Part 24 (1/2)
o i {| | | | | | u s {|_Adzumo_ | 9,436| 7 |{ 4 8-inch }| 500|Completed 1901.
r e {| | | |{12 6-inch }| | e r {| | | | | | d s {|_Asama_ |} 9,700| 7 |{ 4 8-inch }| 500| ” 1899.
{|_Tokiwa_ |} | |{14 6-inch }| | {| | | | | | {|_Yak.u.mo_ | 9,850| 7 |{ 4 8-inch }| 498| ” 1901.
{| | | |{12 6-inch }| | ------+-------------+-------+----+-------------+----+-------------------------
[25] The old turret-s.h.i.+p _Chin-yen_--captured from the Chinese (formerly the _Chen-yuen_) (4 12-inch and 4 6-inch guns)--was with the fleet, but is not included in a list of effective armour-clads.
Besides his armoured s.h.i.+ps, Admiral Rojdestvensky had a squadron of six protected cruisers under Rear-Admiral Enquist, whose flag flew in the ”Oleg,” a vessel of 6750 tons launched in 1903, and completed next year.
She had for her princ.i.p.al armament twelve six-inch quick-firers. The other cruisers were the ”Aurora,” of a little over 6000 tons, the ”Svietlana,” of nearly 4000, the ”Jemschug,” and ”Izumrud,” of 3000 tons (these two armed with 47 quick-firing guns), and the ”Almaz,” of 3285, a ”scout” of good speed, carrying nothing heavier than 12-pounders. There was one auxiliary cruiser, the ”Ural,”[26] a flotilla of nine destroyers, four transports, two repairing s.h.i.+ps, and two hospital steamers.
[26] A German Atlantic liner purchased at the beginning of the war--formerly known as the ”Konigin Maria Theresa”--”roomy and luxurious, but as a wars.h.i.+p useless,” says the Naval Constructor Politovsky, Chief Engineer of the Baltic Fleet.
Awaiting the battle in sight of his own sh.o.r.es, Togo had concentrated as auxiliary squadrons to his armoured fleet a considerable number of protected cruisers and a whole swarm of torpedo craft. At this stage of her naval development, and on the eve of a life-and-death struggle, j.a.pan had no idea of ”sc.r.a.pping” even the older s.h.i.+ps. Anything that could carry a few good guns, and brave men to fight them, might be useful, so even the old Chinese ironclad which had carried Ting's flag at the Yalu battle, a s.h.i.+p dating from 1882, was under steam in one of the auxiliary squadrons, with four new 12-inch guns in her barbettes.
There were three of these auxiliary squadrons, commanded by Rear-Admiral Dewa, Rear-Admiral Uriu, and Rear-Admiral Kataoka, the last having as a subordinate commander Rear-Admiral Togo, a relative of the commander-in-chief. Dewa's flag flew in the ”Kasagi,” a fine cruiser of nearly 5000 tons, built in America, and he had with him her sister s.h.i.+ps, the ”Chitose” and ”Taka-sago.” Uriu's flag flew in the ”Naniwa,” Togo's s.h.i.+p when he was a captain in the Chinese war. Several of the fine cruisers which Ito had then led to victory were present, many of them remodelled, and all provided with new guns. Then there were a number of small protected cruisers, built in j.a.panese dockyards since the Chinese war, the heralds of the later time when the j.a.panese navy would all be home-built. Battles.h.i.+ps, armoured cruisers, and protected cruisers were all swifter than the Russian s.h.i.+ps. The fleet as a whole could manoeuvre at fully fifty per cent greater speed than the enemy, and this meant that it could choose its own position in battle.
The five torpedo squadrons included two or three torpedo-gunboats, twenty-one fine destroyers, and some eighty torpedo-boats. Togo's plans had the simplicity which is a necessity in the rough game of war, where elaborate schemes are likely to go wrong. Some of the swift protected cruisers were scouting south of the straits. The fleet was anch.o.r.ed in a body in Masampho Bay, and in wireless communication with its scouts. The armoured fleet was to make the main attack on the head of the Russian advance. The protected cruiser squadrons were to sweep round the enemy's flanks, fall upon his rear, and destroy his transports and auxiliaries. The torpedo flotilla was to be ready to dash in and complete the defeat of the enemy when his fleet was crippled by the fight with the heavy s.h.i.+ps.
Most of the officers and men of the Russian fleet had the dogged courage that could carry them through even a hopeless fight, but they looked forward to the immediate future with forebodings of disaster. Even among the officers on board the great ”Suvaroff” there was a feeling that the most that could be hoped for was that a few s.h.i.+ps would struggle through to Vladivostock, if there was a battle, and that the best thing that could happen would be for the thick weather and rough seas to enable them to avoid anything like a close fight with the j.a.panese.
During the last day before the fight Rojdestvensky, who did not want to hurry forward, but was timing his advance so as to pa.s.s the straits in the middle of the next day, spent some time in manoeuvres. Captain s.e.m.e.noff's notes on the proceedings convey a useful lesson.
”Once again” (he says), ”and for the last time, we were forcibly reminded of the old truism that a 'fleet' is created by long practice at sea in time of peace (cruising, not remaining in port), and that a collection of s.h.i.+ps of various types hastily collected, which have only learned to sail together on the way to the theatre of operations, is no fleet, but a chance concourse of vessels.”[27]
[27] ”Tsu-s.h.i.+ma,” p. 10.
