6

SHELLFIRE

Japan informed Russia of the cessation of diplomatic relations on February 6, 1904. Russia announced a state of war with Japan on February 9, and Japan on February 10. Fighting had begun prior to those dates.

We must go back a little in time and give an account of both the Japanese and the Russian strategies. “As I’ve said many times, we can’t fight a long war,” Ōyama Iwao, the chief of the General Staff told his vice chief Kodama Gentarō, who was doing the strategic planning.

Kodama was in complete agreement. If the war was prolonged, Japan’s ability to fight would dissipate, and the nation would destroy itself. Every member of the government knew that the war would be absolutely pointless if Japan failed in its strategy of winning battles as impressively as possible at the beginning, and then seizing the psychological moment to deploy diplomacy and bring about peace. Therefore, it was necessary to send a larger number of troops to the prospective battlefield and more quickly than the enemy, mass them there, and begin the attack. The enemy would not be fully prepared. Japan could, of course, win, and Japan’s victory would be highly impressive both domestically and abroad. This was the hoped-for result at, for example, the battle to be fought at the Yalu River.

But it took great national power to assemble a large fighting force on a distant battlefield more quickly than the enemy. What was needed was the power to transport men and matériel by land and sea. In Japan, where only some thirty years had passed since the Restoration, only fourteen trains per day could be moved along those domestic railway trunk lines available for military transport. As for sea transport, the steamship tonnage that could be used for military purposes amounted to no more than three to four hundred thousand tons. Japan’s strategy turned on whether it could win a competition with Russia that depended in large part on speed, even though Japan was saddled with such a feeble transport system. Moreover, when Japan transported its ground troops by sea, the powerful Russian Pacific Fleet (based at Port Arthur and Vladivostok) would not fail to act. It goes without saying that there would be a battle for control of the seas between the Russian and Japanese fleets. The question was: could the Japanese Navy win this battle?

Assuming the Japanese Navy did win, Japan’s First Army, which had landed in Korea, would be fighting the first battle of the Russo-Japanese War near the Yalu River. The Second Army would land in southern Manchuria, advance to the area of Liaoyang, where General Linevich’s corps was based, and attack and destroy it.

At this point, the plan to launch an immediate attack on the fortifications of Port Arthur had been put on hold, so the campaign was a two-pronged one, as explained above.

“At any rate, if we don’t amaze the world by winning battles at an early stage of the war, we won’t be able to get enough funds from abroad to carry on.” As Kodama Gentarō often said, the grave problem of the wartime economy hung upon Japan’s early-stage victories.

In comparison with Japan’s carefully calculated war strategy, Russia’s was casual and crude to an unfortunate degree. Certainly, it was not the case that Russia’s strategic planning for the war had begun later than Japan’s. On October 24, 1903, while Russia and Japan were still engaged in negotiations, Alexeyev, the tsar’s viceroy in the Far East, presented to his government a plan for a strategy aimed at Japan, and, on October 31, the tsar approved it. Then, on November 18, a more detailed proposal was presented that was finalized on January 1 of the following year, under War Minister Kuropatkin’s direction, and approved by the tsar.

The British Foreign Office was the first to get the news that the Russian Army’s strategic plan against Japan had been approved. Britain immediately notified the Japanese government of this, as it was obliged to do under the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Japan had heard the same news from a different source, and, since the information was regarded as highly reliable, it became one important factor behind the Japanese government’s decision to go to war against Russia.

Thus, Russia did not lack the time to devise a plan. On the contrary, Russia’s large military buildup in Manchuria even prior to the plan shows that it was always ahead of the game.

And yet its strategic planning was so crude! Russia’s center of operations for political and military strategy in the Far East was the viceregal headquarters for the Far East newly established in Port Arthur. In October 1903, the Army Department within the viceregal headquarters sent the chief of the Naval Department an important query about making plans to counter Japan. “We think that even after a full month of war, the Japanese Army will be blocked by the Russian Navy and unable to land at Yingkou”—the port for Liaodong Bay. “Do we have reason to be confident about this line of thinking?”

Another question concerned the defense of the northern part of Korea. “The Japanese Army will try to land on the coast of Korea. At that juncture, the Russian fleet will act to block them and will have to engage in battle with the Japanese fleet several times. Even granting that the Russian Navy will not be able to completely block the Japanese Army’s landing in Korea, we want to know how long our navy will be able to delay it.”

The responses of the chief of the Naval Department were very clear. “So long as our Russian fleet is not totally destroyed, landings by the Japanese Army at Yingkou in Liaodong Bay and on the coast of northern Korea will be impossible. A comparison of the Japanese and Russian fleets make it inconceivable that our fleet would be destroyed in the Yellow Sea and Korean coastal waters.”

In other words, the Russian fleet in the Far East was indestructible, and the Japanese Army would either be unable to land in Korea or Manchuria, or would be greatly delayed in doing so. The Army Department made its plans for a land strategy on the basis of this reply. This was its fundamental mistake.

The Russian Army and Navy came up with such crude plans because they judged the military strength of Japan solely by the numbers, paying no attention at all to their potential enemy’s abilities. From the start, the Russian generals looked upon the Japanese Army and Navy as of no real account and therefore made no serious attempt to investigate their true state and strength.

For example, on the day that the Russian tsar issued a declaration of war against Japan, two major figures in the Russian Army met to discuss how to lead their forces. The two were Vannovsky, the former war minister, and Kuropatkin, the present holder of that post. Judging from the results, the substance of this meeting could hardly have been more foolish. The question was how the military power of the two nations would compare.

Kuropatkin’s view was: “We should allot Russian soldiers against Japanese at a ratio of one to one and a half.”

“You are overestimating the Japanese soldiers. One Russian soldier to every two Japanese will be quite sufficient,” Vannovsky replied.

