Ch 32 - The Russo-Japanese War

The Army-Navy Game

The Japanese Imperial Army continued its push and expanded its control across the Liaodong Peninsula while the navy continued to hold the Russian fleet at bay in the Yellow Sea.

The sinking of the battleship Petropavlosk on April 13, 1904, by mines left a deep impression on the Russians. They resolved to duplicate the technique should the opportunity ever present itself. Because Japanese warships never ventured any closer than seven or eight miles from the entrance to Port Arthur, the only recourse the Russians had was to lay mines in the high seas, well beyond the recognized territorial limit. At the time, such an action was contrary to accepted, though unwritten, principles intended to protect the interests of neutral shipping during wartime. The Japanese had scrupulously avoided mine-laying activities outside the three-mile limit and expected the Russians to observe the same custom. The Japanese gave far too much credit to their adversary and paid a heavy price for their misplaced confidence in the fair play of a civilized European power.

From the harbor at Port Arthur, Captain Ivanoff, commanding the mine-laying ship Amur, carefully noted that the Japanese battleship division keeping watch on Port Arthur always followed the same track about ten miles offshore. A few days of very foggy weather gave the Russians just the opportunity they had been waiting for. On May 14, Captain Ivanoff steamed out of Port Arthur under the cover of a heavy fog and laid a mine field of 50 contact mines in open water along the Japanese patrol route. The following morning at about 10 a.m., right on schedule, the battleships Hatsuse, Shikishima and Yashima, the protected cruiser Kasagi, and the dispatch ship Tatsuta arrived on station for routine blockade duty under a bright blue sky, well within sight of lookouts at Port Arthur.

From about 15 miles off Port Arthur, the Japanese patrol squadron turned to an east-northeasterly course across the mouth of the harbor a course which put the ships in the middle of Captain Ivanoff's minefield. Within minutes after coming into view, at around 10:50 a.m., Rear Admiral Nashiba Tokioki's flagship, the Hatsuse, struck a floating mine that destroyed her steering engine and left her unmanageable. As the steering compartment flooded, the ship began to heel over, stern down, with her port main engines now useless.

The British-built Yashima quickly turned toward the Hatsuse in an attempt to rescue survivors, but just minutes later struck a floating mine and became engulfed in flames. The Yashima's crew fought a valiant, but losing battle to save their ship before abandoning the burning hulk off Encounter Rock, where she sank later in the afternoon.

By 11:30 a.m., the cruiser Kasagi had maneuvered alongside the Hatsuse, whose stern rails were now underwater. A towing hawser was passed to the battleship to rig for towing, but just as the line was hauled aboard, the Hatsuse struck a second contact mine, which detonated the ship's powder magazines in a series of loud explosions similar to those which distinguished the destruction of the Russian battleship Petropavlovsk. Within one and a half minutes the mortally wounded Hatsuse, one of the largest and most modern battleships in the Japanese fleet, went down rapidly by the stern taking 496 of its 792 man crew to the bottom. The Tatsuta and Kasagi managed to save Rear Admiral Nashiba and Captain Nakao along with 21 other officers and 313 men.

Rear Admiral Nashiba transferred his flag to the dispatch ship Tatsuta and quickly returned to the Elliot Islands, accompanied by the battleship Shikishima and the cruiser Kasagi. As if to add insult to injury, the Tatsuta ran aground in a thick fog during its return to the main fleet anchorage.

The same day, as the Italian-built armored cruiser Kasuga steamed back to the Elliot Islands after shelling Port Arthur, she collided with the protected cruiser Yoshino in a heavy fog. The Yoshino rolled over after the collision and sank. Only twelve of the 319-man crew got off the ship before it went down. The cruiser Kasuga was so badly damaged it took a month's work in a Japanese dockyard to make repairs.

May 15, 1904 was clearly a bleak day for the Imperial Japanese Navy. Two first line Japanese battleships, a light cruiser and a dispatch vessel had been lost in a single day without so much as scratching the Russians. News of the sinking of the Hatsuse cast a mood of depression over Japan. The full extent of the disaster of May 15 was concealed from the world until the end of the war, when the loss of the Yashima was made known. Japan now had only four battleships with which to face a total of eleven Russian battleships either afloat or under construction.

