prise of seeing us once more outside ;for, as they themselves admitted, theyfully believed they had sunk us theprevious week.

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CHAPTER IIITHE SQUADRON AWAITING ADMIRAL

MAKAROFF'S ARRIVAL THE FIRESHIPS

AFTER 9th February we were a longtime without again seeing the Japanese.This was a depressing time for thesquadron, which for a fortnight hadnothing on hand except a few recon-naissances by the destroyers, and therepairs of the torpedoed ships, whichwere splendidly carried out. And yetwe only had two dry docks : bothuseless

;one still in course of con-

struction, the other so small that it couldonly just take in a cruiser. I have beenassured that in his capacity as Vice-roy Admiral Alexeieff had repeatedly

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28 AWAITING THE ADMIRALdemanded money for the works in thedockyard, and especially for the com-pletion of this dock, but that St.Petersburg had always refused on theground that all our ships were prac-tically new and would therefore notrequire anything, but if any accidentwere to happen to one of the battle-ships, she would be sent to Japan,which was amply provided with docksand basins of all dimensions. This maybe a galley yarn, but it is after allvery plausible, for we have seen repliesof this kind take flight from the Arrow l of the Admiralty. Havingno docks, we had to make use of ex-pedients, in this case cofferdams,which we do not pretend to have in-vented, and which we thought had beenrelegated to the lumber of old-worldcontrivances, as no longer of use. So

1 [Allusion to the gold arrow of the vane on thetower of the Admiralty building at St. Petersburg.]

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COFFERDAMS 29far as I know, they have never beforebeen applied on such a scale. Westarted with a failure. The first coffer-dam, 1 owing to an error in calculatingstresses, gave under the pressure ofwater and burst. Our engineers, notin the least discouraged by this, triedagain, and succeeded in completing theirtask without the slightest hitch, and asquickly as if they had had a dry dock attheir disposal in fact, even three timesas quickly, for the Tsesarevitch, Retvisan,and Pallada, having been damaged atthe same time, would have had to bedocked one after the other, whereasnow it was possible to repair them allthree simultaneously. Cofferdams werein fact such a success that they wereafterwards used even for destroyers.Interest was now centred on the coast.We expected that the Japanese wouldeffect a landing any moment. No one

1 [They are fully described in Rasplata, p. 55.]3*

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30 AWAITING THE ADMIRALignored the fact that on shore nothingwas really ready neither batteries norearthworks and that a few pegs plantedhere and there on the heights, accordingto a beautiful plan, alone indicated ourgood intentions as regards constructingforts later on.

I observed that there were two periodsof real activity. Immediately after thetorpedo attack a landing of the enemywas generally expected. When, by andby, it was seen that the Japanese,evidently in no great hurry, began toconcentrate on the Yalu, calm wasre-established. It is pretty far off,was said, and they won't have anyoneto spare to send to Port Arthur.Later on there was a sudden alarm,which brought about renewed activity,when, at a moment when it was leastexpected, our land communications werecut so suddenly that within an ace theViceroy was shut in with us. The

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NEW BATTERIES 31squadron now took an active part inthe defence in landing a portion of itsguns for the purpose of arming shorebatteries, the cruisers providing thenecessary working parties.The Novik was told off to construct

a battery of five 12-pounder quick-firingguns. Every morning one of the lieu-tenants took one-half of the ship's com-pany to the works. To build such abattery is not an easy matter for a poornaval officer, whose sole technical equip-ment for such a business are vaguerecollections of his course on fortifi-cations at the Naval College, and whohas at his side neither a director noreven a simple adviser. When our pieceswere at last on their mountings, and thelatter on their platforms, the one andonly military engineer officer, for whomthe entire line of coast defences were forever clamouring, came to inspect theresult of our labours and declared every-

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32 AWAITING THE ADMIRALthing to be perfect, except for one smallmatter : one gun which was not ableto use its whole arc of fire, and which inconsequence had to be slightly shifted.For us this work provided a welcomechange in the enervating life, yet so fullof the unexpected, which we led, andthe men seemed as delighted in theiroccupation on shore as we. All thesame, we had many a time to cover atthe double the three miles whichseparated us from the Novik, when shereceived unexpected orders to go out.We used to laugh about it then, butnow it seems to me that the authoritiesrather abused our goodwill, both ashoreand afloat. For no particular reason,up went the signal : Novik get upsteam. Someone fancies he can makeout fireships : Novik close the strangesail and report. A column of smoke isseen on the horizon : Novik to weigh.The admiral has slept badly : Make

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TRANSPORTING GUNS 33the Novik go out. These calls hadbeen so frequent that a signal-mastwas erected on Golden Hill for ourspecial benefit. No sooner were ourpendants made out on it than officersand men dropped everything and rushedhelter-skelter down to the landing-place.One morning, while in my bath, I saw ourpendants go up, and had only just timeto wipe off the soap and to jump into myclothes, which I had to button on theway.

If the sailors did not prove them-selves irreproachable sappers, it must injustice be admitted that they showed in-comparable adeptness in another line :the moving of heavy weights. Itseemed mere child's play to them toget a 6-inch gun across the deep andwide ditches of the forts. On a certainoccasion an officer of Engineers, whohad been summoned to a consultation,after much and deliberate thinking,asked for time to make the necessary

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calculations which would enable him tosay definitely whether the operation wasfeasible or not. A naval officer who waswaiting all the time with his gun, merelyasked permission to carry on. He thenmade the boatswain rig a pair of sheers,and half an hour later the gun was safeon the other side of the ditch, much tothe delight of the scientist, who hadconsidered that one could not think ofrigging sheers before having minutelycalculated their several stresses andbreaking strains. Lieutenant Komenkoproved in these circumstances that hewas as energetic as he was competent.This was all he had for solving theproblem of dragging, with his men, gunsof calibres of 8 to 9 inches, as wellas their mountings, up considerableheights, so steep that a man could onlyreach them by crawling on hands andknees, clinging to the bushes andbunches of grass. I have visited some

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COLONEL MULLER 35of these forts, amongst others the so-called Eagle's Nest, and can yetnot understand how the Japanese couldhave taken them by assault. It is truethat they lost an appalling number ofmen over it, but they must have possessedan almost superhuman tenacity ofpurpose to climb these sheer heights,by trampling under foot the bodies oftheir fallen comrades.Whilst at work on the coast defencesI was able to assure myself of theastounding ignorance of the officercommanding the artillery as to the realtreasures in guns and ammunition whichour storehouses contained.The discoveries of Colonel Miiller of

the Marine Artillery gave us all the morepleasure since General Biely, who hadnot the slightest conception of what wereally possessed, pretended that, thanksto one of these magic wands which somepeople employ to find water, he had