Witte, who had already been dismissed as minister of finance, heard of this later and sarcastically remarked, “This was the opinion of the former and present war ministers, supposedly the most knowledgeable about the military strengths of both enemy and their own forces!”

Still, Witte relied somewhat upon the abilities and thought processes of Kuropatkin. Soon after the declaration of war, Kuropatkin left his post as chief of military administration to head for the battlefields in the Far East as commander of the army at the front. He visited Witte’s residence to say farewell. The tactics and strategy he discussed with Witte at this time were different from the careless views described above. “The Japanese Army’s strategic planning and preparations are better than we anticipated. As a result, we must make changes in the approach we’ve followed up to now,” he said.

“The approach we’ve followed up to now” refers to the overly optimistic view that Russia could scatter the Japanese with “one touch of its armored sleeve.” The new view required that very large forces be sent to the Far East, but the transport capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railway was limited, and it would be impossible to send such forces all at once. They would be sent gradually, and that would take time. “Buying that amount of time is the key to victory,” concluded Kuropatkin.

Buying time was Kuropatkin’s basic strategic policy. He would wait for the buildup of a great military force several times the size of Japan’s army and then plan the final decisive battle. In the battles up to that point, he wanted to avoid the loss of his forces as much as possible. The Russians would retreat gradually, in several stages, while forcing the Japanese Army to suffer a fair amount of attrition. Kuropatkin said that the line for the “final decisive battle” would be drawn at Harbin. He was known as the finest general in the Russian Army, and he did indeed have a mind that could correctly grasp the nature of the coming war on the plains of Manchuria. The tactic of “attack and then withdraw” might appear strange but was a traditional one in the Russian Army. The aim was to make the enemy extend their supply lines as far as possible and then, when their supplies were cut off, to launch a massive counterattack. Napoleon had been defeated by this tactic in the past, and Hitler would be defeated in the same way in the future.

Excellent tactics and strategy are largely a matter of arithmetic and have a clarity about them that an amateur can fully understand. Or, to look at it the opposite way, obscure tactics with philosophical touches and strategy comprehensible only to a professional exist only rarely, and, if they do exist, belong to the losing side.

A good example of the latter would be the tactical and strategic thought of the leaders of the Japanese Army in charge of the Pacific War. They forgot about the arithmetical aspect fundamental to strategy and made great use of philosophical and mystical elements, to an extent rarely seen in world history. Indeed, they introduced philosophical elements as a substitute for the arithmetical ones lacking in their strategic thinking. The thinking of these uniformed war leaders was, to an incredible degree, a kind of mystical philosophy advocating “faith in certain victory,” without a strategic or economic basis. It promoted the idea of “the indestructible divine land of Japan,” and the glorification of and fixation on suicidal tactics.

An analysis of the strangeness of these attitudes is not the aim of this work. Only, the group of top leaders and devisers of the political and military strategy at the time of the Russo-Japanese War, who were so firm in their commitment to rationally planned policies, seem to have been an entirely different breed of men from their successors some thirty years later. Perhaps this is due in part to the influence of the orthodox Zhu Xi school of Tokugawa Confucianism, which had led to a universal culture of rational thinking among educated Japanese who were forty or older at the period we are discussing. The Zhu Xi school’s position was strictly rationalistic and very much opposed to any kind of mystical tendency. Its teachings had penetrated to the very marrow of the bones of Japanese intellectuals from the mid-Tokugawa through mid-Meiji periods.

There was no mysticism in the tactics and strategy devised by Kuropatkin, the commander of the Russian Army at the front. Kuropatkin knew that the Japanese Army did not want to keep endlessly advancing northward. Their supply lines would be lengthened, and the transport of munitions and foodstuffs would be delayed. Moreover, they would lose some of their forces in every battle, and, when they had advanced as far north as they could, they would be very much weakened. Kuropatkin also knew that Japan had very limited resources and would not be able to fight a protracted war. Finally, at the “Harbin line,” Russia, with its huge forces, would strike an annihilating blow at the weakened Japanese Army and thus win the war.

If Russia had given Kuropatkin its support with steely determination from beginning to end and managed its domestic and external affairs so as to make it easy to carry out his strategy, no doubt the positions of victor and loser in the Russo-Japanese War would have been reversed. But Russia did not do so. And the Japanese had a firm grasp of the problems both sides were facing and kept to its plan for a short war. This made both internal and external affairs function in ways that were ideal for its war effort. So we can conclude that as far as the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War was concerned, the skill or lack of skill of a given general was a matter of minor importance.

When General Kuropatkin visited the home of Witte, who was said to be the wisest politician in Russia, it was February, and still cold and snowy. Witte kept urging brandy on his visitor, and Kuropatkin became pleasantly drunk. Kuropatkin’s mood was buoyed by the fact that the tactics and strategy he described to Witte met with the full approval of his sagacious listener.

“I am in complete agreement with your strategy,” said Witte. He was an amateur when it came to war, but he knew a lot about tactics and strategy. And to repeat, tactics and strategy need to be made understandable even to an amateur.

Kuropatkin showed his acceptance of this essential truth when he asked Witte on parting, “If you have some better ideas, please share them with me now.” The complacency so common among military men seems to have formed no part of Kuropatkin’s makeup, or, at any rate, very little.

“Thank you for asking. I do have one suggestion,” replied Witte. But, before revealing his secret strategy, he asked Kuropatkin what kind of men he was taking with him to the Far East.

“Several staff officers and aides.”

“Are they men worthy of trust?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well then, I’ll tell you what I think. It concerns Viceroy Alexeyev. He has authority over military, internal, and external affairs in the Far East. You will be going as commander of the army in the field, but Alexeyev will take advantage of his greater authority to issue his own orders to the army under your command. Our army will be caught between the orders from you and from Alexeyev, which will cause great confusion and ultimately lead perhaps to defeat.”

“That is possible.” Kuropatkin too had been worried about the same thing.