Wireless telegraphy had come into use since the last naval war, and a fleet could now try to overhear the aerial messages of an enemy. In the Russian fleet the order had been given that no wireless messages were to be sent.
In other words, the operators were to keep silence, and listen by watching their apparatus. In the morning of the 26th they thought they detected messages pa.s.sing. In the evening these were more frequent--”short messages of a word or two” was the interpretation that the experts in the signal cabins put upon the unintelligible flickerings of the indicator, and they suggested that they were mere negative code-signals from the j.a.panese scouts to their main fleet, repeating an indication that they were on the alert, and had seen nothing. This was mere guesswork, however, and Politovsky's diary of the voyage[28] shows that near the Cape, at Madagascar, and out in the midst of the Indian Ocean, Rojdestvensky's wireless operators had thought that they detected j.a.panese aerial signalling, simply because the receivers gave indications they could not understand. Possibly these were merely the effect of electric storms on the apparatus.
[28] ”From Libau to Tsu-s.h.i.+ma.” By the late Eugene S.
Politovsky. Translated by Major F. R. G.o.dvey, R.M.L.I. 1906.
Once or twice, on 26 May, they thought they could read fragments of sentences, such as--”Last night--nothing--eleven lights--not in line.” The short messages in the evening came at fixed times. This showed that prearranged signalling was really going on. It gave the impression that perhaps the fleet was being watched by unseen enemies.
As the sun went down the s.h.i.+ps closed up, and half the officers were detailed for duty at the guns during the hours of darkness. The rest lay down fully dressed, ready to turn out at a moment's notice. Many slept on the decks. No lights were shown. s.e.m.e.noff's description of that night of anxious expectation is worth quoting. He was on board the flags.h.i.+p, the ”Suvaroff”:--
”The night came on dark. The mist seemed to grow denser, and through it but few stars could be seen. On the dark deck there prevailed a strained stillness, broken at times only by the sighs of the sleepers, the steps of an officer, or by an order given in an undertone. Near the guns the motionless figures of their crews seemed like dead, but all were wide awake, gazing keenly into the darkness. Was not that the dark shadow of a torpedo-boat? They listened attentively. Surely the throb of her engines and the noise of steam would betray an invisible foe.
Stepping carefully, so as not to disturb the sleepers, I went round the bridges and decks, and then proceeded to the engine-room. For a moment the bright light blinded me. Here life and movement were visible on all sides. Men were nimbly running up and down the ladders; there was a tinkling of bells and a buzzing of voices. Orders were being transmitted loudly, but on looking more intently, the tension and anxiety--that same peculiar frame of mind so noticeable on deck--could also be observed.”[29]
[29] ”Tsu-s.h.i.+ma,” pp. 27, 28.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BATTLE OF TSU-s.h.i.+MA SKETCH MAP TO SHOW THE EXTENT OF THE WATERS IN WHICH THE FIRST PART OF THE FIGHT TOOK PLACE. THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE KOREAN (OR TSU-s.h.i.+MA) STRAITS ARE MAPPED IN BLACK, & AN OUTLINE MAP OF THE NORTH SEA BETWEEN THE EASTERN COUNTIES OF ENGLAND & THE OPPOSITE COAST OF THE CONTINENT IS SKETCHED OVER THE MAP IN RED ON THE SAME SCALE]
At daybreak the j.a.panese scouts were in touch. As the day came in grey light over the misty broken sea, one of their scouts, the auxiliary cruiser ”Siano Maru” (an armed pa.s.senger liner), sweeping round through the haze, almost collided with the hospital s.h.i.+ps, and then dashed off and disappeared in the twilight. In former wars she would have had to run back to the fleet with her news. Now from her wireless apparatus the information was sent through the air to the receivers of the ”Mikasa” in Masampho Bay, and in a few minutes Togo knew that ”the enemy's fleet was in square No.
203 of the chart, apparently steering for the eastern pa.s.sage,” i.e. the strait between Tsu-s.h.i.+ma Island and j.a.pan.
In the straits and outside Masampho Bay a heavy sea was running, and though the wind blew strongly from the south-west, the weather was still hazy at sunrise, with patches of fog here and there. The main body of the j.a.panese fleet began to get up anchors and slip from its moorings.[30]
[30] English people have so seldom occasion or opportunity of consulting large-scale maps of j.a.pan, that there is an impression that the battle of Tsu-s.h.i.+ma was fought in narrow waters, where there was no chance of the Russians eluding Togo and little room for manoeuvring. The strait in which the battle took place is really about as wide as the North Sea between Harwich and the Hook of Holland. (See accompanying sketch map.)
At dawn Rojdestvensky had called in the ”Almaz,” leaving the ”Jemschug” and ”Izumrud” steaming in advance of his two divisions. The six auxiliary s.h.i.+ps had closed up, so that the leading s.h.i.+p, the transport ”Anadir,” was abreast of the centre of the two lines. The ”Almaz,” ”Svietlana,” and ”Ural,” steamed at the rear of this central line of transports, to protect them in that direction. The two hospital s.h.i.+ps, flying the Red Cross flag and trusting to it for safety, were well astern. About 6 a.m. the huge ”Ural” came running up between the lines, and semaph.o.r.ed to the flags.h.i.+p that four s.h.i.+ps in line ahead were pa.s.sing across the rear of the fleet, but could not be clearly made out in the mist.