The arrival in Japan of the two Italian-built armored cruisers, Kasuga and Nisshinfrom Singapore in April 1904 effectively "replaced" the loss of the battleships Hatsuse and Yashima. Admiral Togo assigned the two armored cruisers to his battleship force to take full advantage of their long range eight-inch and ten-inch guns, which could fire almost as far as the twelve-inch guns on his remaining four battleships.

The dramatic events of May 15 revealed Rear Admiral Vitgeft's remarkable lack of foresight. He knew the mines were in place and would likely entrap one or more of the Japanese ships, yet he made no plans to exploit the situation. The Russians held the advantage that morning, yet only the battleship Poltava had steam up. Vitgeft, ever fearful of Japanese mines, ordered his ship to remain in the harbor. The rest of the 1st Pacific Fleet sat idly at anchor with cold boilers. Soon after the Hatsuse struck the first mine, Rear Admiral Vitgeft ordered two flotillas of destroyers out to harass the damaged battleship, but not to attack it. By the time the Russian ships reached the scene, the destroyer commander thought it best to withdraw, rather than be challenged by the Japanese. The lack of aggressive action let slip away perhaps the greatest opportunity for offensive sea action the Russians would ever see in the war.

Meanwhile, the Japanese cut off the Russian position at Port Arthur from the mainland. Elements of General Oku Yasukata's 2nd Army steadily advanced down the Liaodong Peninsula after coming ashore near Pitzuwo on May 5. On May 14, after near constant skirmishing with Cossacks, the Japanese 1st Division and a brigade from the 4th Division arrived at the small town of Chinchou (modern Jin Xian), just thirty-five miles northeast of Port Arthur on the narrow, ten-mile wide isthmus above Dairen Bay. Just to the south of Chinchou, the narrow neck of land was just 4,300 yards wide, with Chinchou Bay to the northwest and Hand Bay to the southeast. A series of low hills stretched across the center of this strip of land, the highest of which was the 350 foot summit of Nanshan.

Major General Baron Anatoli Stoessel, commander of the Russian garrison at Port Arthur already had orders from General Aleksei Kuropatkin to defend Port Arthur at all costs. In an effort to delay the Japanese advance, General Stoessel sent the 4th East Siberian Rifle Division, the 5th East Siberian Rifle Regiment and five artillery batteries towards Chinchou under the command of General Fock. The 3,000 Russian troops were badly outnumbered and when the Japanese launched their first attack on May 16, General Fock abandoned the high ground north and east of Chinchou and fell back to the southwest, towards Nanshan.

The Russians made their first real defensive stand along the hilltops running across the narrow isthmus between Chinchou Bay and Hand Bay known as the Nanshan position. The defensive line stretched some 3,300 yards with each flank protected by water. The terrain to the northeast of the Nanshan position, toward Chinchou, was broken with deep twisting ravines that, in some places, lead directly into the Russian positions. Behind the Nanshan position towards Port Arthur, the Nankuanling hills provided a second line of defense. Thirty heavy Russian guns held a commanding view of the ground to the northeast. The Russian front and both flanks were covered by a network of wire entanglements, mines and two powerful searchlights.

General Oku laid his plans for an attack to take place on May 25. At 5:50 a.m., Japanese artillery opened fire and destroyed the Russian gun batteries at Chinchou. The 4th Division began its attack during a violent storm prevented that prevented the Japanese from occupying the Chinchou. The foul weather also kept the 1st Division artillery silent and prevented the arrival of Japanese gunboats in Chinchou Bay. General Oku decided to postpone the assault for one day. That evening, he issued orders to each of his division commanders. Around midnight, the 4th Division launched a night attack against Chinchou and occupied a line from just south of town northwestward to Chinchou Bay. The 1st Division moved in and occupied Chinchou and the terrain stretching southeastward to the hills overlooking General Fock's right flank. By 5:00 a.m., on the morning of May 26, the Japanese divisions were in position.

