“The Massacre at Port Arthur.”
Then followed the Port Arthur massacre, horrible stories of which flooded the world for the next few days. It has been strenuously denied that any massacre took place, but this is not correct. Few, if any, civilians were killed; there were next to none in the place, the supposed dead civilians being Chinese soldiers, who had discarded the overcoats, which were the only uniform they had, in order to continue the fight on guerilla lines. But very little quarter was given.
A Japanese disavowal and explanation will be found below:—
To the Editor of the Japan Mail.
Sir,—In September last, for the purpose of studying the practical application of International Law, I joined the fleet, and embarked in a man-of-war of the Imperial Japanese Navy. I am now staying in Port Arthur, after witnessing several battles. Being a subscriber to your paper, I saw in the issue of the 21st January some singular statements by Mr. Creelman, to which you refer. It being impossible for an eye-witness like me to pass over such a matter in silence, I enclose an explanation of this affair, in the hope that you will kindly have it translated at your office, and published through the columns of your valuable paper. What I write is an accurate and faithful description of the things that actually happened, and I vouch for their truth in the sight of Heaven. Convinced that the contents of my letter are of value to the public at large, I venture to trouble you, especially since my facts may furnish material to strengthen the position you take in the matter. Harassed by official business of various kinds, I cannot find leisure to write at greater length, and must crave your kind indulgence.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Takahashi Sakuye,
Hogakushi,
Professor at the Naval University, and Ex-legal Adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Regular Imperial Fleet.
Enclosure.
On the occasion of the battle of Port Arthur I was on board the Itsukushima, and accurately observed the fight as carried on both on shore and at sea. I saw how the Imperial troops fought, and how the squadron co-operated with the army off the coast of Port Arthur, and I watched the movements of the enemy with the utmost vigilance. Similarly, I carefully looked out for any incident that might furnish material for the study of my special subject, and I do not therefore hesitate to say that I am among those best informed as to what actually took place on that occasion. Equally, I do not hesitate to declare that I saw nothing blameworthy about the assault on Port Arthur.
I have seen to-day in a copy of the Japan Mail that reached me, that Mr. Creelman, the war correspondent of the New York World, wrote to that paper to the following effect: “Torpedo boats were going through the waves, sinking junks loaded with men, women, and children endeavouring to escape. Ten junks, laden with terror-stricken people, were thus sunk, and the water was filled with drowning inhabitants.” While regretting, for the sake of Mr. Creelman, whose honour as a gentleman may be impaired by such absurd fabrications, I fear that the public might be led astray by what he has written, and therefore I feel constrained to refute the false statements made by him.
In the first place, the assertions of Mr. Creelman are entirely imaginary; for his allegation that he saw from the shore, on the day of the assault upon Port Arthur, that is, on November 21, 1894, Japanese men-of-war and torpedo boats in motion, cannot be founded on actual fact. It is true that on the 21st men-of-war and torpedo boats were off the coast of Port Arthur, but for two days, from the evening of the 21st, they were away from the coast, owing to stress of weather. Now, Port Arthur was not entirely taken on the 21st. Severe struggles were still in progress on that day. Hence it was practically impossible at such a juncture to see the warships and torpedo boats in motion off the coast of Port Arthur, and the fictitiousness of any statement to the contrary will be admitted by any one actually at the scene of the battle. On that same day certain staff officers of the Army, desiring to communicate some intelligence to the fleet, could only effect their object by braving extraordinary dangers and hardships, and by passing through the lines of the enemy. How, then, could Mr. Creelman have seen the movements of the fleet and the torpedo flotilla except in pure imagination!
Secondly, while the fleet and flotilla were lying off the coast of Port Arthur and in the vicinity, from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the 21st, not a single Chinese junk was captured. Only two junks escaped that day, at a little past 5 p.m. But the commander of the fleet had specially ordered that any small vessel of the kind should be let alone, attention being paid to the larger only. No other junk escaped. It is true that there were five or six junks on the shore, close by the foot of Lao-Tie-Shan, but they were all beached. Thus the statement that junks, loaded with men, women, and children, were sunk is not only absolutely groundless, but the very allegation that such a number of junks attempted to escape is a fabrication.
Thirdly, it is a fact that at a little past 4 p.m. two steamers emerged from Port Arthur. It was subsequently known by the confession of Chinese prisoners that a number of Chinese officers were on these vessels. It is also a fact that torpedo boats pursued these steamers. It would have been a neglect of duty on the part of the fleet to disregard the escape of such vessels. When the torpedo boats gave chase to the steamers, they signalled, “Heave-to, or take the consequence.” The steamers not obeying, two blank cartridges were fired after them, but they still kept on their course. Moreover, they returned the fire of their pursuers, and the latter therefore began to chase them with more vigour. Thereat one of the steamers turned back into the harbour, and the other changing its course, ran ashore, and all the persons on board fled. Was not this procedure on the part of the Japanese officers perfectly proper, and in strict accordance with the canons of western nations?