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36 AWAITING THE ADMIRALextracted from the old Chinese store-houses quantities of projectiles, and evenguns, in excellent condition. As hewas not at Port Arthur at the time whenwe took over the place from the Chinese,he might have made this an excuse forhis ignorance. But how can one con-done a case of crass ignorance such asthe following ? Colonel Miiller requiringone day a considerable number of cartsto transport ammunition, knew wherethey were to be found. So as not tolose time, he simply took them. Then,fearing that he might get into troubleover this action, he subsequently madea formal application for the supply ofthese carts. Imagine his amazementwhen next morning the general repliedthat as the fortress did not possess asingle cart, he regretted that the requestcould not be complied with. And allthis time the said carts, full of ammuni-tion, were rolling along the road

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OLD SUBMARINE 37This energy of the colonel's broughtabout fresh surprises every day. As

soon as the sun was up, he was to befound either in a fort, on board one ofthe ships, or in some workshop, andevery evening turned musician, thuswhiling away the unoccupied remnantof his day. In the forts he mountedthe guns, in the workshops he madecontrivances of his invention by meansof which he was, for instance, able toextend the effective range of the 10-inchguns on Electric Hill. Still better : hefirst raised and then carried out trialswith the submarine Drezevieky, whichhad been abandoned long ago, and infact it was thus that he was nearlydrowned. It was in consequence ofthis incident that the admiral forbadeany further dangerous experiments ofthe kind, not being at all anxious tolose so valuable an officer. It was agreat pity that his undermined health

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38 AWAITING THE ADMIRALforced him to leave Port Arthur beforehe was able to give us all we had aright to expect from such a man as he.To meet the first attack of the fire-ships we had, besides the destroyers andcoast batteries, the gunboat on guardduty outside, and the battleship Ret-visan, unfortunately aground close tothe channel.

If I am not mistaken, the first attemptat blocking up the harbour entrancetook place in the night of 23rd to 24thFebruary. No one expected it. Thetown, the dockyard, and the roadsteadwere enveloped in the inky darknessof a moonless night. No fires, not theleast glimmer, all lights shaded byshutters or hoods. Consequently theJapanese had nothing to guide them.Both ashore and afloat everyone not onduty was asleep. On board the Ret-visan acting as outer guardship, a sharplookout was being kept for Japanese

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FIRESHIPS 39torpedo-craft. Towards three in themorning I jumped out of bed and wenton deck, very much puzzled as tothe unaccountable noises which hadawakened me. My eyes were dazzledby a truly fairylike scene : the sky, blackas ink, was streaked in every directionby the searchlight beams of the Retvisanand the coast batteries. The hilltopswere spitting fire from all the forts, andthe entire seafront reverberated froman incessant cannonade. The Novik'supper deck was in great confusion ;officers and men all mixed up, and eachasking the other what was up : everykind of explanation was put forward,without our being any the wiser.Having gone aloft, from where I was

able to overlook a portion of the outeranchorage, I did not at first see anythingbut shell bursting in the air ; thenI made out a Japanese three-mastedsteamer passing close to the Retvisan,

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40 AWAITING THE ADMIRALwho had just fired a salvo and managedto place two 12-inch shell, which wentoff in a prodigious explosion; in aninstant the entire forepart of the steamerwas wrapped in one huge flame, whichbrightly lit up all the surroundings,after which the darkness seemed blackerthan ever. We then realised that theJapanese, in a fit of mad pluck, hadtried to sink steamers in the narrowentrance, so as to bottle us up in PortArthur. It was a critical moment, forat all costs this enterprise had to befrustrated. That night we did nothusband our ammunition, but gunsalone do not suffice to stop a vesselsteaming ahead, for only hits belowwater are of any use. They are of noaccount above water, especially if theystrike on the hull of a steamer ladenwith pebbles. At most they can producesome effect on the personnel, but if thelatter possess iron nerves this will not

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BLINDING LIGHTS 41prevent them persisting in the taskthey have set themselves. Luck wason our side : with one exception all thesteamers ran aground on the rocks oneach side of the channel. I think wemust attribute this lucky result to thesearchlights, whose beams so blindedthe personnel of these vessels (which, Iknow not why, were given the pompoustitle of fireships ) that they couldnot see where they were going. Allthose who have ever received a search-light beam straight in the eye, knowto what extent one immediately losesall measure of distance and direction.This blinding process simply paralysesone : there is no choice but to shut one'seyes until these horrid rays have leftone. This is what must have happenedto the captains of the fireships, who,blinded and not knowing where theywere going, ran straight on the beach.

It needed the arrival of Admiral4

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42 AWAITING THE ADMIRALMakaroff to make people understandthat guns alone were not enough incases such as the above, and that theyhave to be supplemented by othermeasures, such as mooring contact minesand closing the entrance with booms ofvarious kinds.The width of the channel was reduced

to what was barely necessary by sink-ing on each side two large and oldsteamers filled up with stones and rubbish.Then things became more serious. TheJapanese repeatedly sent such fire-ships, all of which grounded on theseartificial shoals. Some of these carriedquantities of petroleum, and we weretherefore bound to assume that theirintention had been to pour it overboardburning, at the time of the flood-tide, soas to set fire to everything afloat and tothe dockyard. Although this was merehypothesis, still, to provide for all even-tualities, a special boom was placed in

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PLUCKY CREWS 43position, consisting of an arrangementof vertical tin plates, intended to stopany floating liquid, whether burningor not.The morning after this first attempt

at blocking, the Novik was sent toPigeon Bay, to find out what had becomeof two destroyers sent there to remainon guard all night ; on our way throughthe roadstead we were able to verifythe results of this midnight drama :on the beach were four steamers, one ofwhich, quite close to the Retvisan, wasstill on fire. The sea was covered withwreckage of every kind, boats that hadbeen ripped open, lifebuoys, lifebelts,etc. Some of the men had perhapsmanaged to save themselves in theirboats, but the greater part must havebeen drowned or killed by our shell.We made prisoners of the few Japanesewho had remained on board, but whenwe wanted to take them away in our

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.44 AWAITING THE ADMIRALboats things became tragic. Some ofthem committed suicide. An officerjumped overboard, reached the shore,and climbed up on the rocks, where hedefended himself like mad ; then, whenhe had fired away his last cartridge, hetried to strangle himself with his belt,and our people only arrived just in timeto prevent this. These were our firstprisoners of war at Port Arthur, and itmust be confessed, alas that we didnot make many more later on.

