"THE DESTINY OF AN EMPIRE."
On the morning of the twenty-seventh of May a light fog hung over the
Yellow Sea and the Straits of Korea. Gulls sailed in leisurely fashion
above the dull-green surface of the water, or dropped with sudden scream
as their keen eyes discerned some floating scrap of food; but the supply
was scarce, for few ships had of late passed that way, and the sea,
ordinarily alive with junks and steamers and modern sailing craft, was
as deserted as some far-off Polar bay which no adventurer's keel had yet
ploughed.
The gulls seemed uneasy, in spite of the desolateness of the broad
expanse of heaving swell. They called to each other with warning cries
as if some hidden danger were near. What lay concealed beneath those
fleecy folds of mist, which already began to mellow to golden in the
rays of the rising sun, and to drift southward before the light breeze
which was springing up? What would be revealed when the white curtain
should lift?
For many weeks, since the day when the Russian fleet passed the Straits
of Malacca and had been reported from Singapore, the naval forces of
Japan had seemed hardly more than a myth. "Where is Togo?" was the
question on every lip. "Will he proceed southward and meet the enemy in
the China Sea? Will he lie in wait for them between Formosa and the
mainland--that mine-strewn sea where the fair Isles of the Fishermen,
bristling with fortifications, bait the open trap? Will he lure them
eastward, past the Philippines, to the Pacific, and attack them there,
or will Japan allow her enemy to take refuge in her one port of
Vladivostock, there to be brought to bay and pulled down as were her
proud battle-ships and cruisers at Port Arthur?"
Back and forth under the sea flashed the questions and the appeals for
news; but Japan gave no answer; her admiral was dumb. He and his ships
disappeared from view. Newspaper correspondents burdened the cables with
surmises, but no news. Every naval expert had his opinion to give--at
space rates--but home editors and the great, waiting, impatient public
clamoured in vain for authentic information.
At the War Office in Tokio a few men, small of stature and suave in
demeanour, bowed and smiled as of old. They were gentle, courteous,
mild, and inscrutable. They received and sent despatches without a
gleam of emotion in their dark faces. They saw, in these despatches the
North Pacific, with each bay and port and headland, the approaching
Muscovite enemy and the leashed fleet of Japan, as a crystal-gazer holds
a far-off scene in the hollow of his hand. One day their smiles faded,
for a moment, and their eyes grew stern as they dictated a new order.
They were crushing an empire.
In the Winter Palace of Tsarskoe-Selo a slightly built young man with a
dark beard and pale, irresolute countenance paced the marble floor
nervously. He had seen his proudest fortress in the East reduced to
submission; his armies, whose watchword had been, "Russia never
withdraws," driven back, beaten, overwhelmed by the soldiers of despised
Nippon; his war-ships tortured by shot and shell, by enemies upon the
sea and beneath its waters; and he had read report after report of their
loss and of the death of countless thousands of men, "at the Czar's
command." And now his new fleet, brought together and built up at
enormous expense, but ill-manned and ill-managed, had all but finished
its long voyage, and had entered hostile seas. Upon this fleet hung all
his hope of retrieving the disasters of the war. One great naval
victory, and Russia would be wild with joy. The past would be forgotten
and the name of the Little Father once more revered.
The Baltic fleet halted, for coal and provisions, off the friendly port
of Saigon, the leading city of the French possessions in Lower China.
Nebogatoff, with a third squadron, was hurrying across the Indian Ocean
to join Rojestvensky, who now anxiously awaited his approach. The
sympathies of the French ports were but half concealed; the needed
supplies came in abundance. Japan calmly but sternly remonstrated at
this apparent breach of neutrality, and France was obliged to warn the
Russians off her coast. Nebogatoff, however, had succeeded in adding his
ships to those of the larger squadrons, and Rojestvensky, with his
entire fleet coaled and provisioned, was now ready for the decisive
battle. Week after week passed, and still no smoke of the hostile armada
appeared on the northern horizon. Compelled to change his station day by
day, the Russian moved nervously here and there in the China Sea
inviting attack. He sent out reports that he was about to essay the
narrow passage west of Formosa, either east or west of the Pescadores;
he harboured his fleet under the lee of the great island of Hainan; he
professed an intention to thread the dangerous passages north of Luzon
and make a dash across the open Pacific, for the friendly port. Still
the wily Japanese remained silent, unheard, unseen, until the supplies
of her harassed, perplexed, impatient enemy once more diminished and her
bunkers were again nearly empty.
