Saturday Snippet: The Fleet That Had To Die

 

Richard Hough's "The Fleet That Had To Die" examines one of the classic battles of naval warfare in the early 20th century.

The blurb reads:

By autumn 1904, the Russo-Japanese war had been raging for six months. Routed in Manchuria, the Russians decided to strike back.

In October 1904, their Baltic fleet, a haphazard armada of some fifty outdated and ill-equipped men-of-war, led by a burnt-out neurotic and manned by 10,000 reluctant and badly-trained sailors, set sail for the East. Their plan was to unite with the Pacific squadron, then trapped in Port Arthur, and crush the soldiers of Admiral Togo.

The two fleets met at Tsushima on May 27, 1905. Most thought the Russians would have little trouble defeating Japanese naval forces. But what followed was perhaps the greatest naval victory of all time.

Richard Hough recounts the fleet's extraordinary seven-month journey from the Baltic to the Far East in this gripping naval history.

It's a very well-written naval and military history, highlighting the differences in culture between the Russian Empire and the Mikado's Japan.  Originally published in 1957, it's recently been reissued as an e-book.

Here's the opening chapter, to set the scene.

THE Emperor was due to arrive at ten o’clock, and with Prussian precision the handsome white-painted yacht Hohenzollern steamed slowly into Reval roadstead, escorted by two men-of-war, dead on time. Accompanying the German ships were a Russian cruiser and the royal yacht Shtandart, as immaculately turned-out as their German guests, and carrying the host, His Excellency Tsar Nicholas II, his aged uncle Grand Admiral the Duke Alexis Alexandrovitch, and a massed contingent of senior officers of the Admiralty.

In silence the five ships steamed past the lines of anchored Russian ironclads, slowed and dropped anchor for the climax of the carefully prepared royal reception. The ten thousand sailors manning their dressed ships from stem to stern watched for a sign of movement on the Hohenzollern; then with the passing of the hushed interval that royalty must observe, distant figures, sparkling with emblems and decorations, epaulettes and gilded tricornes, were seen emerging onto the deck of the yacht and descending the gang-ladder in careful procession. In the wide expanse of Reval harbour the gentle throb of the imperial pinnace’s engine was the only sound, and its slow progression from one royal yacht across the water to the other the only movement.

Kaiser Wilhelm II marched onto the decorated Shtandart at the head of his entourage and made his way step by stately step up to the bridge, where the consummation came at last as the German and Russian Emperors clasped hands.

Simultaneously the signal guns pounded out the thirty-one-gun salute, the shots echoing across the bay and filling the harbour with an ever-thickening cloud of black smoke. A weird static naval battle might have been in progress, with every ship paralysed, like floundered tanks in Flanders’ mud.

There was little wind and the smoke took time to clear; it was still dispersing, rising slowly above the Isle of Nargen, when the bands began. Above the cheering of the sailors ‘Deutschland Uber Alles’ was played on the Russian battleships, followed by the Russian national anthem on the German cruisers. By midday, the sky had cleared, the sun was shining brightly, and the music was gaily martial. The Tsar and the Kaiser went below for luncheon.

In the afternoon there was to be a three-hour display of gunnery, under the supervision of Captain Zinovi Petrovitch Rozhestvensky, who sat at luncheon in the Shtandart’s wardroom between his Chief of Staff, Commander Clapier de Colongue, and an admiral of the German Navy. He ate and drank well, consuming the seven courses and numerous glasses of wine with obvious relish, talking courteously in hesitant German to the guest, and showing no signs of the weight of the responsibility he was carrying.

July 24th, 1902, was the most important day in the career of Captain Rozhestvensky. Peacetime promotion in the Tsar’s navy was slow and dependent on more than competence and an excellent record. If he was ever to clamber into the hierarchy of elderly admirals who gathered around Grand Admiral Alexis Alexandrovitch in the Admiralty at St. Petersburg, some spectacular achievement was called for. The afternoon’s gunnery display, the centrepiece of the review designed to demonstrate to the Kaiser and his staff the efficiency of the Imperial Navy, was the great opportunity Rozhestvensky had been waiting for.

For weeks this fiery, irascible officer had been putting the Baltic Fleet’s gunners through a severe course of training, forcing them to a higher standard of speed and precision than they had ever reached before. For ‘Boyavin’ (the lord) Rozhestvensky was fifty-three years old, and time was running out. The quality of Russian naval gunnery had shaped Rozhestvensky’s career. The eyes of his gunlayers, the accuracy of rangefinders and sights, the quality of rifling and shells, above all the results of his ruthless training methods, had brought him promotion and the decorations he wore at the Tsar’s table at luncheon on the Shtandart. Rozhestvensky had invested his life in the high-explosive projectile; and his last years were to resemble the trajectory of a twelve-inch naval shell as it curves towards its point of detonation.