The foregoing explanations are sufficient to prove the falsehood of Mr. Creelman’s statements. I regret that he should be so lost to the sense of honour as to fabricate such injurious stories. In order that the public may not be deceived, I beg you to give publicity to these facts.
Your obedient servant,
Takahashi Sakuye,
Hogakushi.
Port Arthur,
February 11, 1895.
This disposes of the most gruesome fictions about the massacre, but it does not deal with what took place on shore.
The true story, as I had it from a Japanese army officer who was there, is as follows:—
The battle was over, and the Japanese were marching into the town, a few Chinese retreating before them. Isolated fighting continued; but the place was, to all intents and purposes, captured.
As the victorious Japanese pressed forward, a young officer suddenly came across the remains of his brother, who had been captured, wounded, a day or two before. The body showed that death had been inflicted with atrocious Chinese tortures.
Maddened at this dreadful sight, the young officer practically ran amok. Crying “No quarter,” he began to kill. His men, understanding the cause, started on the same career of vengeance; and it spread like wildfire through the army, that the town was full of the corpses of tortured Japanese prisoners, and two or three regiments got out of hand. For some time “Vengeance” was the battle-cry, and terrible things happened that night.
Before we blame the Japanese, we should remember that our own hands are not quite clean in this matter; human nature has its limitations, and there are many men still living who can recall what they did when, in the Indian Mutiny, they found rebels red-handed among the tortured and outraged bodies of British ladies and children. Armchair ethics may condemn; but the armchair critics sit at home doing the condemnation. It is less easy to be philosophical in the hour of battle. The philosopher must have been through it, and abstained from slaughter, for his strictures to be worth anything. Personally, I think few things come more under the head of “excusable” than the Port Arthur massacre, so long as human nature remains human.
Port Arthur was converted into a Japanese base, and for a few weeks events languished, while preparations were made for the attack on Wei-hai-wei.
VII
WEI-HAI-WEI
On January 18, 1895, the Japanese fleet bombarded Teng-ckow-foo, facing Port Arthur on the Chinese mainland. It is about eight miles west of Wei-hai-wei.
On the 19th the bombardment was continued; on the 20th the army was landed to the east of Wei-hai-wei.
Wei-hai-wei was moderately fortified, chiefly with 8-in. Krupp guns. There were a few larger ones, and a sprinkling of modern pieces. Mostly, however, the guns were old. On Leu-Kun tau[26] were some more forts, a gunnery school, and a coaling station. The Chinese fleet lay behind this island, the Japanese watching both entrances, which were protected by booms.
On the 30th the Japanese fleet and army opened fire on the defences. In this affair the Chao-pei-tsui defences were silenced by the Naniwa, Akitsushima, and Katsuragi, the division being under command of Captain (now Admiral) Togo. The magazine was exploded, and the forts taken possession of by the Japanese soldiers. Before retreating, however, the Chinese destroyed all save a few old guns.
MAP OF WEI-HAI-WEI.
The rest of the fleet bombarded Leu-Kun tau without much result on either side. The Chinese warships took part in the defence. A photograph of this battle, taken from a captured fort, is given.
The net result, however, of the operations of the 30th to 31st was that the Japanese took practically everything except the island. On the night of the 31st, Admiral Ito decided on a torpedo-boat attack. Both entrances had some boom defence, with gaps here and there. The Japanese attempted to attack by the east with sixteen boats.
| Division | I. | six boats. |
| ” | II. | six ” |
| ” | III. | four ” |
The Japanese soldiers in the forts took them for Chinese, so they retired.
A heavy gale came on next day, and the whole Japanese fleet ran to shelter at Teng-chow, returning on February 2nd, when another ineffectual bombardment at 2500 metres took place. An equally ineffective torpedo attack was tried in the night. It failed, as the Chinese sighted the boats, and they wisely did not try to force their way in.
Next day, and the next again, the bombardment was violently renewed, but on both sides it led to nothing save expenditure of ammunition. Landings on Leu-Kun tau led to nothing, and the only incident of real moment was the rushing out of twelve Chinese torpedo boats on the 4th.
Several were sunk as they came out; the rest ran ashore, and were captured or destroyed. So far as can be gathered, Ting had found his boats a nuisance, and was in terror of the Japanese boats being allowed in in mistake for Chinese ones. He also appears to have imagined that a daylight attack might produce something in his favour; but the balance of evidence seems to point to the fact that the boats were a nuisance to him.
Whatever was intended, the Chinese boats made no attack on the Japanese cruisers; escape was their only objective. Only two succeeded in getting away.