The Japanese Press repeatedly de-clared that these

fireshipswere manned

by volunteers, who were made to drawlots as their numbers were so great.Things had gone quite differently, aswe found out when we questioned ourprisoners the same morning. They hadbeen trapped on board these ships ;they had been given to understand thatit was intended to send back to Japanthese old and useless vessels. After

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BEING CHASED 45proceeding for some hours, course wasaltered for Port Arthur, without tellinganyone. I am not very much astonishedat this, for notwithstanding all thegoodwill and the patriotism of theJapanese, it is difficult to admit that inso short a time it had been possible tocollect so many men prepared to com-mit suicide.Having found our two destroyerssafe and sound in Pigeon Bay, we tookthem back with us to Port Arthur.

On our way back l we had a disagreeablesurprise : four hostile cruisers steamingfull speed so as to cut us off from ourbase. We went ahead like mad. Orderswere given to press the engines to theirutmost. Our only chances of escapedepended on these. We ended bypassing through a hail of projectiles,leaving behind us the Japanese, who

1 [Pigeon Bay is round the corner from the har-bour's mouth.]

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46 AWAITING THE ADMIRALwere greatly disconcerted at seeing sofine a prize escape them. Next morningthe enemy's entire fleet appeared insight to verify the results of the fire-ship

attack. So as to prove to themeffectually how unsuccessful they hadbeen, the Askold, Bayan, and Novikwere sent out, and they at once engagedthe enemy's advanced ships. Whenour three ships opened fire, our captainasked permission to return to port, inview of his vessel's weakness. This wasnegatived. Realising then that to re-main out under these conditions wouldonly result in the useless sinking ofone of our vessels, he headed the Novikat top speed for the enemy, with theintention of torpedoing them. However,before he was able to carry out hisproject a signal was made from the signalstation ordering us to return immediatelyto the anchorage.The Japanese, who on this occasion

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TWENTY WRECKS 47kept at a respectful distance from ourshore batteries, did not reappear for along time. Still, they had not given upthe idea of bottling us up, and severaltimes more sent off fireships for thatpurpose at night. At daylight thefollowing morning their cruisers used toappear very regularly to see what hadbeen the result of the attempt, andwe did not fail on these occasions tosend out a cruiser or battleship, so asto show them quite unmistakably thatthe channel was still clear.The roadstead of Port Arthur was

thus covered with the wrecks of overtwenty Japanese vessels, without a singleone succeeding in blocking the channel.

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CHAPTER IVARRIVAL OF ADMIRAL MAKAROFF BOM-

BARDMENT BY INDIRECT FIRE THELoss OF THE PETROPAVLOVSK

ALL February and more passed in astate of inaction and awaiting AdmiralMakaroff s arrival. The most that wasever done were a few reconnaissanceswithin a radius of forty or fifty milesfrom Port Arthur. Everything wasbeing saved up against the arrival ofthe Master, as he was already called : The Master who is coming will judgefor himself. In fact, he did arrive on7th March, and lost no time in passingjudgment on a few, beginning withAdmiral G., the Superintendent of the

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DRASTIC MEASURES 49Dockyard, whom he removed at once.This officer probably owed it to hisincapacity that he was sent to Vladi-vostok in a like capacity. There,during the mutiny, he took only onestep on his own initiative : to takerefuge with all his staff on board theAlmaz, refusing to make the smallesteffort to suppress the revolt, from fear of14

encroaching upon the prerogatives

of the commandant of the fortress (hesaid this himself). It will be readilyunderstood that, once the mutiny wasquelled, his position became impossible.He beat a hasty retreat to St. Petersburg,where he was simply pitchforked intothe office of Superintendent of theDockyard there. Of course I know that14

dog won't eat dog, but, honestly,can one ever hope to reform the navyby such manoeuvres ?

Admiral Makaroff's arrival shook upthe whole of Port Arthur. Pronounced

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50 ADMIRAL MAKAROFFpartisan of cruisers, he fixed his atten-tion at once on the Askold and Novik,hoisting his flag in the latter for thepurpose of making a closer examinationof the hostile squadron, which wascruising in the neighbourhood, andwhose destroyers he wished to cut down.However, the enemy's main body havingadvanced, he saw himself obliged toturn back, which rather shook his faithin light vessels. He first shifted to theAskold, and then to the Petropavlovsk,and confessed in the end that he foundmore peace on the latter, and above allwas less exposed; for however difficultit may be to knock out a properlyconstructed battleship by a single hit,any projectile was good enough to stopthe Novik. The commander-in-chiefmust not expose himself to such risks ;not so much on account of his own lifeas in view of the position he occupies.The admiral's first care was to teach

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STEAM EVOLUTIONS 51us the handling of the ships in com-pany. It is painful to have to declarethat not one of our captains had anyconception of this. Although it wentagainst the grain, we could not helpadmiring the evolutions of the Japan-ese squadron outside Port Arthur : neverthe least hesitation, never a mistake.Compared with this, what must havebeen Admiral Makaroff's feelings whenhe wanted us to take up our firstformation ? The signal was hardly downbefore things were at sixes and sevens,and two battleships, who had notunderstood what was required of them,promptly rammed one another. It wasonly thanks to pure luck that theymanaged to do this without seriouslydamaging each other. And yet onecould not in reason expect these captainsto know that which no one had evertaught them. When it is a case ofhandling a battleship in a squadron,

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52 ADMIRAL MAKAROFFwhile performing evolutions, mere theo-retical knowledge is of no use, even inthe most simple cases. What is re-quired is constant practice at sea, andthat was precisely what we all lacked.The admiral had first thought of pro-viding us with this, but he seemed tohave thought better of it, for fear thathis precious battleships might sink oneanother. Perhaps he might have gotover his first disappointment, and havegone on instructing his captains, if anend so near, so tragic, had left him time.

It was the very morning after hisarrival that the Japanese tried for thefirst time to bombard the town andinner anchorage by indirect fire. Whenone has to act as target, a good battleseems a hundred times better. For mypart, I know nothing which is sucha trial to the nerves than to remainat anchor waiting for a 12-inch shellto fall on top of one, especially when

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INDIRECT FIRE 53said projectile weighs about 800 Ib.On board the battleships they weremuch more calm than we on boardthe light cruiser ; all they had to dowas to go down on the main deck,behind armour. The thickness of theside of a light cruiser or destroyer ishardly that of one's little ringer. Abombardment under such circumstancespositively

lacked all charm for us.The attacking vessels kept so far

away that our batteries could not thinkof replying ; our battleships alone coulddo this by high-angle fire. Howeverproblematical the result may be, it isa great satisfaction to be able to hitback, instead of twiddling one's thumbs,waiting to be hit. The surroundingwaters on the chart were at first dividedoff into squares and each turret toldoff to one square. On the tops of thehills signalmen and telephone operatorswere stationed to watch and report the