“Alexeyev is in Mukden now. You will, of course, be going directly there to offer him greetings after your appointment. Now, if I were you, I would send several of your officers to arrest him. Restrain him, set a strict guard on him, throw him onto the train you yourself arrived on, and send him back to Russia! At the same time, send a telegram to His Majesty the tsar. Write something like ‘In order to perfectly carry out the grave mission Your Majesty has entrusted to me, I arrested the viceroy immediately after arriving here. I did this because victory in this war is inconceivable without taking such an action. If Your Majesty wishes to punish me for overstepping my command, please issue an order that I be shot. But, if not, I beg you to bear with me for a time, for the sake of the nation.’ That’s the kind of telegram to send,” Witte concluded.

Witte knew better than anyone that Viceroy Alexeyev, who held supreme power over military and political affairs in the Far East, was a kind of cancer in the body of Russia. He was the tsar’s trusted minister and discussed the gravest matters concerning the Far East directly with the sovereign—even the foreign minister often did not know the contents of these conversations. Furthermore, the staunchest imperialists had grouped themselves around Alexeyev, and these people made him the driving force for the Russian invasion of the Far East.

Now war had come, just as Alexeyev had hoped, and the viceroy held supreme power over military affairs in the Far East with authority over Kuropatkin. “Incredible really,” Witte had often said, “to put that man in charge of a great army numbering hundreds of thousands.” (In fact, it grew to nearly one million troops eventually.) And all the more conscientious elements in the Russian government had the same doubts.

For example, this Alexeyev, who may have had less knowledge of army matters than any newly appointed second lieutenant, could not even ride a horse! At the review of the troops at Port Arthur, when he should by rights have made a splendid appearance on horseback, he came on foot. It was not only a matter of coming mounted or not—Alexeyev was actually terrified of horses.

He was a navy admiral. Yet even his knowledge of naval matters was questionable, and he was in addition a mediocre politician. “He is merely cunning,” Witte said. “He has no natural talent or feel for politics whatsoever.” How strange that such a person should be in a position to direct the destiny of the Russian nation. But because absolute despotism determined the course of politics in Russia, even a monkey could serve as archbishop if only it won the favor of the tsar.

Thus, Witte advised Kuropatkin to arrest Alexeyev and send him back to Russia at the earliest opportunity. But to arrest his own superior was unthinkable to a man like Kuropatkin, bureaucratic and prone to compromise as he was.

“Surely you’re joking!” he said with a rueful smile.

“I’m not joking,” Witte answered, shaking his head. “It’s the only way to avoid defeat.”

“You may be right, but . . . ” Kuropatkin nodded with a noncommittal look on his face and then took his leave.

In the end, Witte’s fears proved well founded.

When Kuropatkin arrived in Manchuria, he set up separate headquarters and tried to keep his distance from Alexeyev as much as possible, but Alexeyev was aggressive about putting a brake on Kuropatkin’s ideas and plans. Alexeyev’s whole strategy was one of aggression. “The Japanese are monkeys!” he constantly said, in line with the tsar’s comments; as such, they could easily be defeated. What need was there for so much caution on the Russians’ part? And so the high command of the Russian Army was divided and in disarray during the first half of the war. (Though eventually Alexeyev was recalled to Russia, and Kuropatkin was able to have complete command of the Russian forces in Manchuria.)

Now we must touch on naval strategy.

“The navy’s Gombei is too timid.” This was what the young, optimistic militarists kept saying. Yamamoto Gombei, with his capacity for careful planning, almost godlike creativity, and power to command, was indeed prudence itself until almost the outbreak of the war. For the previous ten years, he had been focused on the Russian Navy, building up Japan’s naval forces with Russia as the hypothetical enemy. He had created a fully equipped fleet, its principal ships recent products of Britain’s great shipyards, better in performance than the Russians’ own. Gombei was a firm believer in the importance of quality performance in weaponry. In his realization that victory or defeat in war would be determined by superior weaponry, he was more “modern” than the leaders of the navies of the more advanced nations. Like most of the leaders of Japan at that time, he never once in his life made senseless pronouncements in an attempt to rally the spiritual force of the nation. He felt that his duty was to ensure the material and organizational resources necessary to prevent defeat in the event of war against the hypothetical enemy. He had devoted himself to that alone over the past ten years.

While Japan had only a single naval fleet, Russia had two: the Pacific Fleet in the Far East and the Baltic Fleet at home. If these two combined, the Japanese Navy had no chance of winning. The Japanese naval strategy directed by Yamamoto Gombei was to sink the Pacific Fleet before the Baltic Fleet arrived to join it, and then to sink that fleet too. Each would be destroyed one at a time.

Russia’s Pacific Fleet and Japan’s one and only fleet were roughly equal in strength. Gombei wanted to ensure that the number of ships and the ratio of total tonnage would be brought to a level at least slightly to Japan’s advantage. In naval battles, numbers and quality performance count. With numerical superiority, not only would the military gains be great, but the losses to one’s own side would also be minimized.

In what he regarded as the initial round in the war, Gombei aimed at keeping Japan’s losses to the minimum in confrontations with Russia’s Pacific Fleet. If he failed to do so, there was little chance of success in the second round against the Baltic Fleet. For this reason, the Japanese Navy purchased two additional light armored cruisers just prior to the start of the war. They were of the most up-to-date type, ordered from the Genoa shipyards by Argentina and almost completed before Japan actually bought them. Though they were classed as cruisers, one had 10-inch guns with a range of 20,000 meters, the longest in the world. Russia had hoped to purchase both ships, but Japan beat the Russians to them. They were named the Nisshin and the Kasuga. They sailed to Japan before the outbreak of hostilities, successfully evading the Russian naval cordon.

In short, Japan’s aim was to strengthen its single fleet and use it to strike at the slightly weaker Russian Pacific Fleet.

