Part 22 (2/2)
As soon as the news of the first torpedo attack on Port Arthur arrived, in February, 1904, there was talk of the new fleet for the East, and unofficially the end of June was spoken of as the time when it would be ready to sail. From the first it was obvious that this was an over-sanguine estimate, unless the fleet was to be made up entirely of old and weak s.h.i.+ps. The best units that could be made available, and without some at least of which the fleet could hardly be sent out, were five powerful battles.h.i.+ps that were being completed in the Neva yards and at Cronstadt.
Two had been launched in 1901, two in 1902, and the fifth in 1903, but even on the 1901 s.h.i.+ps there was a large amount of work to be done. Naval experts declared that the fleet would not be ready for a year, and that even then the difficulty of coaling would make its voyage to the other side of the world in war time a hopeless task for the admiral in command.
By hard work the fleet was made ready for sea by the middle of September.
The coaling difficulty was overcome by taking colliers with the fleet, contracting with a German firm to send large coal-laden steamers to various points on the route selected, and straining to the utmost the benevolent neutrality of France, and using her colonial ports as halting places on the way. There was some difficulty in recruiting a sufficient number of engineer officers, and of stokers who could manage the novel tubular boilers of the new battles.h.i.+ps, and the fleet was undoubtedly handicapped by the inexperience of its engine-room and stokehold staff.
Admiral Rojdestvensky, the officer chosen for the supreme command, had an excellent record. He was fifty-six years of age, and had served in the navy since 1865. In the Russo-Turkish War he had distinguished himself by brilliant attacks on Turkish s.h.i.+ps of war with a small torpedo gunboat, the ”Vesta.” He had been naval attache in London, and had filled important technical and official positions at St. Petersburg, being for a while chief of the general Naval Staff. Finally he had personal knowledge of the Eastern seas and of the j.a.panese navy, for he had commanded the Russian squadron in the Far East during the war between China and j.a.pan.
On 14 August--just after the news of the disastrous sortie of the Port Arthur fleet had reached Europe, and on the very day that Kamimura defeated the Vladivostock squadron and sank the ”Rurik”--Admiral Rojdestvensky hoisted his flag on board his flags.h.i.+p, the ”Knias Suvaroff,” at Cronstadt.
But there was still much work to be done, and recent mishaps to some of the s.h.i.+ps' machinery to be made good, so the fleet did not sail till 25 August.
Even then it was only for a few days' training cruise in the Baltic.
On the 30th the fleet was back again at Cronstadt. Engineers and mechanics worked night and day, setting right defects in the s.h.i.+ps, and on 11 September there was another start, this time for the port of Libau.
The fleet consisted of seven battles.h.i.+ps, two armoured cruisers, and some protected cruisers and torpedo-boat destroyers. It was to be joined at Libau by a miscellaneous collection of craft--some small cruisers and a number of merchantmen to be used as auxiliary cruisers, store, hospital, and repair s.h.i.+ps.
Of the five new battles.h.i.+ps in the Neva yards four had been got ready for sea. These were the ”Borodino,” ”Orel,” ”Imperator Alexander III,” and ”Knias Suvaroff.” They were powerful s.h.i.+ps of 13,000 to 13,500 tons displacement, with engines of nominal 16,000 horse-power, and their official speed, which they never realized, was eighteen knots. Their heaviest armour was nine inches, and they carried two pair of 12-inch guns fore and aft in armoured turrets, with an auxiliary armament of twelve 6-inch quick-firers besides lighter guns. The three other battles.h.i.+ps, the ”Ossliabya,” ”Navarin,” and ”Sissoi Veliki” were older s.h.i.+ps. The newest of them, the ”Ossliabya,” launched in 1898, was on her way to the East when the war broke out, and had turned back. She was of 12,600 tons displacement, and claimed a speed of eighteen knots. She carried four 10-inch and eleven 6-inch guns. The other two s.h.i.+ps were rated as having sixteen knots speed, but probably could not much exceed twelve. Their displacement and princ.i.p.al armament were:--
_Navarin_, 10,000 tons, four 12-inch guns, eight 6-inch Q.F.
_Sissoi Veliki_, 8880 tons, four 12-inch guns, six 6-inch Q.F.
The two armoured cruisers were old s.h.i.+ps:--
_Admiral Nakhimoff_, 8500 tons, eight 8-inch, ten 6-inch guns.
_Dimitri Donskoi_, 7796 tons, six 6-inch, ten 4.7 inch guns.
Two of the protected cruisers, the ”Aurora” and ”Oleg,” were s.h.i.+ps of about 7000 tons, carrying for their main armament the former eight and the latter twelve 6-inch guns. The other cruisers were four smaller s.h.i.+ps, but some of them were comparatively new vessels with good speed--useful as scouts.
Well manned with competent engineers and trained gunners the fleet would have been formidable enough, notwithstanding its weaker units. But here again it was the men that counted.
In the first week of October the fleet was taken to Revel. The Tsar arrived there on the 9th and inspected it next day. On the 11th it sailed. But it stopped again at Libau, until October 15, when at last it started for the East.