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54 ADMIRAL MAKAROFFfall of our 12-inch and 9'2-inch shell,and we were then able to correct theranges on our sights. The Japanesewere thus compelled to shift their posi-tions frequently, and this threw outtheir fire. We only scored one luckyhit : a big shell plumped on the Kasuga,but it sufficed to put an end to thebombardment.The whole of the month of March wasgiven up to progressive training of the

squadron. During this time no opera-tions on a large scale were undertaken,but only reconnaissances on an increas-ing radius, during which we broughtup every steamer we sighted, just tomake it clear to the Japanese that wein no way conceded the command ofthe sea to them. During one of theseexpeditions in the neighbourhood ofthe Miao-Tao Islands, we came upon asmall Japanese steamer, which tried todisappear in that archipelago, and which

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A PRIZE 55we at once chased. When she saw thatescape was hopeless, she transhippedpart of the crew to a Chinese junk,which at once made sail, while thesteamer steered at top speed for thecoast, evidently intending to runaground. Our attendant destroyerbrought up the junk, whilst a shotacross her bows made the steamer stopengines. I boarded her in one of ourboats and found on the upper deck anold rusty whitehead torpedo, and hiddenin the hold three Japanese, whom Isent on board the Novik, in accordancewith my instructions, together withthe four Chinamen forming the crew.A fifth, of distinguished appearance,whom I first took to be the captain,would have liked to kill me by hiswithering glances from the height ofthe bridge. I politely invited him tostep into the boat, where he sat downin the stern sheets with much dignity,

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56 ADMIRAL MAKAROFFwithout saying a word. But the cox-swain, who took everyone for a spy,having felt about on top of his head,accidentally knocked off his cap, andwith it a wig and pigtail, presentingthus to our astonished gaze a Japanese,got up as a Chinese to perfection.We tried to tow the steamer, but theNovik was so fast that the old tinpotwas unable to stand the strain : hermast went by the board, tearing openher bows, so that we were obliged tocast off tow, and to sink our prize bygunfire. The Japanese were all broughtback to Port Arthur as prisoners.A few days later we met a Norwegiansteamer, which the admiral ordered usto examine. As the weather was notof the best, our captain thought itwould be much simpler to send herinto Port Arthur, where the searchcould be carried out in comfort. I hadjust got on board the vessel when the

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AWKWARD NAVIGATION 57semaphore informed me of this changeof plans. My boat returned to theNovik and left me to my unenviablefate : as a matter of fact the captainpossessed no chart of the immediateneighbourhood and I had only a verysuperficial knowledge of the local pilot-age. I should add that I had never beenprecisely in these waters : on the otherhand, I knew only too well that we hadplanted them thick with floating mines ;to crown all, I could see nothing butshoals all around us. As it was highlydesirable to hide my anxiety from theskipper, I made him take station asternof the Novik, whose every movement Iintended to follow closely, without realis-ing that she was being set steadily asideby a current, which increased in strengthas we neared the shore. The result wasthat at a given moment we found our-selves so near the rocks that the captainroused himself sufficiently from his

5

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58apathy to ask me whether we werereally all right. I replied that we wereobliged to shave the rocks, to avoidthe mines we had dropped all over theplace.

To add to my misfortunes, thecaptain's wife, who had become verynervous, was standing near us. Atthe word mines she burst into tears,clutched at my clothes and imploredme to release them. The scene becameso ridiculous that I was in doubtwhether to laugh or be angry, all themore as at bottom I really pitied thesepoor people, pretty

well sure that theirship did not contain anything in theshape of contraband. I don't under-stand how we managed to reach PortArthur, where no sooner was the anchordropped than I hastily fled from thesobs of this over-sensitive woman, whohowever was released next morning,together with the ship.These frequent reconnaissances of the

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RECONNAISSANCES 59admiral were a considerable incon-venience for the Japanese, who, beingthus tied to the place, were unable toreturn to Japan to replenish supplies.They then decided to establish an ad-vanced base for coal and ammunitionat the Elliott Islands. It is quiteprobable that the admiral's object inmaking a series of, so to speak, platonicreconnaissances was to make them relaxtheir vigilance, and then one fine morningto fall upon this base suddenly, or evento reach Vladivostok. Whatever reallywere his plans, fate did not permit oftheir being executed, for on 13th Aprilwas enacted that horrible drama whichcast a blight over all the remainder ofthe campaign : I refer to the loss of thePetropavlovsk.The admiral had said one day that hewould do the job, provided he didnot allow his momentary enthusiasm toget the better of his cool judgment, and

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60it was precisely this kind of thing whichwas the cause of his undoing.On 13th April, at dawn, the cruiserswent out, closely followed by the battle-ships : the object was to set free thedestroyers, who on return from a nightexpedition had run into the hostilecruisers. It was, by the way, not thefirst time that these nocturnal cruiseshad degenerated into the most unex-pected adventures. One of our destroyershad calmly spent the whole night inthe middle of a hostile flotilla, which inthe dark he had mistaken for his own.When it became light the error wasdiscovered mutually : they all fell onhim, and he only escaped by the skin ofhis teeth.As the hostile squadron did not appear

to be fully concentrated, the admiralat first thought of attacking it; buttheir battleships had joined up withthe cruisers before we could get within

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MINELAYING 61range, and we had just decided to fallback under the protection of our coastbatteries, when the Japanese succeededby a ruse in stopping our retreat and ininducing us to follow them on to a mine-field they had just laid out.How was it that Admiral Makaroff,who during the war with the Turks[1878 to 1879] had made his reputationas the most accomplished minelayer,never thought that the Japanese mighthave taken a leaf out of his book ?Previous to the Petropavlovsk disasterno one any more than himself hadbothered their heads about such aneventuality, no precautions whateverwere taken, and it was quite naturalthat the movements of the Japaneseminelayers had escaped our attention.The slightest fog seriously interfereswith the searchlights, forming a kindof screen against which the beams seemto flatten themselves out as if against

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62 ADMIRAL MAKAROFFa wall. Later on, when I happened tobe on duty in one of the coast batteries,I have frequently heard the enemy'storpedo-craft moving about in the roadsduring calm and hazy nights, but Icould do nothing ; for before being ableto sink one I should have to get her intothe beam of a searchlight, and even thenwe could not be sure that they had notalready accomplished their task as mine-layers. All we could do was to sweepfor their mines next morning and to layout preventive nets. 1 I can certify tothe fact that these two expedientswere largely employed. The mines wereswept for by specially fitted steamhoppers, and our minelayers carefullylaid out the nets. But, alas all theseprecautions were only taken after theadmiral's death, and once more the

1 [Steel wire grummet nets, such as are carried bybattleships against torpedo attacks, were hung fromspars forming booms, the ends of which were moored.]