Next we must consider Japan’s strategy regarding the fleet in Port Arthur. Japan knew that the hills, islands, and entrance to the bay near the military port were armed with so many artillery emplacements as to be almost covered in steel and concrete. This was home to the Russian fleet. Entering it to attack would be impossible. The idea from the beginning was to lure the fleet to the waters outside the port and attack it there. But would the Russian fleet be willing to leave the safety of the port and venture out into the open seas? That would determine which of the two navies would be victorious and which defeated.

Some in the military command feared that the Russians might not come out. Their fleet might avoid battle by remaining hidden deep within the bay of Port Arthur and waiting until the arrival of the Baltic Fleet. Then the two fleets would join together in battle against the Japanese, whose fleet would be only half the combined Russian force’s size. In such a situation, the Japanese would surely lose.

Akiyama Saneyuki, who had witnessed the blocking of the port of Santiago in the Spanish–American War, suggested that the army attack the fortifications of Port Arthur, and at the same time the navy would sink steamers at the mouth of the bay to block it. This plan was not, however, formally considered until after the start of hostilities. An attack on the fortifications of Port Arthur was not initially part of the army’s strategy. At any rate, if the Russian fleet came out into the open seas, there would be no need for such actions.

The Japanese government, despairing of progress in diplomatic negotiations with Russia, attempted to break them off several times, only to be stopped by Emperor Meiji. Japanese court circles preserved the old, aristocratic tradition and were very unmilitary in character; Emperor Meiji was no exception. When, however, information came by telegram on February 1 that the tsar had given permission to plan war against Japan, the army felt it had to press for the breaking off of negotiations. On that same day, Ōyama Iwao rushed to the palace and advised the emperor that the time had come to open hostilities against Russia.

In the navy, Yamamoto Gombei’s decision came on February 3, with the news that the Russian fleet at Port Arthur had sailed from port. The information was correct. The Russian fleet left Port Arthur on the third, arriving that same night at Dalian, and returning to Port Arthur on the fourth, anchoring in the outer harbor. The original news report, however, stated that the Russian fleet’s destination was unclear. Nothing could have been better from the standpoint of Gombei’s strategy. Japan needed to catch the Russians on the open seas and deal a crushing blow.

The decision to break off negotiations was made on the fourth, the day after the Russian fleet left Port Arthur.

The Japanese Combined Fleet was assembled in Sasebo. The orders for the attack would come from the Navy General Staff in Tokyo, but Tokyo dispatched not a telegram but a personal messenger. He left Tokyo by train on the night of February 4 and proceeded south on the Tōkaidō line. The messenger chosen for this mission was a staff officer, Captain Yamashita Gentarō. The order was no doubt sent in this leisurely way because maintaining secrecy by telegram was difficult. But it wasn’t so much a matter of worry about information getting into the wrong hands as the feeling that they weren’t in any great rush.

Amazingly, Russia exerted great pressure on Japan but was convinced that Japan lacked the ability to fight a war against Russia and would not initiate hostilities. Russia thought the war would come in perhaps one or two years. Ideally, this would give Russia two years to prepare for its crushing defeat of Japan. This sort of thinking was typical of a Great Power.

On February 4 at six o’clock in the evening, the cabinet met in the presence of Emperor Meiji, and Japan decided to break relations with Russia. On the fifth, the Foreign Ministry cabled Ambassador Kurino Shin’ichirō in St. Petersburg, ordering him to officially inform the Russian government of this. On the sixth in Tokyo, Foreign Minister Komura Jutarō summoned Ambassador Rozen to the Foreign Ministry and announced the severance of diplomatic relations.

“What does this cutting of relations mean?” Rozen asked with a clearly disconcerted look on his face. “Does it mean war?”

The severance of diplomatic relations means specifically the withdrawal of diplomatic envoys present in the respective countries in peacetime and the departure of each country’s nationals from the other’s territory. And, of course, after the cutting of relations, diplomatic negotiations in accordance with normal peacetime rules become impossible no matter what occurs. This “no matter what” can naturally include a state of war, so Ambassador Rozen’s question was a foolish one. Or rather, even Rozen himself underestimated Japan, assuming that it would never cut off relations and then launch a war.

“Severing relations is not war,” Komura replied like a professor at a law school being questioned by a student.

To reply thus to Rozen’s question was to be completely faithful to the meaning of the words. And, of course, Komura’s statement included diplomatic maneuvering. He knew all about the Japanese Army and Navy’s strategic plans for a first strike at the earliest opportunity after the breaking off of relations.

The Russian viceroy Alexeyev also took too light a view of the meaning of “severance of relations.” It was he who had spearheaded the policy of pressuring Japan, yet he had kept saying, “Can the monkeys make war?” Now too he said, “The breaking off of relations doesn’t mean war. Japan is hardly ready to start a war with us—as a nation, it is simply not powerful enough. Of that, I am sure.” As he conveyed this opinion to his government in St. Petersburg on the night of February 4, Yamashita Gentarō was on board the Tōkaidō line train going south.

Yamashita Gentarō was a native of Yonezawa from a samurai family formerly attached to the ruling Uesugi clan. When he was studying at the private Yonezawa Middle School, a British teacher there spoke of the strength of the British Navy. “By contrast, there has never been a great naval commander in the whole history of Japan. The Japanese Navy is very weak indeed.” As Yamashita often said in later years, that was why he determined to join the navy. He entered the Naval Academy in Tsukiji in 1879 as one of twenty-nine cadets.

During the First Sino-Japanese War, he was a lieutenant staff officer at the Yokosuka Naval Base and very dissatisfied with the central command. The Naval Ministry’s basic strategy at this point was not to allow the fleet to make any sorties from the harbor at Sasebo out of an excess of fear of the Qing navy’s Zhenyuan and Dingyuan battleships.