Guns were Rozhestvensky’s passion as a boy, and when he entered the Marine Corps as a seventeen-year-old cadet he specialized in the gunnery branch. At the Artillery Academy he passed his examinations with special distinction, and four years later, as a full lieutenant, he was using live ammunition against the Turks. The Turkish war revealed his reckless bravery and skill as a gunnery officer, but it was not only Rozhestvensky’s complete disregard for the enemy’s gunfire that might have ended his career, for the stupidity of his captain nearly brought them both before a court-martial.

The Vesta, in which Rozhestvensky served as second-in-command, was a small armed steamer that had been doing well against Turkish shipping until it chanced on an enemy ironclad many times its size and power. Captain Baranoff, acting with neither discretion nor valour, turned his ship about, made off at full speed, and later reported that he had sunk the battleship. Fame and decorations followed, and the Vesta became a legend in the Black Sea Fleet. But her gunnery officer was left in a state of acute embarrassment and uncertainty. For months Rozhestvensky nursed his guilty secret, and only when the war was over and the Turkish Admiral Hobart Pasha had revealed the falsity of the Russian version of the engagement in a letter to the newspaper Novoe Vremya, did he have to face the first great crisis of his career.

It was a delicate position, demanding tact and diplomacy, qualities which Rozhestvensky did not even recognize. Without consulting Baranoff, he wrote a letter to the paper confirming Hobart Pasha’s claim, attempting to justify neither Baranoff nor himself. By a miracle the bull got through the china shop unscathed: Baranoff was sacked; Rozhestvensky survived the crisis and was actually promoted.

The reorganization of the gunnery branch of the Bulgarian Navy, an odd and, one would imagine, a thankless task, occupied him for a short time, and in 1885 he was appointed Naval Attaché in London. He did not care much either for London or the British, but acquired a grudging respect for the Royal Navy’s gunnery, which was unquestionably the best in the world, and appears himself to have been liked and respected. He was tall, good-looking, well-mannered, and well-bred. That he was obviously efficient and knew his job was less important. He was a captain by 1894 and commanded Admiral Alexieff’s flagship in the Far East during the war between China and Japan, seeing there ample evidence of Japan’s strength and purpose at sea, before returning to St. Petersburg as Commander of the Baltic Fleet’s gunnery practice squadron.

If this was not quite demotion, it was certainly not the promotion he had expected, and the inner councils of the St. Petersburg Admiralty seemed as distant as ever. It was not Rozhestvensky’s highly-strung temperament, nor his irritability, and certainly not the occasional tyrannous treatment he meted out to his men that was holding him back. Nor would he have reached as far as this had he not been an aristocrat. Rozhestvensky’s trouble was that he had no relatives in the right place to help him, and it was almost impossible to break into the inner clique of the Higher Naval Board without the assistance either of logrolling or of some spectacular achievement.

*

Luncheon was over by three o’clock. The officers of the Baltic Fleet changed into more business-like service dress, the Kaiser into the uniform of a Russian Admiral, Tsar Nicholas into that of an Admiral of the German Navy. Everybody on the Shtandart was getting on well after the prolonged banquet, and was looking forward to Rozhestvensky’s afternoon performance. The two Emperors, Prince Henry Frederick, Grand Admiral Alexis, von Tirpitz, the German Minister of Marine, and their assembled staffs and suites left the yacht and proceeded to sea on the bridge of the cruiser Minin. In the centre of the group, appearing calm and completely self-confident, stood Rozhestvensky, a fine, erect figure, apart from his Chief of Staff the only officer below admiral’s rank present. This was his show.

The selected battleships, cruisers and torpedo-boats opened their well-rehearsed manœuvres, timing their fire perfectly, first at fixed targets on Carlos Island, and then, at the end of the three-hour demonstration, on targets towed at speed by torpedo-boats. The shooting was steady, regular and astonishingly accurate. Rozhestvensky gave no sign of his satisfaction, occasionally issuing orders to increase the rate of fire. Only once was there any evidence of the strain and responsibility he was bearing. A torpedo-boat lost station momentarily, and he turned, shouted impatiently at Clapier de Colongue, throwing his arms wide and sending his binoculars sailing overboard. His Chief of Staff at once passed him his own pair; it was not the first time this had happened.

As the targets crumpled one after the other, the Kaiser did not attempt to conceal his admiration; this was efficient even by German standards. ‘I wish I had such splendid admirals as your Captain Rozhestvensky in my fleet,’ was his comment to the Tsar, pointedly within hearing of von Tirpitz. That autumn Rozhestvensky was promoted Chief of Naval Staff with the rank of Rear-Admiral, and appointed aide-de-camp to the Tsar.