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FOUR HUNDRED MINES 63truth of our old proverb had beenproved : So long as he has not heardthe thunder, the peasant does not thinkof making the sign of the cross.Our inventive genius was later on so

developed that we laid regular traps forthese minelaying destroyers, and then,at the end of the siege, we succeeded incapturing a Japanese steamboat whosepropeller had got foul of fishing netssuspended from empty casks.The Japanese had laid out such

quantities of mines that we fished up noless than 400 in the two narrow channels,swept only to the width necessary for asingle ship to pass. From this figureone can form an idea of the numberwhich must have been left in the partsof the roads we did not explore.Let us, however, return to AdmiralMakaroff, whom we left performingevolutions in the roads and about tofollow up the Japanese. Suddenly, at

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64 ADMIRAL MAKAROFFabout 9.30 a.m., immediately after a dullexplosion, the Petropavlovsk began toheel over ; then followed in quick suc-cession a series of perfectly deafeningexplosions, and the big ship, literallybroken up into several parts, began togo down fast, head foremost. We sawby degrees the propellers, still revolving,appear out of the water, then her bottom,painted bright green, whilst positivesheets of flame ran along the upper deck,like lava pouring over the slopes of avolcano in eruption. The Petropavlovsk,whom the sea was swallowing up withincreasing rapidity, finally disappearedin a veritable geyser of steam andcolumns of water. Were I to live ahundred years this drama, which lastedbarely a minute and a half, could neverbe banished from my memory, and thishideous spectacle seems to be engravedupon my eyeballs as if I saw it to-day.It was awful, all the more awful since we

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GONE DOWN 65could do nothing in the way of renderingassistance to the victims or in any wayarrest the appalling catastrophe. Underthis blow we all remained stunned andriveted to the spot. I remember thatafter the first explosion, although Ihad given orders for the quarter-boatsto be lowered, for several minutesneither I nor any of my men made theslightest movement : it was as if ourarms had been cut off.Soon afterwards boats began to arrive

on the scene, steamboats and destroyers,to pick up the few survivors. As wecould not believe that the admiral hadgone down, every ship in the squadronwas asked by signal for news of him, andfrom everywhere came the same heart-rending reply. However, it took hoursfor last hopes to die away : when allthe boats had returned to their ships,even without the poor consolation ofhaving recovered his body.

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66 ADMIRAL MAKAROFFAn hour after the Petropavlovsk had

gone down, the Pobieda in her turn strucka mine : she got off cheap, as notwith-standing a great inrush of water, shewas able under her own steam to regainthe harbour, there to be repaired.The consequences of the Petropavlovsk

striking that mine were probably soterrible because the point of impact wasabreast one of the main magazines,which in blowing up caused the boilersto burst, their antiquated type makingthem very liable to this.

I shudder when I think how manylives were lost, how many of those mendisappeared who formed the admiral'sstaff and whose brilliant attainmentswere so valuable to the squadron, inthat explosion which only lasted a fewseconds. It is awful to think thatthose who were in the depths of thevessel went down in her alive and musthave remained so for a long time,

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BURIED ALIVE 67knowing that they were (if one may usethe expression) buried alive. Instinct-ively, therefore, I rebel against war, thatmethod, which should have outliveditself, of settling difficulties mostlycreated by diplomats.A similar drama was enacted on boardthe Rossia : a Japanese projectilehaving caused an outbreak of fire,several men found themselves hemmed inby the flames in a compartment. Whenthey realised their desperate positionand that all would soon be over forthem, they struck up together the hymnDe Profundis, while waiting for death toreduce them to silence.How did the admiral really come by

his death ? No one could say. It wasstated that he had been crushed on thebridge by the falling foremast. Afterall, it does not matter much ; his deathwas, not only for Port Arthur but forthe whole of Russia, the irreparable

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68 ADMIRAL MAKAROFFmisfortune which doomed the squadronto inevitable destruction.When the explosions were taking place

in the Petropavlovsk a rumour arose onboard the other ships that we were beingattacked by submarines, which causedan indescribable panic. Both battle-ships and cruisers opened fire on every-thing they saw floating about : piecesof wood, empty tins of preserves, andany other object which they took forperiscopes. This insane cannonade wentoff without anyone directing it. With-out any regard for their neighbours,the gunlayers fired at less than twocables [400 yards] ; shells were indeedwhistling all round us.

Luckily the captain of the Novik didnot lose his head ; as soon as he had,by tremendous energy, got the men tocease firing, he went full speed asternwith both engines, so as to get out ofthe range of fire of his neighbours. At

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SUBMARINES ? 69that moment we received a semaphoreto say that a submarine was heading forus. It is very likely that the wash ofour screws was taken for one, as I couldnot make out anything of the kind,however attentively I watched. Themen were literally off their heads : oneof the gunlayers pointed out a lumpof oakum floating in the water andswore it was a periscope.I believe it was only the Poltava andourselves who thought of clearing out ofthis rabble. We left the other shipsmaking for the port, crowding one uponthe other like a lot of sheep. Our newsquadron commander managed at lastto get a signal through for forming up.and we were naturally the last.For a long time there was doubt asto the presence of submarines on that

day. As, moreover, for most of usthis new type of vessel was quite un-known, we had no idea what its capa-

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70 ADMIRAL MAKAROFFbilities were. The Japanese certainlypossessed submarines, for we had boughtsome ourselves in the United States atthe same time as they. But sincenobody ever saw one throughout thewar, everyone was at liberty to givevent to his imagination concerning them.Some firmly believed that the submarineswould penetrate into the dockyard, firetheir torpedos, and quietly disappear.Anyhow, an obstruction was formed ofnets, on a system invented by LieutenantUlianoff, which were meant to catch sub-marines exactly as a poacher catchesquails.More than once the signalmen mistook

simple logs of wood for periscopes, or aseal disporting itself for a submarinecoming to the surface, and their sema-phore reports used to alarm the whole ofPort Arthur. On one occasion I wassent off in the Novik's steam cutter aftera submarine reported by the White

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ADMIRAL VITYEFT 71Wolf signal station. Before starting Ireceived the following instructions : toseize the submarine by its periscope,then to smash it by blows with a mallet,so as to blind its crew ; better still, towrap a flag or piece of canvas round it ;or lastly (which would have been thebest of all), to tow the said submarineby its periscope into the inner harbour.

After the war I commanded for oneyear some of our submarines at Vladi-vostok, which enabled me to see howingenuous, not to say grotesque, ourideas were at the time. Although as anengine of war it has not yet reachedperfection, such as it is to-day it con-stitutes a very formidable weapon.Admiral Vityeft, who succeeded Ad-

miral Makaroff in the command of thesquadron, appears to have been fullyconscious of the fact that he was notquite equal to his new task. He there-fore decided that the squadron was not

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72 ADMIRAL MAKAROFFto undertake any operations outside,preferring to concentrate all the means athis disposal on the defence of the fortress :which led the wits of the place to de-clare that for the remainder of thewar the squadron would observe thestrictest neutrality.