Yamashita was convinced that “not to attack was not to gain a victory” and argued that point with Itō Sukeyuki, the fleet commander. Having won Itō’s assent, he proceeded to Tokyo where he tried to make Navy Minister Saigō Tsugumichi abandon the passive, conservative policy then in force. This policy had been adopted by Nakamuta Kuranosuke, then chief of the Navy General Staff, who had served in the Saga domain’s navy. Saigō removed Nakamuta from his post prior to the outbreak of the war and appointed as his successor Kabayama Sukenori, originally from Satsuma and a bit of a daredevil. Nakamuta’s passive strategy was thus abandoned.

Ten years had passed since then, and now Yamashita as a captain in the Navy General Staff was on his way from Tokyo to the Combined Fleet in Sasebo to transmit the order to begin hostilities. How great had been the progress of the Japanese Navy as compared with the days when, out of fear of merely two ships in the Beiyang Fleet—the Zhenyuan and the Dingyuan—it had adopted a policy of remaining passively in Sasebo Harbor just prior to the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War!

“Every time I think about that, I am amazed,” Yamashita recollected later. Even he who had been so deeply involved in it all could hardly believe the changes that had taken place in a matter of only ten years.

The trains at that time were slow. Yamashita left Tokyo at night and arrived in Sasebo the next day—February 5—at half past six in the evening. In his briefcase were what naval parlance termed “sealed orders.” These were orders to Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet Tōgō Heihachirō, and, as the literal meaning of the words suggests, they were to be unsealed at a specified time and place. Actually, there were two sealed documents, one the actual orders and the other an imperial rescript. After recounting the situation that had made cutting off negotiations with the Russian government necessary, the rescript went on to state, “We have decided to order our government to cease negotiations with Russia and to act freely in order to safeguard Japan’s independence and defenses. We have confidence in the loyalty and valor of you all, and trust that you will accomplish our aims and thus bring to perfection the glory of our empire.”

Yamashita left the coast by launch, and, when he finally boarded the flagship Mikasa, it was seven o’clock. The Mikasa was then the largest, most powerful battleship in the world, capable of a speed of 18 knots per hour, with a displacement of 15,362 tons of water. Its principal armaments included four 12-inch guns, fourteen 6-inch canons, twenty 3.1-inch guns, and four torpedo launchers.

When Yamashita entered the office of the commander in chief of the Combined Fleet, Tōgō Heihachirō was waiting for him together with his staff officers, who had been previously notified of Yamashita’s arrival. Among the staff officers, the youngest by far was Lieutenant Commander Akiyama Saneyuki.

“Ah, Akiyama’s here,” the rather tense Yamashita thought. Then, oddly, he noticed that Saneyuki had some stubble on his chin. “I’ll have to make him get a good shave,” he thought, as he moved forward to present the two sealed documents to Tōgō.

Lieutenant Commander Nagata Yasujirō, Tōgō’s adjutant, took out a pair of scissors and handed them to Tōgō, who bowed, cut the seals himself, took out the imperial rescript, and read it silently. The next document to be opened contained the orders from Navy Minister Yamamoto Gombei: “The commander in chief of the Combined Fleet and the Commander of the Third Squadron Kataoka Shichirō are to aim for the total destruction of the Russian Pacific Fleet . . . The commander in chief of the Combined Fleet shall immediately advance and destroy the Russian fleet in the area of the Yellow Sea . . . The commander of the Third Squadron shall immediately occupy Chinhae Bay and guard the Korea Strait.”

The date of this sealed order was given as “7:15 p.m., February 5, 1904.”

Akiyama Saneyuki took out his pocket watch and observed that it was precisely that time. Shortly afterward, a meeting was held, and the hour grew late. At one o’clock on the morning of the sixth, a light appeared on the mast of the Mikasa and immediately began to blink on and off. It was a signal to the entire fleet at anchor in Sasebo: “The commanders and captains of all vessels are to assemble on the flagship.” Suddenly, there were many waves breaking the surface of the harbor’s waters. Launches were lowered from all the ships and moved toward the Mikasa.

The orders concerning the opening of hostilities and naval attacks were transmitted in the office of the commander in chief of the Mikasa. There were about forty or fifty commanders and captains of the various ships assembled when Tōgō entered the room with his staff officers. He proceeded to the central seat at the table.

“The imperial command has been issued,” he declared, informing them of the contents of the rescript and of the orders from Navy Minister Yamamoto. Then he issued his first order to the Combined Fleet. “Our Combined Fleet will immediately proceed to the Yellow Sea and destroy the enemy fleet at Port Arthur and Inch’ŏn.”

The chief of staff of the Combined Fleet was Shimamura Hayao. He was from Tosa and had entered the Naval School in 1874. He later was promoted to admiral of the fleet and died in 1923. He was a brilliant strategist, yet, unusually for a military man, he was not concerned with making a great name for himself. All his life he gave credit to others—a person with a naturally magnanimous character.

Yamamoto Gombei decided “it would be best to have Shimamura work under Tōgō.” Tōgō was to have general command, while Shimamura’s wise stratagems would direct the fleet’s movements. But Shimamura himself was delighted when Saneyuki joined the staff officers, and he privately informed Saneyuki, “I’ll leave everything to you.” And that is just what he did. Shimamura believed that the campaign should be directed by a man of genius and that the mere fact of his being senior in rank did not mean that he should use his lesser talents to interfere. That was the sort of man he was.

One anecdote about him from the Russo-Japanese War recounts how the journalists assigned to Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo began to notice the excellent writing style of the reports from the Combined Fleet. At one point, the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, believing them to be written by Chief of Staff Shimamura, published an article praising him to the skies. Shimamura was amazed to see that and made a point of writing while still at sea to Ogasawara Naganari, who was in charge of the press section at Imperial Headquarters. “I was stunned and embarrassed to read the article. As you are aware, I have a subordinate, and it was he who wrote the reports in question.” Thus, he identified Saneyuki as the author and asked that the Yomiuri be informed of the mistake in its article. Shimamura was that kind of man.