*

‘If only we could fight now, Sire,’ the Tsar had regretfully responded to Kaiser Wilhelm II’s words of commendation at the conclusion of Rozhestvensky’s gunnery display. Two years later the Russian appetite for battle had been satiated in a series of defeats in the Far East; her armies had been driven back across Korea, her navy humiliated.

Russian power had been challenged by the precocious nationalism of a state that was barely fifty years old, and against everyone’s predictions, had come off very badly. The Sino-Japanese war had demonstrated Japan’s astonishing grasp of modern warfare, and the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 had left her with treaty rights in Southern Manchuria, the Liao-Tung Peninsula, and the important harbour of Port Arthur.

To the Japanese, Port Arthur was more than a key base and the most northerly ice-free port on the mainland of Asia. Taken by bloody banzai storm at prodigious cost, it was a symbol of the Japanese soldiers’ bravery and the nation’s new independence. Port Arthur was Japan’s Yorktown; but within two years Russian pressure, reinforced by Germany and France, had forced her out, and by 1897 it was firmly in Russian hands. Russia’s conception of a balance of power in the Far East did not countenance the upsetting influence of this youthful country, and she shut her ears to the lusty, aggressive sounds from across the Yellow Sea. Both Manchuria and Korea were rich in natural resources, and it was intolerable that any country but Russia should develop them. But Japanese complaints and pressure became so strong that some empty gesture was finally called for, and in April 1902 Russia reached an agreement with China for the evacuation of Manchuria by stages. The promise meant nothing, Japanese protests were ignored, and Russia embarked on a policy of deliberate provocation. Admiral Alexieff was responsible for effecting this policy. As Far-Eastern viceroy and supreme commander, this pompous, stupid and short-sighted nobleman regarded the Japanese as insignificant vermin who must be destroyed; and he had no doubt that the process of extermination would be swift.

If Russia could rely on the backing of Germany, Japan had her defensive alliance with Britain, and the moral support of the United States. Not that the Mikado and his military and naval chiefs felt the need for encouragement and sympathy. Japan had already developed that condition of boundless self-confidence which was to persist right up to the Battle of Midway forty years later. All she wanted was a little time, to train her new army and order warships from European and American yards. Her diplomats provided this, and when the time came to strike, they worked together with the military leaders with the same wily, minutely-timed close co-ordination that they employed in November and December 1941.

There is an astonishing similarity between the Port Arthur attack in 1904 and that on Pearl Harbour. Relations between Japan and Russia had been in a state of high tension for a long time, but neither Russia nor the rest of the world was aware that a crisis point had been reached when Admiral Togo, lurking at the naval base of Sasebo with his powerful and highly trained fleet, was informed secretly on the night of the 5th of February that relations would be broken off in St. Petersburg on the next afternoon. Togo at once ordered all commanders to his flagship, the Mikasa.

When the officers filed quietly into their C.-in-C.’s cabin, they knew a decision for war had been reached. On a table in the centre of the cabin, resting on an unlacquered ceremonial tray, lay an unsheathed sambo, the short sword used by the Samurai in the past for the rite of seppuku. In a tense atmosphere, Togo pronounced the solemn words of confirmation, ‘We sail tomorrow, and our enemy flies the Russian flag.’ The Mikado’s command to vanquish the Tsar’s fleet followed, and then the conference got down to business. Togo had had his orders weeks ago, and the plan had been worked out to the last detail. The supremely efficient Japanese spy organization knew not only the precise disposition of the Russian squadrons at Vladivostock and Port Arthur, but were able to report to Tokio every change of berth of every vessel. Togo possessed as clear a picture of Port Arthur harbour and roadstead as if reconnaissance planes had just returned with high-level photographs.

The briefing was precise and business-like and few questions were necessary. As the commanders returned to their ships, a sense of excitement spread through the fleet, which reached a climax when the destroyer and torpedo-boat flotillas cleared the harbour through rising mist at dawn. At Pearl Harbour, 350 planes from six aircraft carriers formed the spearhead of the attack; for his first quick stab against an equally unprepared enemy, Admiral Togo was relying on the new Whitehead torpedo, and at half-past ten on the evening of the 8th of February, the low, sleek little boats went in.

‘Show yourselves worthy of the confidence I place in you,’ Togo had told his destroyer and torpedo-boat commanders; and they did. The lights of the town were glowing innocently, the battleships and cruisers, lit from stem to stern, were at anchor in a neat row outside the harbour. The shore batteries were unmanned, nearly all the officers were in the town. The ships’ only defence was their few manned light guns, and their torpedo nets. But by the simple ruse of using Russian signals, the Japanese were at a range of a few hundred yards before they were recognized, and their first attack was delivered without any opposition.