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CHAPTER VTHE BATTLESHIPS HATSUSE AND

YASHIMA BLOW UP Loss OF YENISSEI AND BOYARIN

THE death of Admiral Makaroff leftthe squadron without a head, and itwas doomed to inaction; only the de-stroyers went out on their daily roundof guard duty. This was an ungratefultask for them, wearisome and dangerousinto the bargain : several of them cameto an untimely end, some by strikingsunken rocks, others went down underthe Japanese fire, without any of themhaving the opportunity of dischargingone of those weapons which gave themtheir name, 1 with the sole exception of

1 [In Russia destroyers are called torpedo-boats. ]6

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74 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UPthe one commanded by LieutenantKrinitsky, who attacked the fireshipsand attempted (though unsuccessfully)to torpedo their escorting vessels.By day all of these small vesselswhich were not on guard duty outside,

assisted at the recovery of mines,together with rowboats, tugs, and sweepers from the dockyard. Thissweeping service constituted a dutywhich was no less full of risk than thenight duties I have just mentioned.All these humble workers ensured thebig ships being able to go out, and itseemed to me that these wretcheddestroyers were often made to getunder weigh only so that it might besaid that Port Arthur was still upand doing.Towards the end of April there was a

report that the enemy had just landedon the Liao-Tung Peninsula. No oneworried very much about it, bearing

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76 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UPThe halt of the Japanese after their

first battle was an enormous mistake :had they pushed on, Port Arthur wouldhave fallen at once. The three monthsthey thus lost was certainly not timelost for us, for it enabled us to makesuch dispositions that it took themseven months to reduce the defendersto despair or rather, General Stoessel,without whose action the capitulation(which I admit was inevitable) wouldcertainly not have taken place untilvery much later.At the commencement of the siege

our squadron was able, by indirectmeans, to pay out the Japanese to acertain extent for Makaroffs death andthe loss of the flagship. Primarily toprevent the enemy from bombardingus from seaward, we had strewn withmines all the waters not actually coveredby our coast batteries ; we had laidout some off Cape Liao-ti-Shan and

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THE AMUR 77outside Talienwan. Admiral Vityefthad the happy thought to sow also afew more between these two points,about seven miles to the south-east ofthe entrance. Captain Ivanoff, com-manding the minelayer Amur, was theauthor of a secret plan, which he keptlocked up, and he now took advantageof one of his sorties to carry it out.The Japanese had established a regularblockade, and every day we saw themmoving up and down a line about tenmiles off the coast-line, a distance atwhich they judged themselves to be outof range of our heaviest guns, thosemounted on Electric Rock, our onlycoast battery of real worth. Theywere quite aware that our shell couldnot reach them at that distance, andthey defied our poor gunners, who spentnight and day at the breeches of theirguns, hoping for some false move bythe enemy, which would have given

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them a chance of getting a shot in.Unfortunately, the Japanese were wideawake and never risked getting evenhalf a mile inside their self-imposedlimit. The captain of the Amur, havingnoticed this peculiarity, cleverly tookadvantage of a fogbank to reach thespot he had chosen, and to drop somemines there. Admiral Vityeft, havingbeen informed of what he called amad prank, naturally began to getangry : he roundly abused CaptainIvanoff, and even went as far as tothreaten him with removal from hiscommand.As was natural, this story went

quickly round the town. Consequentlynext morning everyone who was notactually on duty met as if by appoint-ment on Electric Rock. Towards teno'clock the Japanese battleships dis-appeared behind Liao-ti-Shan in singleline ahead, after having steamed safely

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YASHIMA SUNK 79right through our mine-field. We hadhardly recovered from our disappoint-ment when away to the left the cruisershove in sight, and at the same timethe battleships, having turned round,reappeared from behind Liao-ti-Shanand steered straight for the dangerzone. After several minutes of feverishexpectation,we saw them all stop enginestogether, and one of them, of the Yashimatype, commence heeling over heavily toport. Although no one actually sawthe explosion, this heel, which steadilygot worse, showed us clearly that thevessel must have exploded a mine underher bottom. Moreover, we could makeout with our glasses that all the boatsof the squadron were pulling towardsthat ship, whilst the remaining battle-ships, still stopped, were waiting around.The excitement in Port Arthur was nowat its height. The destroyers werestanding by to go out, and the Novik

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80 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UPhaving received orders to bring herfires forward, I was obliged to leaveGolden Hill, where all were congratu-lating one another on our success, whilstshowering curses on the Japanese.However, it was by no means over. Ata moment when least expected, anenormous column of white smoke shotup from a battleship of the Hatsuse type,in which she completely disappeared,No sooner had this smoke blown awaythan we saw the battleship go down,bows first. And then there burst fortha kind of ferocious joy, a joy of savages,without restraint, with caps throwninto the air and with cheers, and thepeople all but rushed into one another'sarms. The loss of the Petropavlovskwas indeed avenged, as the Hatsuse,which bad displaced 15,000 tons, be-longed to a more powerful, and aboveall more modern type than our ship.The general elation even spread to the

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HATSUSE'S FATE 81foreign Naval Attaches : the Germanclapped his hands; the Frenchman, inecstasy, waved his cap, shouting, Finiles japonais Rien ne va plus Onlythe American, keeping his thoughts tohimself, left Golden Hill without utteringa word.

It is probable that they were not ableto save many men from the Hatsuse,as no sooner were all boats hoisted upthan the squadron steamed away at fullspeed, leaving the wretched Yashima,still stopped and heeling over, to herfate. Later on she slowly righted, andalso got away.The Novik and the destroyers, as soonas they had got outside, had been dividedinto three groups. I must point outonce more that these daylight attackshad not the least chance of success.In fact the cruisers, who surrounded theill-fated battleship, opened so hot a fireon our vessels that they were unable to