After the Russo-Japanese War, he became famous for having been the chief of staff of the Combined Fleet, but he kept denying that he deserved such credit. “From the start of the Russo-Japanese War until the fall of Port Arthur,” he stated at a public meeting, “I served as chief of staff of the Combined Fleet. It is often said that I continued in that position until the battle of Tsushima, but by then I had been transferred to another post and was no longer chief of staff. The fact is that the activities of our fleet during the Russo-Japanese War were directed by Akiyama Saneyuki. The surprise attack outside the entrance to Port Arthur, the battle of Inch’ŏn, the three blockades of Port Arthur, the large-scale transport of the Second Army, the strategic planning and implementation of the battle of Tsushima—all were conceived by Akiyama and proposed by him in writing, and his proposals were almost always approved immediately by Admiral Tōgō.”

We might mention again that Commander Arima Ryōkitsu served as vice chief of staff under Shimamura. When, after the blockading of Port Arthur, Arima left the fleet to take up duties at Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo, Tōgō and Shimamura decided that they would not appoint a new man as his successor but instead promote Saneyuki and make him the vice chief of staff—an exceptional measure. Thus, a thirty-seven-year-old man came to bear, virtually on his own, the burden of devising the naval campaign that was to determine the destiny of Japan.

Moriyama Keizaburō was a former classmate of Saneyuki’s and a lifelong friend. He was at the time a lieutenant commander and staff officer of Rear Admiral Uryū Sotokichi’s division (the Fourth Division) in the Second Squadron aboard the cruiser Naniwa. He was one of those who gathered in the office of the commander in chief on the Mikasa, and he describes how things appeared when Tōgō Heihachirō relayed the order to attack. “I stood there silently, looking down. I couldn’t stop my tears from flowing. Not one of those present raised his head. No one spoke—it was as if we were in some mountain fastness.”

Moriyama recollects thinking at the time that Japan might lose to Russia. He had gone to Europe on official business two years before and passed through Poland, observing its utter ruin. He saw in each town how mercilessly the Russian victors treated the Poles as if they, the Russians, were their absolute masters, and he couldn’t help recalling those scenes. The fear that Japan might meet the same fate made him lose control and reduced him to tears. “No doubt not everyone in the room was as weak-spirited as I was, but, judging from the dead silence, I think everyone had similar feelings. It felt as if we were standing on the edge of a precipice, and our next move meant life or death to Japan.”

When at last the orders had all been read out, champagne was handed around and Tōgō raised his glass. “I trust you will all fight with the utmost valor and look forward to the success that lies ahead—a toast!” He emptied his glass.

When everyone had done the same, the feeling of tension vanished and, as Moriyama states, “The atmosphere changed to one of celebration.” The captains of the various ships started to leave the commander’s office, but Moriyama heard someone say that orders would be handed to the staff officers so they should remain, and he attempted to do so. But he was pushed along by the crowd and passed down the corridor until he came to the chief of staff’s room, where he found the door open. The spacious office was brightly lit, and in the center of the room was a large table with a naval map spread out on top.

Two men were having an intense discussion—Shimamura Hayao and Akiyama Saneyuki. For his entire life, Moriyama revered his classmate Akiyama Saneyuki almost like a god, and he often recounted this scene in later years. “It was moving to see these two extraordinarily gifted military men devoting themselves heart and soul to planning the coming campaign.” He then goes on to describe what the two men were doing. Saneyuki had a compass in his right hand and a ruler in his left, and moved them about, indicating the routes of the ships on the map. On the other side of the table, Shimamura had bent his large body over the map and gazed at the routes Saneyuki was tracing on it.

Eventually, Saneyuki noticed Moriyama standing in the doorway and called out to him, “Your division is going to go to Inch’ŏn. We’ll supply you with the Asama and some torpedo boats.” Then he returned to looking at the naval map.

At the beginning of the war, the navy was responsible for attacking the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, gaining control of the seas, and landing army troops at Inch’ŏn in Korea. The main force was to go to Port Arthur.

At nine o’clock in the morning on February 6, the main force of the Combined Fleet left the port of Sasebo. The first to leave was the Third Division (of the First Squadron) with Chitose (a protected cruiser) as its flagship. The Chitose was followed by the Takasago, Kasagi, and Yoshino. The ships at anchor sent them off by manning the side rails and shouting, “Banzai!” Then the First through the Fifth Destroyer divisions and the Ninth and Fourteenth Torpedo Boat divisions followed, cutting through the waves. Next came the Second Division (of the Second Squadron) under the command of Vice Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō, with its flagship Izumo (an armored cruiser) in the lead, followed by the Azuma, Yakumo, Tokiwa, and Iwate. Finally came the First Division (of the First Squadron), which was the core of the Combined Fleet, with its flagship the Mikasa (a first-class battleship) in the lead, followed by the Asahi, Fuji, Yashima, Shikishima, and Hatsuse. The last was a torpedo boat division. Captain Yamashita Gentarō, who had come from Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo, saw them off as a representative of the entire navy.

By around noon, the harbor at Sasebo, which had been so crowded with ships of various types until the day before, was almost empty. Only a few middle-sized ships remained: the protected cruisers Naniwa and Takachiho and the small protected cruisers Akashi and Niitaka. The only large ship was the armored cruiser Asama, at 9,750 tons. These ships were known as Uryū’s division (of the Second Squadron) and were responsible for landing army troops at Inch’ŏn as security forces.

Uryū’s division left port at two o’clock in the afternoon. Already a landing force of two thousand two hundred army troops (four battalions from Kokura, Fukuoka, and Ōmura) had been loaded on three transport ships and were speeding in the same direction as the naval squadrons.