At last, driven to desperation by the refusal of the inscrutable,
invisible foe to emerge from the obscurity where he lurked, Rojestvensky
set the signal to advance. He hoped that the Japanese had been misled by
rumours of his escape to the open Pacific, and that by a direct course
northward through the Korean Straits he could reach Vladivostock, now so
few miles away, after his weary seven months' voyage from the Baltic.
The fog of the early morning was dense. No scout-ship of the enemy was
visible. It would take time to notify Togo of any movement of his
adversary. Forming in double line, with strict orders for silence
throughout every ship, the great flotilla got under way and started
northward through the early morning mist.
In days gone by the leader of an armed force could obtain information of
the manoeuvres of his enemy only by means of trusty couriers. Later,
written messages were despatched by aides, who brought the news and
conveyed orders, riding hard or traversing the sea in swift boats.
Centuries passed and the telegraph began to play its part in the
transmission of despatches, to be succeeded in its turn by the field
telephone. But as the Russo-Japanese war brought into practical use for
the first time the terrible submarine torpedo-boat, so it found a new
and marvellous medium for communication between headquarters and
outposts of an army or fleet. The ancient Samurai of Nippon fought with
two swords; their descendants in 1905 wielded the submarine and the
wireless telegraph. As Rojestvensky's sombre fleet moved forward there
were no armed scouts dashing across the waves to announce their coming;
the electric cable, far below, was dumb; but the very sky above, the
waters that were ploughed by the black keels, at the moment when the
harassed Russians began to breathe freely, were betraying them.
"At exactly 5.30 A.M., on Saturday, May 27th, a wireless message was
received at the naval base of the Japanese: '_The enemy's squadron is in
sight_.'"
Under shelter of the island off Fusan, on the east coast of Korea, lay
sixty or more grey ships, their fires banked, smoke slowly floating from
their stacks. They had lain thus for weeks, waiting for that message.
The instant it was received the decks of every vessel became alive with
nimble sailors. Cables were slipped, fires scattered and heaped high
with coal, ammunition-hoists handled, and garments flung aside as the
men stripped for action. The fleet slowly moved eastward over the waters
of the Japan Sea, which roughened under the wind that gathered force as
day broadened. Eagerly the small brown fighting men sprang to quarters
and pointed to the east, where the sky grew golden with the emblem of
their nation, the Rising Sun.
Before noon wireless messages brought news that the Russian fleet had
chosen the eastern passage of the Straits, between the Tsu Islands and
Japan. At two o'clock the smoke of Rojestvensky's flagship blurred the
southern horizon. Instantly a line of signal flags fluttered to the
yard-arm of the Japanese battle-ship _Mikasa_: "_The destiny of an
empire depends upon this action. You are all expected to do your
uttermost._"
Straight on, with superb courage, came the armada of the White Czar. In
the double column the weaker ships held the port positions, thus
offering the least resistance to attack on that side, and at the same
time blanketing the fire of the heavier turret guns of their own
first-class battle-ships.
A roll of smoke burst from the bows of the _Kniaz Souvaroff_, followed
almost instantly by a roar from the huge twelve-inch guns of the
_Mikasa_. The greatest naval battle in the history of the world had
begun.
The action became general. The Russian ships at the opening of the fight
changed their course and endeavoured to break through the enveloping
line of their foe, but were driven back at every point. The old tactics
of Oyama at Liaoyang and Moukden were repeated by Togo on the sea. Once
more the fatal horse-shoe front closed in. To starboard, to port, ahead,
and astern the thunders of the Japanese guns dismayed the untrained
sailors of the Baltic fleet. Within less than an hour the _Borodino_ was
seen to be on fire. Five Japanese war-ships bore down upon her. To
rescue, to save? To pour a deadlier storm of shot and shell into the
doomed ship; to pierce its wounds anew, to sweep its struggling,
bleeding, shrieking crew from its decks and send ship and men to the
bottom. Through and through the barbette, and the hull itself, plunged
and exploded the steel projectiles. Dead and dying men lay in heaps
everywhere about the decks; the ammunition hoists were wrecked and the
steering-gear disabled, so that the great, tortured battle-ship could
only stagger over the water round and round in a circle, her remaining
guns still firing at intervals, until the merciful waves swept over her,
and with all on board, living and dead, she went down.