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82 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UPget anywhere near. We heard lateron that this attempt would have servedno purpose, as the Yashima was sodamaged that she sank before she couldget to Japan.The English Press has written that

the Japanese newspapers had deeplydeplored the loss of the Petropavlovskand Admiral Makaroff s death. Alreadysomewhat sceptical on that point, Iwas fully confirmed in my view afterthe loss of their battleships. If weRussians, with an essentially easy-goingand peace-loving nature, gave way tosuch demonstrations of savage joy atseeing hundreds of our enemies go down,I feel not the slightest doubt that thejubilations of the Japanese, who areafter all cruel and vindictive Malays,must have passed all bounds.By the middle of May the enemy had

seized the position of Kintchao, judgedto be impregnable by our Port Arthur

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THE GALLANT BOBR 83tacticians, who had counted on thesupport of our squadron, but whichfailed them, as it was convinced of itsown impotence. The gunboat Bobr wassent to the east of Dalny, where herco-operation was most valuable. It wasshe who forced the Japanese to keepaway. On the other hand, nothing ofthe kind was done in the west, whichallowed the Japanese army to take ourbatteries in reverse and completely toturn our position. The departure, andabove all the return, of the Bobr willever remain glorious pages in the annalsof the siege. Commander Schelting,who commanded the gunboat, wasniggardly rewarded with the cross ofSt. George. He had received orders toshell the enemy up to the last momentand, if Kintchao were unhappily to fall,he was to sink his ship and bring thecrew back to Port Arthur overland.Schelting, who had brilliantly carried

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84 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UPout the first part of the programme,lacked the sad courage to carry out thesecond part. When the moment camefor sinking the Bobr, he thought it mightbe better to try and bring her back intoharbour, which was more than risky,seeing that with the fall of Kintchao theJapanese ships had recovered liberty ofmovement and commanded the sea.The Bobr effected her retreat in a dark,blowy night, running neck and neckwith the enemy. The darkness alonesaved her : her guns, more than ob-solete, though very formidable withtheir shrapnel shell against land troops,had no effect whatever on the shipsopposed to her.

I have often heard it said that, sincethe Bobr had done so well against Dalny,it was a great mistake not to have sentout better armed vessels than she. Theanswer is this : the spot from which itwas alone possible to fire was so

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THE YENISSEI SUNK 85restricted that only a very small, shortvessel could maintain herself there, andeven so she had to keep moving herengines the whole time.Not knowing, of course, where the

landing would take place, we thoughtthat Dalny seemed to offer the bestchances ; it was therefore decided tolay mines there. Early in February,the Yenissei was sent there for the pur-pose, and was lost by striking one of herown mines. This gave rise to a violentdiscussion, for nearly everyone thoughtthat this accident was directly due tothe captain's negligence. There werenot many who tried to discover thecause and to reconstitute the dramain the way it must have happened : itwas so much easier to put down every-thing to the captain's carelessness orincapacity.Now, Commander Stevanoff was an

officer of considerable capacity, had

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86 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UPgraduated at the War College and him-self designed a minelayer. Indeed, theYenissei had been built from his plans,which I hasten to add the Ministry ofMarine had not hesitated to modify.In the end Captain Stevanoff was de-clared to be the father of a child bearingonly a distant resemblance to the onehe had conceived. Being, however, de-voted to his profession, and especiallyto everything connected with torpedoesand mines, he had determined to makethe best of what they had been pleasedto leave of his design, and obeying onlythe instincts of his enterprising andcourageous nature, he had repeatedlyasked permission to go out and lay minesoff the enemy's ports. His first ex-pedition of the kind was to mine Talien-wan Bay, in a stiff breeze, hazy weather,with occasional snow squalls, and atemperature well below freezing point.He had already dropped 400 of his

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THE OWN PETARD 87spherical mines, when it was reportedto him that one of them had come upagain. The state of the sea did notpermit of the mine being moored afresh,and he was not anxious to leave behindwhat was not so much a proof of want ofskill as something which would betraythe presence of mines. He thereforedecided to explode it, but before hehad time to do this, an explosion sud-denly took place under the Yenissei,which sent her to the bottom. What hadhappened ? It is supposed that theship must have struck one of her ownsubmerged mines, which the heavy seahad broken adrift from its moorings,unless indeed, blinded by the drivingsnow, she had steamed over one of thelines laid by herself. All boats were atonce lowered to save the crew. Al-though seriously wounded in the head,and his body riddled by splinters ofevery kind, due to the explosion, the

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THE BOYARIN DESTROYED 89The Boyarin, 1 having been sent toTalienwan, struck one of the mines

just laid out by the Yenissei. Let mesay at once that the captain of theformer could not be held responsible.The plan by which these mines had beenlaid out had been lost with the ship,and the Boyarin was therefore quite inthe dark and had to take her chancein carrying out her orders. Yet fromthe moment the accident occurred hercaptain's attitude has been a completemystery to me. The ship's companywere already all in the boats, when thechief engineer reported to the captainthat the water was falling in the well.Without listening to anything, the latterdashed on board a destroyer which hadjust turned up, and steamed away inher at full speed, deserting his vessel,which was still afloat, though not with-out having previously given orders to

1 A similar vessel to the Novik.7

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90 BATTLESHIPS BLOW UPanother destroyer to torpedo her. Thepoor Boyarin, after having been missedby two torpedos, floated about forthree days and then drifted on to therocks, where the sea broke her up.

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CHAPTER VITHE SHIPS CANNONADE THE JAPANESETROOPS THE SQUADRON SAILS ONJUNE 23

UP to the beginning of June the lossesof the war on both sides were entirelydue to mines. Both sides had laidthem out in great quantities : theJapanese to prevent our going out, andwe to hamper them in their bombard-ments. Naturally each side fished upand destroyed the other's mines, whiletrying to cause him at the same timesome additional damage, and thisfrequently degenerated into skirmishesbetween destroyers, usually harmless.Every means was considered good

9'

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92 SHIPS V. TROOPSenough for the end in view : rafts,destroyers, lighters, hoppers, the Amurand even small merchant steamers.The Japanese, on the other hand, neveremployed anything but

their destroyers,which time and again were lit up by ourcoast searchlights, when they were atonce fired upon by the batteries, whichclaimed to have sunk several. This,however, could never be proved, as withthe advent of dawn every trace of theenemy disappeared. Frequently, especi-ally towards the end, the Japaneseonly made believe, probably as theywere short of material. We fishedup several mines which were foundto contain only one - quarter theproper charge, and the explosion ofwhich would not have done muchharm.

