How despicable the English must have felt during this bombardment and those that followed!
The enemy ships stood so far out that our guns could not reach them. Therefore, they were quite safe. In the van steamed three Japanese battleships, and under Japanese command, at the rear, the English battleship Triumph.
I wonder whether the English felt proud of their rôle as executioners?
Thank God, the damage caused by the bombardment was not of much consequence, and from then on we awaited their cannonading with the greatest calm.
In the evening I witnessed a particularly sad performance. Our gunboats, Cormoran, Iltis and Luchs, were sunk by us after they had been dismantled.
It was a tragic sight. The three ships were fastened together and towed by a steamer into deep water and there blown up and burnt. It seemed as if the three ships knew that they were being dragged to their doom. They looked infinitely sad and helpless, with their bare masts sticking up heavenwards, and their frames writhed in the fire, as if they were unwilling to turn into ashes, until the waves swept over them and put an end to their torment. Our sailors’ hearts were wrung with pity. These three were followed by Lauting and Taku, and, shortly before our surrender, by the little Jaguar and the Austrian cruiser, Kaiserin Elisabeth, after these two ships had rendered us invaluable service. Their work fills one of the most glorious pages in the history of the fight and death of Kiao-Chow.
CHAPTER IV
SOME JAPANESE JOKES