The flagship bearing Admiral Rojestvensky was early singled out for
attack. When the ship was in flames and in momentary danger of sinking
the admiral was transferred to a destroyer, from which he was soon after
taken by the Japanese and sent ashore, a prisoner, severely wounded.
So the battle raged, and vessel after vessel, bearing the Russian flag,
was battered to pieces and sent to the bottom, while Togo's fleet seemed
to bear a charmed life. At last the merciful night, that so often has
laid its quieting hand of peace upon maddened, struggling combatants by
land and sea, brooded over the waters of the Sea of Japan. The few ships
from the Baltic that could still move under control crept northward in
the vain hope of reaching safety. There was no longer any dream of
victory; escape, escape from this horrible, relentless foe, was the only
thought.
But while the heavier ships had been dealing deadly blows that fair May
afternoon, the pack of smaller craft, the torpedo-boats and destroyers,
had been for the most part held back under the lee of the islands; held
back with difficulty, for their crews and officers were wild to enter
the engagement. In the conning-tower of the _Fujiyama_ Commander Oto
Owari chafed and fretted over the forced inaction, his dark eyes blazing
and hands twitching. Before midnight the signal came down the line to
advance.
Silently, like wolves gathering about a wounded herd, crouching low to
the ground, the pack gathered around the ill-fated, shattered fleet.
Then the word was given, and they rushed upon their prey. Searchlights
flashed from the beleaguered ships, as they bravely turned at bay.
Again and again the wolves were driven back. More than one of the fierce
assailants never returned to the charge; but the rest closed the gaps,
and cutting out one after another of the Russians, set their teeth of
steel into her ribs until with a great cry she succumbed.
The _Fujiyama_ was foremost in every rush, and staggered under the blows
she received. Oto was everywhere, with his savage little ship, launching
his torpedoes at the biggest vessels of the enemy. He was in full attack
upon the _Sissoi-Valiki_, one of Rojestvensky's finest battle-ships,
when a great shell exploded just in front of the conning-tower of the
destroyer. It was a fatal blow. Oto, with a dozen others, all of them
wounded, was hurled into the sea, from which he was rescued and taken on
board the _Kasuga_, insensible, and therefore blissfully unconscious
that his ship had gone to the bottom. The fight drifted northward.
Sunday morning dawned, "so cool, so calm, so bright." The battle was
resumed, each flying ship of the Russians with three or four of the
enemy hanging about her and hammering her with shell and solid shot. As
on the preceding day and night the terrors of the Baltic crews were
increased by the evident presence of submarines. Several of the western
ships, with no hostile craft visible in the open sea, had suddenly felt
the impact of an awful blow from below, followed by an explosion that
tore her hull to pieces, while the unseen assailant darted off beneath
the waves for fresh prey.
The terrible drama was brought to a close by the surrender of Admiral
Nebogatoff's ships, on Sunday afternoon, off the rocks of Liancourt. The
next morning the world stood thunderstruck as it heard of the utter
annihilation of Russia's proud fleet. Six battle-ships, five cruisers,
and many other smaller vessels sunk, and two battle-ships, with several
defence ships or destroyers, _captured_. It was this last item that was
most significant. Even Spain had gone down fighting, on the coast of
Cuba and off Manila, under the withering fire of Dewey, Sampson, and
Schley; for the first time in modern warfare a battle-ship, nay, two of
them, had run up the white flag. Truly Russia, haughty Russia, which
"never carried to the front material from which to make a flag of
truce," had been humbled in the dust. And in the Winter Palace of
Tsarskoe-Selo the pale young Czar was weeping.