When the morning fog lifted around 5:30 a.m., all the artillery along the Japanese line opened fire, starting a three hour barrage that silenced most of the Russian guns. About thirty minutes after the barrage began, Japanese gunboats in Chinchou Bay started providing additional fire support. To the southeast, a lone Russian gunboat in Hand Bay and the fortresses around Dairen joined the battle.

The firmly entrenched Russians managed to fend off initial assaults against the Nanshan position and inflicted heavy losses on the advancing Japanese, who encountered the deadly effect of the machine gun for the first time. Despite the heavy losses, the speed of the attack put the Russians in the dangerous position of being outflanked and surrounded. The 4th Division pressed the Russian left flank hard around 9:00 a.m. just as the 3rd Division launched a massive frontal attack into the Russian lines and pushed to within 600 yards of the hilltops. By 10:30 a.m., the Japanese reached the foot of the Nanshan position and their artillery had moved to shorten the range to the hilltop.

By mid-day, General Fock ordered his troops to break off the engagement and fall back to the main defensive positions around Port Arthur. Leaving half a gun battery to keep pressure on the Japanese 4th Division's right flank, two other Russian batteries withdrew southwest to Nankuanling Hill. The 3rd Division pressed the Russian right flank and took a severe pounding from the Russian gunboat and a battery of field guns near Dairen. The Japanese gunboats, which withdrew beyond range during the low tide, rejoined the fight against the Russian left flank.

Throughout the afternoon, Japanese troops repeatedly charged into the Russian lines, only to be devastated by concentrated machine gun fire. Faced with mounting casualties, General Oku refused to call off the attack and pressed forward, ever confident in the abilities of his men. The 4th Division made a last ditch effort near sunset to break the Russian left flank by wading through the shallow waters of Chinchou Bay. They succeeded in breaching the trench lines and swarmed up the ravines on the Russian's left, forcing General Fock to order a full retreat toward Nankuanling Hill around 6:30 p.m.. Troops from the 1st and 3rd Divisions breached the obstacles along the Nanshan position with the 4th Division in hot pursuit of the retreating Russians. At 7:30 p.m. the Japanese flag was raised over the summit of Nanshan.

The vicious, bloody fighting at the Battle of Nanshan cost the Russians nearly 1,400 dead and wounded. General Oku's 2nd Army fared much worse, suffering at least 4,500 killed, wounded and missing. It was a costly victory, but a victory which opened the door for Japan's Imperial Army to lay siege to Port Arthur, a situation that would plague the Russian for the rest of the year.

The Russians were forced out of Dairen on June 1, 1904, leaving the port facilities to the Japanese, who immediately began mine clearing operations in the harbor. Five days later, on June 6, the Japanese 3rd Army under General Nogi Maresuke began landing operations at Dairen.

Faced with an increasing threat to Port Arthur and with the fleet more or less beyond his control, Viceroy Admiral Evgenii Alekseev soon found himself in a stubborn battle with General Kuropatkin over the conduct of the land war. Kuropatkin seemed content to wait until a stronger force could be marshalled with reinforcements from Russia via the Trans Siberian Railway. Alekseev wanted to mount an immediate advance against either the 1st or 2nd Japanese Army to relieve Port Arthur. The issue got so heated that on May 27 Alekseev ordered Kuropatkin to a conference in Mukden for a face-to-face meeting. The two men ended up shouting at each other. When the matter was referred to St. Petersburg for a decision, Tsar Nicholas II sided with Alekseev.

General Kuropatkin mounted a half-hearted offensive in early June by ordering a meager force of just two divisions and one brigade from the garrison near Liaoyang in the general direction of Port Arthur. In a particularly nasty fight along the Chinese Eastern Railway seventy miles northeast of Port Arthur, the Japanese broke the Russian relief force on June 15 at the Battle of Telissu, inflicting nearly 3,000 casualties;  about three times the losses suffered by the Japanese. Rather than sending additional reinforcements toward Port Arthur, General Aleksei Kuropatkin chose to withdraw his force from the peninsula altogether and gave up on any attempt to relieve Port Arthur for the time being.