Occasionally they changed their tacticsand set mines adrift which used tostrike the rocks, where their explosion

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DESTROYER ATTACK 93only served to frighten the natives,especially the fishermen.Whether to convoy the Amur or to

drive off the destroyers which used tohover about in groups between PortArthur and Talienwan, the Novik wasalways under weigh. We once cameacross seventeen of them, who tried acombined attack on us, but thanks toour speed we were easily able to keepthem at a distance and under ourfire. They then broke up into threegroups, so as to deliver their attackfrom three different directions, but theyfailed in this too. We fired on each ofthe groups in succession, which made itimpossible for them to carry out asimultaneous attack on the Novik, whocame out with flying colours, thanks tospeed and skill. The Japanese gaveup the chase, probably owing to damageinflicted by us, as our fire was veryeffective. The oily calm enabled us to

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94 SHIPS V. TROOPSspot the fall of our shot accurately, andnothing was easier than to correct theerrors in distance and direction, sothat we had the satisfaction of seeinga number of our shell get home. Thisaffair showed us that a Novik, wellhandled, had nothing to fear from de-stroyers, no matter how numerous.The Japanese had evidently come tothe same conclusion, for ever aftertheir destroyers made off the momentour presence had been reported to them.By the beginning of June the be-

sieging army had pushed their advanceso vigorously that our troops fell backto the Green Hills, quite close to PortArthur. During this movement theJapanese left wing had got so close tothe sea that our ships were able tocannonade them. A series of suchoperations therefore commenced on14th June, which nearly always endedin bringing about, if not a regular

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INDIRECT FIRE 95engagement, at least a skirmish betweenthe big ships on both sides.At the commencement of the siege

these same Green Hills had played acertain part in our indirect fire, whichused to be corrected by observersstationed there, our shell passing overtheir heads. It was a very dull game,for most of the time we never knewwhat the results were of our bombardinga target we never even saw. Added tothis were head- and ear-aches, for our4*7-inch guns had the most penetratingsound I ever heard.

It frequently happened that theNovik and the gunboats steamed out atdawn in the direction of Talienwan.Ahead of us were the craft towing sweepsto catch the mines, which the Japaneselaid out most conscientiously everynight in the waters they supposed weshould be steaming through. The wholeof us had constantly to stop engines,

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96 SHIPS V. TROOPSto enable one of the sweeps, partedby the explosion of a mine, to be hauledin, refitted, and paid out again. Theseconstant stoppages were intensely irri-tating, and in the end the Japanesesquadron appearing over the horizonforced us by their long-range fire toretire into Port Arthur.One day our captain, who had had just

about enough of these constant delaysduring a run, only made at 4 or 5 knotsas it was, threw everything to thewinds and decided to trust to his usualluck, and the onlookers were thus ableto enjoy a spectacle differing muchfrom the usual one. In front the Novikdrawing over 18 feet, steaming at fullspeed through the Japanese mines,followed at the speed of the tortoiseby the gunboats towing the sweepinglighters, whose draught did not ex-ceed 12 feet. If these mad escapadesamongst the mines reacted very un-

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THE NOVIK'S LUCK 97pleasantly (why hide the fact ?) onour nervous system, they at any rateenabled us to throw ourselves on therear of the enemy, who then left theirbase precipitately, but who only arrivedjust in time to see us regain our stableswith a light heart after having accom-plished our object without waiting forthe 12-inch shell. The luck of theNovik was incredible. Mines were sweptup at the very places we had justpassed over ; one was actually explodedby the wash of our screws. A yard ortwo more to starboard and we shouldhave been blown in half.The capture of the Green Hills having

brought the Japanese in direct contactwith the place, these expeditions be-came a delightful distraction : firstly,because we had not far to go ; secondly,because we at last saw what we werefiring at. One day as we were steam-ing close along the shore, our attention

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98 SHIPS V. TROOPSwas attracted by a dark spot abouthalf-way up the slopes of Taku-Shan.Some thought that it was a clump ofpines, but the majority took it for adetachment of Japanese troops. Thecaptain having decided to fire on thesesuspicious spots, Sub-Lieutenant Maxi-moff laid one of his guns on the targethimself. At the first shot the spotmoved. It looked as if the whole wastrying to move round to the other faceof the hill. We at once substitutedshrapnel for the common shell whichhad been used to get the range, andtheir bursting cones literally coveredthe Japanese, who fled in disorder,leaving behind heaps of corpses. Thiswas the first time that I witnessedreal excitement on board. Usuallyeveryone remained quietly at hisfighting station, whilst on this occasionevery one appeared to be struck witha fit of mad rage. The whole of the

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NOVEL TARGETS 99officers were at the guns ; the stokersoff watch carried the ammunition upfrom below in their arms, and shoutsof joy were heard in the midst of thejoking. Meanwhile the Japanese ships,who had approached, opened fire on us.But no one wanted to leave off, and wehad several times to make the signalto return into port to the little Otvajny,who, quite unconscious of any danger,had stood on without paying anyattention to what was going on toseaward.On another occasion, when I was

working our Barr & Stroud range-finder(the only good instrument we possessedof the kind in Port Arthur), which isfitted with very powerful glasses, Inoticed that the slopes of the hillsopposite us were covered with smallgroups of Japanese, who had beenoverlooked by our ordinary glasses,notwithstanding their nearness, as all

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100 SHIPS V. TROOPSthese men, dressed in khaki, were sittingdown and keeping absolutely still,trusting that they had not been dis-covered. A few well-directed projec-tiles produced absolute panic in theirranks. During the night they hadattempted to turn our right flank ; theNovik, who turned up in the nick oftime to spoil their little game, was thecause of their not risking themselvesnear the sea for a long time.

It is much to be regretted that theplan of joining up Pigeon Bay with theWest Basin of the harbour had not beencarried out, for by its means we couldhave threatened both wings of the be-siegers and thus helped the defence veryconsiderably.

Several times in June the Viceroysuggested to Admiral Vityeft to take outthe whole squadron and attack theenemy, said to be several units short.Our only means of communicating with

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SQUADRON WEIGHS 101the Viceroy and St. Petersburg wereby junks sent to Chifoo, also the de-stroyer Lieut. Burakoff, which severaltimes accomplished the passage acrossto In-Keu. She was the fastest of ourdestroyers, and each of these trips wasa deed of valour, since the Japaneseinvariably organised a regular drive to catch her on her return journey,from which she managed as regularlyto escape, thanks to the activity andintelligence of her captain.At last the admiral made up his mind

to get his ships under weigh on 23rdJune. The day before the channel wasswept clean, and at daybreak the battle-ships began to creep out laboriously tothe roads. Port Arthur is a port sowell chosen that vessels can only go outone at a time. As deep draught vesselscan only get through the channel at highwater, it is often necessary to use twotides, as on the slightest hitch occurring,

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102 SHIPS F. TROOPSeveryone behind has to await the nexthigh water. It was noon before thesquadron was at last outside. On theother hand, the Japanese, who had beenkept well informed of our protractedmovements, had ample time to maketheir dispositions, and by three o'clocktheir entire fleet were assembled aboutforty miles from Port Arthur. Afterhaving counted their ships several times,the admiral judged it to be imprudentto attack superior numbers and decidedto return to Port Arthur. In fact,there were over twenty of them, asagainst exactly eleven on our side. Itis impossible to say what the issue ofan action under these conditions wouldhave been, but I think we might ha