On the night of the 4th the third torpedo attack was made. The boats went in in three divisions of four each, though only the second and third divisions went in—the first being employed to create a diversion at the western entrance.
The eastern boats crept in slowly, in a cold so intense that an officer and two men were frozen to death. Two boats (8 and 21), their steersmen frost-bitten, grounded as they tried to enter.
By four o’clock a boat had got quite near the Chinese, and fired two torpedoes without result; a second boat was no luckier with three. Not till then did the Chinese open fire, and this boat ran ashore immediately afterwards.
CELEBRATING SURRENDER OF THE CHINESE
FLEET, AT THE NAVAL CLUB, TOKIO.
Two more boats collided in the confusion, another had her boilers burst, yet another was badly hit. Only one boat came out unscathed. As mentioned further on in “Personal Characteristics,” the real truth of the attack has never been known, and never will be, save vaguely.[27]
Its result, however, is well known, the battleship Ting Yuen was hit in the stern and sank in the mud, where she lay with her upper works above water and guns still firing.
Throughout the 5th the bombardment continued unabated, and though no harm was done, the ceaseless worry told heavily on the Chinese.
On the night of the 5th a fourth attack was made by the first division. It met with little resistance, torpedoed the Lai Yuen and a despatch vessel, the Wei Yuen, and also hit the Ching Yuen in the bow without sinking her. The boats met with no defence worth mentioning; the Chinese look-outs, worn out with the ceaseless bombardments, were mostly asleep.
On the 6th a landing was effected on Leu-Kun tau, and on the 7th the usual bombardment continued. The Matsushima, Naniwa, and Yoshino were hit, but the Chinese lost a magazine, blown up.
On the 9th the Ching Yuen sank, her end being accelerated by a water-line hit from a shore gun. The Itsukushima was hit on the water-line this day by a shell from the 12-in. guns of the Chen Yuen, but the shell failed to burst. On the 10th and 11th the bombardment still continued. Only one fort now remained to the Chinese, but their ships still afloat were comparatively little hurt. The moral effect of the continuous firing finally broke them down, and on the 12th, in the midst of the firing, a gunboat flying a white flag came out.
The Japanese ceased fire, and the gunboat came to the Matsushima. Two officers from the Chinese fleet came on board, and delivered a letter from Admiral Ting to Admiral Ito, suggesting terms of surrender. It is worthy of note that, so one of the Malsushima’s officers told me, these two Chinamen, on being taken to the wardroom to await Admiral Ito’s reply, promptly and instantly fell asleep, and were only awakened later with the greatest difficulty. They were absolutely worn out. It is stated, also, that the whole of the beleaguered crews did the same thing directly firing ceased; want of sleep was, indeed, the immediate cause of Admiral Ting’s surrender, though, of course, his position was absolutely hopeless.
Ting surrendered on condition that the lives of his men were spared, but he and his principal officers committed suicide. The whole of the defenders were executed by the Chinese at the first available opportunity.
Japanese naval losses during this affair were officially given as:—
- 2 officers and 27 men killed.
- 4 ” ” 32 ” wounded.
On shore the army lost much more heavily, as during the fighting the entire force occupying one captured fort were destroyed by the Chen Yuen, which steamed up close to them and opened fire.
JAPANESE FLEET BOMBARDING WEI-HAI-WEI
DURING THE WAR.
Chinese losses were never stated, but they are believed to have been much less than was expected. The entire crews of the Lai Yuen and Wei Yuen were lost, and most of those in the Ching Yuen.
Wei-hai-wei was won chiefly through sheer human inability to stand the strain of the everlasting bombardment and torpedo menace. Guns accomplished practically nothing directly towards it, and even the torpedo per se was not decisive. The principal factor was Admiral Ito’s persistent and unremitting attack.
With Wei-hai-wei the war was practically over. The only remaining incident of note was an attack on Formosa, in which, if all accounts are true, the Japanese did not shine very greatly, or else there are problems in war which in peace cannot be conceived. It is stated that the Japanese began to bombard at 8 a.m. The Chinese had loaded all guns; they left a few men to fire them, and then retired. Reply ceased about 8.30, but the Japanese did not, it is said, discover it till about 2 p.m. An explanation, of course, is that they did not trust the silence of the forts—which is reasonable enough. That they did not notice it is the accusation of their critics.
VIII
AFTER THE WAR WITH CHINA
Save for a few torpedo boats lost, the war left the Japanese fleet unimpaired; the ships damaged at Yalu were in trim again when peace was declared. On the other hand, beyond the Chin Yen, Japan gained little in the ships she took. The Tche Yuen is of very small fighting value, the Ping Yuen of none, and none of the gunboats are of any utility. Of the captured torpedo boats, one was superior to any Japanese boat; the rest, from long neglect, were in a bad way.