Within a few hectic minutes, two of Russia’s best battleships and a cruiser were crippled by nine torpedoes carrying a special net-cutting device; and the next day, in a long-range bombardment, Togo severely damaged four more ships. For the price of six lives, he had reversed the balance of naval power in the East as effectively as Yamamoto was to reverse it in 1941, and had gained a moral advantage for his fleet far more profound than his successor ever achieved over the United States.

For the next fifteen months, Togo followed a cautious policy of containment. He was not often given the choice of accepting or refusing battle, for the Russians seldom emerged from the safety of their bases. When he met them at sea, he was content to disengage as soon as he had caused sufficient damage to the enemy to ensure continued moral supremacy, and because the Russians were usually fleeing, this was not difficult. At Chemulpo, at the battles of August 10th and August 14th, 1904, and in numerous minor engagements, Togo succeeded in further whittling down the power of Russia’s Far Eastern fleet, and also in killing several of her admirals. It was a policy that demanded skill, patience and the severest disciplinary control over his eager commanders. But it was the right policy. The continuance of the war in Manchuria and Korea, and Japan’s very life, depended on her navy; it was her most precious possession, and while she continued to command the seas, it was folly to risk it.

Japan had no sizeable shipyards to replace lost vessels, no reserves to draw on, and every ship was committed to the struggle. But in the Baltic, Russia possessed an idle fleet of more than a hundred ships, and fitting out in her dockyards were four powerful battleships of the most modern type, the backbone of a new fleet numerically equal to anything Togo could muster, and when combined with Russia’s Port Arthur and Vladivostock squadrons, crushingly superior. In May 1904, Japan had suffered a catastrophe that could have cost her the war, a double misfortune that her C.-in-C., with his fleet almost constantly at sea, had feared above anything else. On one day the battleships Hatsuse and Yashima were both sunk by mines while on blockade duty, and Japan found her first line of attack reduced by a third. It was now more than ever vital that the army should capture Port Arthur, destroy the powerful squadron there before the arrival of reinforcements, and deprive Russia of her most powerful naval base in the Far East. Togo knew that only the delayed completion of the four great battleships had prevented the armada from sailing at the outbreak of hostilities, and at Sasebo he and his staff followed anxiously the reports of the progress of their fitting-out.

By October the whole world knew that the four ironclads were at the Baltic base of Libau, ready to sail, and speculation about their size and power began to grow.

*

The Kniaz Suvoroff was to be the flagship of the Second Pacific Squadron, which was to raise the siege of Port Arthur, avenge the humiliations Alexieff had suffered, and ‘wipe the infidels off the face of the earth’ as Tsar Nicholas had commanded. Her identical and equally powerful sister ships were the Borodino, Alexander III and Oryol. As originally laid down, the Suvoroff was to have been of 13,500 tons, but in course of construction her displacement had been increased to well over 15,000 tons. She was an imposing looking vessel, with twin smokestacks close together amidships, separating the superstructures with their delicate fire control mechanisms, rangefinders and searchlight platforms. On the fore deck and aft was the main armament, heavily protected turrets each carrying two great twelve-inch guns capable of hurling over ten miles, by a nitro-cellulose propellant, a high-explosive shell weighing a third of a ton. Incorporated in the bow was her sharp-pointed ram, still retained by all ironclads at the turn of the century for the coup de grâce in a close action. Abaft the fore superstructure, amidships and below the mizzen mast in pairs on each beam were the twelve forty-five calibre six-inch guns. Twelve-and six-pounder weapons, on battery deck, on bridge wings and platforms, in combination with the new electric searchlights, provided the defensive armament against the battleship’s greatest enemy, the torpedo-boat. Strips of ten-inch Harveyed steel, each weighing as much as a destroyer, protected the ship’s waterline, and there was four-inch armour on the decks, fourteen-inch on the vital barbettes, and heavy steel canopies on conning-tower and lower fighting position.

The Suvoroff’s 16,300 horsepower engines gave her a top speed of over eighteen knots. Her hull from stem to stern, her towering superstructures, her masts and boats, all were painted black; only the tall twin funnels amidships, of brilliant lemon yellow black-banded at the top, contrasted with the dour purposefulness of the rest of the ship.

Her name was heavily embossed in gold letters at bows and stern: Kniaz Suvoroff, after that great eighteenth-century Russian fighter and patriot who had quelled insurrections and fought ruthlessly against Frenchmen, Turks and Cossacks. It was a name rich in bloody tradition; and in the epic voyage that lay ahead of her, she was to carry the flag of Admiral Zinovy Petrovitch Rozhestvensky.

You'll have to read the book to get the rest of the story.  It's a classic of naval history.

Peter