“When did the army get here?” the sailors asked each other in surprise.

“The three transport ships were hiding in some inlet near the outer harbor of Sasebo,” Moriyama Keizaburō of Uryū’s division later said. “Even though I’m a staff officer, I didn’t know of their existence until the orders came. The coordination between the army and the navy was superb.”

All the squadrons moved toward their target, and there was just one warship in the Japanese Navy that was placed in a painful position—the small armored cruiser Chiyoda (2,450 tons). The only ship not among the others at this time, it was in the foreign waters of Inch’ŏn, Korea, which served as the port for the city of Hansŏng (present-day Seoul) some distance away. Many foreign vessels were at anchor there, including two Russian warships. The Chiyoda’s misfortune was that it served as a decoy. News of the breaking of relations with Russia had of course been cabled to the Chiyoda, but it had been left in Inch’ŏn Harbor as part of a strategy not to let Russia or other countries know about the secret activities of the Combined Fleet at the start of the war. It was only to be expected that the first battle of the Russo-Japanese War would take place, therefore, in the harbor of Inch’ŏn.

The port of Inch’ŏn’s role in relation to Hansŏng corresponded to Yokohama’s role in relation to Tokyo. Just as Yokohama had been only a fishing village until the opening of the treaty ports under the Tokugawa shogunate, so Inch’ŏn had been just a fishing village called Chemulpo until the opening of the port to foreigners in 1883. And, just as the first railway in Japan was built between Tokyo and Yokohama, so the first railway in Korea was built in 1900 linking Hansŏng and Inch’ŏn. Apart from the extreme difference in water level between high and low tides, the port of Inch’ŏn was easy to use because of its large size and ability to handle a great number of ships.

At the time we are describing, there were many ships in the harbor. Taking warships alone, the British Talbot, the Italian Elba, and the French Pascal were all at anchor there. In addition, there were the Russian protected cruiser Varyag (6,500 tons) and the gunship Koriets (1,213 tons). The small armored cruiser Chiyoda was anchored among them as the only Japanese ship.

“No warship has met a sadder fate than the Chiyoda,” recalled Moriyama Keizaburō with great sympathy even many years later. He had been part of Uryū’s division that went to save the isolated Japanese cruiser. The Chiyoda had gone to Inch’ŏn in December of the previous year in order to protect Japanese civilians there.

The two Russian ships anchored in the harbor were charged with a similar mission. The Varyag was the largest of the warships at Inch’ŏn, and, if hostilities broke out, the small Chiyoda would have been pulverized immediately. And, to make matters worse, the Chiyoda was in the closest position to the Varyag. Also, there were no other ships between it and the Koriets.

In charge of the Chiyoda was Captain Murakami Kakuichi, a calm man who ordered the crew to be on the alert and made them understand that they might all die if there was, unavoidably, a military clash with the Varyag. When night fell, the Chiyoda secretly uncapped its torpedo launchers and aimed them at the Varyag; when day dawned, they were capped again as if nothing was amiss. The Russian ship became aware of what was happening and lodged a bitter complaint via the captain of the British ship, who had seniority among all the ships’ commanders.

At last, on the third, the eve of the decision to break relations with Russia, Captain Murakami intuited that an emergency might be imminent. Taking advantage of the darkness, he quietly shifted his ship to a position near the British warship and anchored there. On the seventh, learning by telegraph that a Japanese squadron had captured a Russian steamer near Pusan, Murakami realized that war had begun. Fortunately, the Varyag seemed not to be aware of the situation as yet.

At eleven o’clock that night, the Chiyoda decided on making its escape and began to move quietly at slow speed toward the harbor entrance. As it did so, the bow of the Varyag, which had been monitoring the Japanese ship, suddenly hove into view at a narrow spot near the harbor entrance, and it seemed that the two ships would actually scrape against each other. The nearby British warship, however, shifted position, and a way was opened for the Chiyoda to move out of the harbor.

Having escaped from Inch’ŏn Harbor, the Chiyoda moved southward, seeking other Japanese ships. It kept moving south as the new day dawned, and, at half past eight on the morning of the eighth, it saw a great amount of smoke on the horizon, which turned out to be Uryū’s division. Captain Murakami Kakuichi immediately went by launch to the flagship Naniwa to meet the commander of Uryū’s division, who urgently asked, “Surely the Varyag and the Koriets have not left Inch’ŏn Harbor, have they?”

If these two ships were allowed to escape to Port Arthur, they would greatly strengthen the Russian fleet there. They needed to be attacked and defeated, but the harbor at Inch’ŏn belonged to a neutral nation, and many warships of European powers were anchored there. It would be impossible to fight a battle there. Imperial General Headquarters was nervous about any action that might cause an international outcry and had telegraphed Uryū’s division ordering it to exercise utmost care: “We must not launch an attack in Inch’ŏn Harbor unless the Russian ship opens fire on us.”

The foreign warships in Inch’ŏn Harbor were surprised to see the Chiyoda, which had slipped away the night before, now return at the head of a Japanese fleet. Uryū’s division anchored in the harbor where the two Russian warships still were. Thus, allies and foes were side by side, and it was hard to tell when a battle might break out inside the harbor. The foreign warships could hardly overlook this danger, so at nine o’clock on the evening of the eighth, the captain of the British ship came to the Takachiho. “This is a neutral country’s harbor,” he said, “so you mustn’t fire on any foreign warships or take any other action that might damage them.”

“Our orders are only to get our army troops ashore,” Mōri Ichibei, the captain of the Takachiho, responded. “We haven’t been ordered to make war.”

It was after midnight on the ninth. When it was clear that the disembarkation of the army troops would be over by four in the morning, Uryū’s division sent a letter of challenge in English to Captain Vsevolod Rudnev of the Varyag: “As you know, Japan and Russia are already in a state of war. I therefore demand that you withdraw your forces from Inch’ŏn Harbor by noon of February 9. If you do not respond to this demand, we will be forced to take military action against your nation’s warships inside the harbor.” This was sent to the Russians via a military envoy, who also went to the various foreign warships with the request that they move to anchorage where they would be out of any danger. This was done at seven o’clock on the morning of the ninth.