Towards the end of the war the Esmeralda (now Idzumi), already described, passed from the Chilian to the Japanese Navy, and at its close the Tatsuta, detained en route, proceeded on her way.
Just before war broke out—in May, 1894—the Akaski, a sister to the Suma, had been laid down at Yokosuka; the two battleships Fuji and Yashima, of an improved Royal Sovereign type, were progressing in England, the former at the Thames Ironworks, the latter at Elswick.
SUMA.
The Suma was launched at Yokosuka on March 9, 1895. Unlike the Akitsushima and other ships which had preceded her, she is of entirely Japanese design and workmanship, and nothing more Western than an odd “stand-by man” or two assisted in her construction. Practically, she is the first Japanese-built ship. Particulars of her are:—
| Displacement | 2700 tons. |
| Material of hull | Steel. |
| Length | 305 ft. |
| Beam | 41 ft. |
| Draught | 16⅓ ft. |
| Armament | Two 6-in. Q.F. 45 cals. |
| Six 4.7-in. Q.F. 45 cals. | |
| Twelve 3-pdr. Q.F. | |
| Four Nordenfelts. | |
| Two torpedo tubes. | |
| Horse-power (forced) | 8500. |
| Boilers | Cylindrical. |
| Number of boilers | Eight. |
| Screws | Two. |
| Type of engines | Vertical triple expansion. |
| Where made | Yokosuka. |
| Trial speed (forced draught) | 20 knots. |
| Coal (normal) | 200 tons. |
| ” (maximum capacity) | 600 tons. |
| Nominal radius at that | 11,000 miles. |
Protection is afforded by a steel deck 2 ins. on the slopes and 1 in. on the flat.
The Akashi, launched two years later, is a sister, without fighting-tops and more built-up amidships.
The Yashima was launched at Elswick on February 28, 1896; the Fuji at the Thames Ironworks on March 31st in the same year. Mr. G. C. Mackrow, of the Thames Ironworks, was the designer.
The following are particulars:—
PLAN OF FUJI AND YASHIMA.
These ships are, as has been before noted, improved Royal Sovereigns. As designed, they would have differed from these ships only in that, being some 1500 tons smaller, they are able to carry less weight in the way of coal, etc. Their big guns, 12 in. against 13.5 in., are lighter, but against this must be put the fact that they carry heavy shields to them. Further, the introduction of Harvey steel in the place of compound armour greatly increased the value of their armour without adding to its weight. Regarded in the light of present-day developments, they are defective in protection to the secondary armament nearly as much as the Royal Sovereigns were before reconstruction. A comparison of the two ships, Fuji and Royal Sovereign, is of interest.
| Fuji. | Royal Sovereign. | |
| Guns | 4 A (12-in.). | 4 A (13.5-in.). |
| 10 D (6-in. Q.F.). | 10 D (6-in. Q.F.). | |
| Steel armour deck on slopes | 2½ ins. | 3 ins. |
| Belt (water-line) | 18-16 ins. | 18-8 ins. |
| Length of belt | 226 ft. | 250 ft. |
| Lower deck | 4 ins. | 4 ins. |
| Barbettes | 14 ins. | 17 ins. |
| Barbette guns | Inclined thick shields. | No protection. |
| Bulkheads | 14 ins. | 16 ins. |
| Casemates (main deck), | 6 ins. | 6 ins. |
| thickness in front | ||
| Casemate backs | 2 ins. | 2 ins. |
| Coal carried normally | 700. | 900. |
| Capacity | 1100. | 1450. |
The difference in armour value, caused by the introduction of Harvey process in time to allow of its adoption on the Fuji, is very marked. Since then, of course, Harvey has given place to Harvey nickel, and this in its turn to Krupp process armour, of which 9 ins. would nearly equal 17 ins. of Royal Sovereign armour. But their fine 12-in. guns, as powerful still as any afloat, keep the Fuji class still in the ranks of good fighting ships.
FUJI.
PLAN OF SHIKISHIMA.
In appearance the two ships are almost identical, the only difference being in the arrangement of the ventilators.
Between them, however, an important difference exists; the Yashima has her dead wood cut away aft, while the Fugi has not. Consequently, the Yashima is much the handier vessel, but, in part from the fact that she was the first ship to have the dead wood aft cut away, in part from inherent weaknesses thereby engendered, the Fuji is regarded as the better ship of the two. The Yashima, being docked without proper precautions suitable to the case, exhibited some dropping aft, in consequence of the effect of the unsupported weight. This led to such sterns being countermanded for subsequent Japanese battleships, though in cruisers it is always applied. The turning circle of the Yoshima, it may be mentioned, is extremely small.
Finally, it may be noted that these two ships were the first to be fitted with the Elswick submerged torpedo tube. They have the earliest pattern, and it will not deliver torpedoes very successfully when the ship is at high speed.