General Oku's 2nd Army was rapidly closing in from landward, completely cutting off Port Arthur from the peninsula. Vice Admiral Togo Heihachiro had successfully bottled up the 1st Pacific Squadron in Port Arthur, which Viceroy Alekseev now realized had become a dangerous trap. Nevertheless, the Port Arthur garrison could still communicate with higher authorities in Russia by sea. Under cover of darkness, an occasional fast destroyer broke out of the harbor and steamed to Russian-held Newchwang in Western Manchuria. Sometimes, the Russians used small junks which easily passed unnoticed through the Japanese blockade.

The anxiety in St. Petersburg grew by the day. On June 15, Tsar Nicholas II personally ordered Alekseev to telegraph Rear Admiral Vitgeft and tell him to put to sea and attack the Japanese fleet. Vitgeft strongly disapproved of the orders, but after a week of intensified mine-sweeping operations, he was ready to move. In the dim light of early dawn on June 23, 1904, Rear Admiral Vitgeft's squadron of six battleships and an armored cruiser accompanied by a number of lighter ships slowly steamed out of port Arthur. The Russians were so slow in getting underway that the last of them did not emerge from Port Arthur until noon. Rear Admiral Vitgeft's squadron was finally underway at sea on a southeasterly course by about 1:00 p.m..

Japanese destroyers on picket duty outside the harbor spotted the movement and immediately radioed Admiral Togo, who had his four remaining battleships and four cruisers underway from their anchorage at Elliot Islands by 10 a.m.. At around six o'clock that evening, the Japanese battleships closed on the surprised Russians from the south about twenty miles from Port Arthur with two to three hours of daylight remaining and a full moon to follow. Rarely has a military leader faced a moment so pregnant with historic implications as did Rear Admiral Vitgeft that night. He was under orders from the tsar to attack. The weather was ideal. Vitgeft's six battleships and armored cruiser outweighed and out-gunned the four Japanese battleships and four cruisers approaching from the south. Judging by his actions that night, the only thing missing was resolve.

At a vitally important and fleeting moment in history, people along the cliffs around Port Arthur witnessed a scene on the far southern horizon that profoundly affected the subsequent course of the war. Rear Admiral Vitgeft hesitated for nearly half an hour as the two fleets converged on each other from a distance of some seven to eight miles. Admiral Vitgeft suddenly turned his battle line about and steamed back toward the safety of Port Arthur. His decision exemplified the temperament of a man who, when confronted by a challenge calling for a quick response, cannot choose a definite course of action. The unexpected withdrawal stunned and disappointed Admiral Togo, who lost his chance for a traditional fleet engagement.

The Russian Admiral's retreat not only wasted an incomparable opportunity to alter the course of the war, but needlessly endangered the safety of his own ships. By the time the Russian ships reached the outer roadstead, the cloak of darkness made it impossible to distinguish a safe passage into the harbor through their own minefields. While neither force could inflict damage on the other during the headlong dash to Port Arthur, the Russians hastened on. Blundering through the outer roadstead, the battleship Sevastopol struck a floating contact mine and was partially disabled. Rear Admiral Vitgeft's fateful decision forced the Russian ships to remain at sea all night exposed to Japanese torpedoes.

The following morning, the entire squadron ingloriously reentered the inner harbor, much to the regret of those defending the fortress. Viceroy Alekseev was furious. The next six weeks saw a flurry of activity aimed at getting Admiral Vitgeft into action, including orders and exhortations from Alekseev and Tsar Nicholas II himself. It was to no avail. Rear Admiral Vitgeft remained stubbornly determined not to put to sea against the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Japanese army continued its steady advance down the Liaodong peninsula.

Throughout June and July two divisions of troops from the Japanese 3rd Army under command of General Nogi Maresuke steadily advanced across the mountainous terrain between their newly won ground near Dairen the defenses surrounding the town, dockyard and harbor at Port Arthur. When the Russians failed to halt Nogi's advance at a line of low passes in the hills about fifteen miles from the port, outside the artillery range of the anchorage and ship basins, St. Petersburg resolved that it was imperative to remove its fleet at all costs.