The Battle of Asan began at 7.5 a.m. on July 25, 1894. It was well over
when, at 8.30 a.m., the British-owned transport Kow-shing was sighted
in the distance, and at 9.15 a.m. the Naniwa fired two blank charges at
her and signalled to her to stop.
The Kow-shing was perfectly well known to the Japanese, Lieutenant
Kuroi, of the Intelligence Department, having informed his Government
on July 14th that she was chartered as a transport for Chinese troops.
She was commanded by Captain Galsworthy of the British mercantile
marine, and had on board, besides her officers and crew of 64 men, 1100
Chinese soldiers and the German Von Hannacken, who was in the Chinese
service.
The Naniwa ordered the Kow-shing to follow her, and to this capture
the captain assented, but the Chinese on board insisted on returning
to Taku instead. Four hours were spent in negotiations, at the end
of which time Captain Togo advised the Europeans in the Kow-shing to
leave. Before this was complied with the Chinese were in a state of
mutiny, and Togo, dreading the arrival of the Chinese battle-fleet,
gave the order to open fire on the transport. At 1.10 p.m. he fired a
torpedo, which missed, and a broadside that hit the Kow-shing in the
engine-room. Five minutes later she began to sink, and at 1.46 went
under.
Most of the European officers jumped overboard, and the majority were
rescued by the Naniwa’s boats. The Chinese on board the sinking ship
opened a heavy rifle-fire on everything and everybody. The story that
the Japanese fired on the men in the water does not appear to have
any foundation in fact. The statement that they did so rests on the
authority of the German Von Hannacken, who was hardly in a position
to observe the exact facts as he swam to safety. It is probable, and,
indeed, to be presumed, that the men on the Naniwa’s tops fired at the
Kow-shing, in order to keep down the fire which the Chinese soldiers
directed at the Japanese boats sent to pick up the European survivors.
About half the Chinese were picked up by a French gunboat or escaped
to the islands; no attempt to save any was made by the Japanese. For
this they have received stronger condemnation than they merit. To risk
being killed by one lot of the enemy in order to save another lot
is not a necessary act in war ethics. This was Captain Togo’s view,
situated as he was in a position of considerable danger, owing to the
supposed propinquity of the Chinese fleet. From panic, or the idea that
the Japanese would give no quarter, the Chinese had to all intents and
purposes gone mad _en masse_; and whatever theories armchair critics
may evolve, the amount of blame actually due to Captain Togo is of a
trifling nature. He had to choose between two evils, and chose the
least.
The legality of the attack on the Kow-shing was hotly contested; but
in the end it was established that Japan was inside her legal rights.
As to the ethics of the matter—well, the moralist who objects is apt to
fail to realise that the Kow-shing carried 1100 of the best soldiers
China could put in the field, and they had been destined to fight
the Naniwa’s countrymen. To allow them to proceed would have been a
splendid exhibition of legal-mindedness, but it would also have been a
criminally stupid act from the patriotic standpoint.