There had been wild rumours that the j.a.panese had sent emissaries to Europe, obtained some light craft, and fitted them as improvised torpedo-boats for the purpose of attacking the fleet on its voyage through the narrow waters that form the exit from the Baltic or during the crossing of the North Sea. The Russian police attached such importance to these canards that Rojdestvensky was warned to take precaution against attack until he was out on the open ocean. He pa.s.sed the Danish straits with his s.h.i.+ps partly cleared for action, fired on a Swedish merchantman and a German fis.h.i.+ng-boat, and, avoiding the usual course from the Skaw to the Channel, ran by the Dogger Bank, and in a panic of false alarm opened fire on the steam trawling fleet, sinking a boat and killing and wounding several men. The result was an outburst of indignation in England, a partial mobilization of the British fleet, and some days of extreme tension, when it seemed likely that England would be drawn into the war, with the probability that France would then, under the terms of her alliance with Russia, have also to enter into the conflict. An agreement was arranged under which there was to be an international inquiry into the Dogger Bank incident, and Russia promised to make full reparation.
Meanwhile the Baltic fleet had run down Channel and across the Bay of Biscay, and southwards to Tangier, where it was concentrated on 3 November, watched by Lord Charles Beresford and the Channel Fleet, for the period of sharp tension was not over. At Tangier Rojdestvensky divided his force. He went southward along the African coast with the first division, and sent the second division under Admiral Folkersham into the Mediterranean to go eastwards by the Suez Ca.n.a.l route. A third division had been formed at Libau to reinforce the fleet. It was composed of the armoured cruisers ”Izumrud” and ”Oleg,” three auxiliary cruisers (armed liners of the volunteer fleet), the ”Terek,” ”Rion,” and ”Dnieper,” a flotilla of destroyers, and a number of stores.h.i.+ps. It sailed from Libau on 7 November.
Rojdestvensky put into various African ports, mostly in the French colonies, and coaled his s.h.i.+ps from his colliers. He was at Dakar, in West Africa, on 13 November; at Gaboon on the 26th; in Great Fish Bay on 6 December; and at Angra Pequena on the 11th. He pa.s.sed Cape Town on 19 December. Rounding the Cape, he steered for Madagascar, and on 1 January, 1905, he anch.o.r.ed in the Bay of Ste. Marie, near Tamatave.
On that same New Year's Day General Stoessel sent a flag of truce out to General Nogi, to inform him that he was anxious to arrange the immediate surrender of Port Arthur. The capitulation was signed next day. Thus at the very moment that Rojdestvensky and the main fighting force of the Baltic fleet established itself in the Indian Ocean, its nearest possible base in the Eastern seas pa.s.sed into j.a.panese hands, and the problem the Russian admiral had to solve became more difficult.
Folkersham, with the second division, rejoined Rojdestvensky's division in the waters of Madagascar.
From Ste. Marie the fleet moved to the roadstead of Nossi-Be, at the north end of Madagascar, where it was joined in February by the reinforcements for Libau. Rojdestvensky had now under his command an armada of some forty s.h.i.+ps of all kinds, including stores.h.i.+ps and colliers. Now that Port Arthur had fallen he seemed in no hurry to proceed eastwards.
There had been an agitation in Russia for a further reinforcement of the fleet, and though the addition of a few more old and weak s.h.i.+ps could add no real strength to Rojdestvensky's armada, the Government yielded to the clamour, and on February 15 dispatched from Libau a fourth division, under the command of Admiral Nebogatoff. The flags.h.i.+p was an armoured turret-s.h.i.+p, the ”Imperator Nikolai I,” of 9700 tons, dating from 1889, and cla.s.sed in the Navy List as a battles.h.i.+p; with her went three small armoured ”coast-defence battles.h.i.+ps,” the ”General Admiral Apraxin,” the ”Admiral Ushakoff,” and the ”Admiral Senyavin,” all of about 4000 tons, and the cruiser ”Vladimir Monomach,” of a little over 5500 tons. Rojdestvensky seemed inclined to wait at Nossi-Be for Nebogatoff's arrival, but the j.a.panese addressed strong protests to Paris against Madagascar being made a base of operations for a huge expedition against them; the French Government sent pressing remonstrances to their friends at St. Petersburg, and the admiral was ordered by cable to move on.
Sailing from Nossi-Be on 25 March, Rojdestvensky steered first for the Chagos Archipelago, and then for the Straits of Malacca. In the afternoon of 8 April the fleet pa.s.sed Singapore, keeping well out to sea. The s.h.i.+ps were burning soft coal, and an enormous cloud of black smoke trailed from the forest of funnels. Steamers ran out from the port to see the splendid sight of the great crowd of s.h.i.+ps moving four abreast into the China Sea.
Before the fleet sailed many critics of naval matters had prophesied that as Russia had no coaling stations the coaling difficulty would make it impossible for Rojdestvensky ever to carry his fleet so far. The successful entry into the Eastern seas was therefore regarded as something of an exploit. It was a revelation of the far-reaching power that would belong to better-equipped fleets in future wars.
While the Baltic fleet was on its way the j.a.panese Government, patriotically supported by the Press and the people, kept a strict silence on all naval matters. There were wild conjectures that under this veil of secrecy Togo had moved southwards, that he would fall on his enemy during the voyage across the Indian Ocean, or wait for him in the China Sea. But the j.a.panese admiral had no reason for embarking in such adventures. He knew that if he kept his fleet near the sh.o.r.es of j.a.pan his enemy must come sooner or later within effective striking distance.
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