At five minutes before noon, the Varyag and the Koriets raised anchor and began to move, soon making for the sea outside the harbor full steam ahead. The Japanese had been hoping the Russians would do just this and had the Asama lying in wait outside the harbor.

The protected cruiser Varyag (6,500 tons) had four funnels and was capable of great speed, but the gunboat Koriets (1,213 tons) that followed it was much slower and lacked the speed necessary for an escape. The Japanese armored cruiser Asama (9,750 tons) lay in wait with other smaller ships outside the harbor. Captain Yashiro Rokurō, well known for his bravery, was in command.

“The enemy ship has left the harbor!” shouted the signalman from high on the mast, and immediately the entire group of ships was battle ready. But the small armored cruiser Chiyoda alongside had no time to raise anchor and had to cut the anchor chain to free itself, so sudden had been the appearance of the Russian ships.

On Japan’s side, Uryū’s division was composed chiefly of older and smaller cruisers, each of about 3,000 tons. Though they were rather dilapidated, if all of them joined together, they could put up a good fight against the Varyag. The Asama had been added to their group so that the Varyag could be made to surrender without damage to the Japanese side. The Asama increased its speed.

The Varyag and the Koriets sailed toward Palmi Island near the entrance to the harbor. Both had raised their battle flags. The Asama, which had been lying in wait, then ran up its battle flag and drew closer to the Russian ships. When the distance between the Japanese and Russian ships had shrunk from 6 to 7 kilometers, the Asama test-fired its 8-inch guns and then began to fire from its portside. Shells from the aft 8-inch guns struck the fore bridge of the Varyag with violent explosions.

Torpedo battles had already taken place that day in the vicinity of Port Arthur as well, but if we are to speak only of the firing of shipboard artillery, then the first round from the Japanese side in the Russo-Japanese War was probably from these 8-inch guns on the Asama. This gun’s firepower was the greatest in the Japanese Navy. Shells from the fore 8-inch guns next hit the enemy ship in approximately the same area as the previous ones had. As a result, the Varyag’s fore bridge was smashed to pieces, and the area around its funnel was hit as well. Then several shells hit the central area of the vessel and its aft bridge, causing a conflagration.

Yet still the Varyag did not give up. It retreated behind Palmi Island to attempt to put out the fire. The Japanese could not pursue that far because it was within Inch’ŏn Harbor. After about fifteen minutes, the Varyag reappeared, firing powerful broadsides from its guns.

The small Chiyoda raced around the area. During this period, a warship was painted gray in wartime and black in peacetime. The ships of Uryū’s division had all been painted gray, but the Chiyoda, having been left anchored in Inch’ŏn Harbor for so long, was still painted black. And, though the entire fleet had been supplied with British coal for fuel, the Chiyoda alone was still using Japanese coal, as in peacetime.

Thus, this small vessel was belching forth great clouds of black smoke from its funnel.

The Varyag was listing to the left. The Koriets was still undamaged. The only way these two vessels could survive was by retreating once again into the neutral Inch’ŏn Harbor. The Asama, fearing an international incident, stopped firing and returned to the harbor entrance.

The state of the Varyag was pitiful to behold. It was listing sharply to the left, and almost all of its large guns had been destroyed. Ordinarily, its only recourse would have been to surrender, but Commander Rudnev tried to avoid the dishonor of having a warship of the Russian Navy surrender at the very start of the war. He asked the warships of the various other countries to help deal with his men. The wounded were taken on board the Italian, French, and British ships, and the French warship Pascal, as an act of friendship from an allied nation, took on board the other, uninjured personnel as well. It was decided to transport them to Shanghai so long as it was guaranteed that they would not leave Shanghai until the war’s end. This was in keeping with international law.

After all this had been done, the Varyag opened its Kingston valves—sea cocks at the bottom of a ship—and sank itself. The Koriets ignited its powder magazine and, after the captain and crew had safely disembarked, sank as a result of the explosion.

This naval battle, though small in scale, was the first to be fought between Japanese and Europeans. Precisely because this first engagement had gone so well, it gave a great boost to the self-confidence of the Japanese.

The Japanese consul Katō Motoshirō at Inch’ŏn, who thought that Japan would suffer considerable casualties, actually had built an emergency Red Cross hospital on the grounds of the consulate to care for the wounded. After the victory at Inch’ŏn, Lieutenant Commander Moriyama Keizaburō came ashore and visited the consulate. Consul Katō asked him about Japanese casualties.

“There were none” was Moriyama’s reply.

Katō didn’t believe him. “Judging from the great damage done to the Russian side,” he said, inviting Moriyama into his office, “there must have been some Japanese casualties as well. There are no outsiders here, so please tell me the truth.”

Moriyama assured Katō that he was telling the truth. Not even a rope on the Japanese ship had been cut through. Katō was stupefied and then began to cry. Could it really be that the Japanese had defeated Caucasians? As an official in the Foreign Ministry, Katō must have indeed felt great surprise and joy.

“There’s nothing to be surprised about. We went to the trouble of bringing along a great ship like the Asama. We ought to have won, and we did!” Moriyama attributed the victory to Saneyuki’s strategy of building up massive matériel.

But even if Japan’s victory was natural and appropriate under the circumstances, still, the Japanese were amazed at how very weak the firepower was on the Russian side. The Varyag had fired a huge quantity of shells during the battle—1,530 rounds, but not one of them had hit the Japanese. Dead and wounded on the Russian side numbered 223 men. There were no casualties on the Japanese side. It was not so much a miracle as it was proof of the poor quality of the Russian gunnery.