About ten o’clock a sealed letter was handed to Captain Rudnieff of the Variak. It was from the Japanese Admiral and had been sent through the Russian Consulate. It was delivered on board the Variak by the hand of Mr. N. Krell, a Russian resident of the port. This letter informed the Russian commander that unless both Russian boats should leave the anchorage and steam out of the bay before twelve o’clock the Japanese would come in at four o’clock and attack them where they lay. Captain Rudnieff immediately communicated the startling intelligence to Captain Belaieff of the Koryetz and to the commanders of the British, American, French and Italian war-vessels. We are informed that a conference of the various commanders took place and that the Russians were advised to lie where they were. The British commander was deputed to confer with the Japanese. This was done by signal and it is said a protest was made against the proposed violation of neutrality of the port, and that the neutral boats refused to shift their anchorage. But all complications of this nature were avoided by the determination of the Russians to accept the challenge. This they deemed to be due their flag. It is not improbable that they now foresaw that the neutrality of the port would not avail them against the enemy. By remaining at anchor they could only succeed in involving France, Italy, Great Britain and the United States, and there would be sure to be those who would charge the Russians with cowardice. If this was to begin the war it must at least prove the dauntless courage of the servants of the Czar. So the commander of the Variak ordered the decks cleared for action. It has been stated that he would have preferred to have the Koryetz stay at her anchorage, for by a quick dash it was just possible that the swift Variak alone might be able to evade the Japanese and run the gauntlet successfully. But the commander of the Koryetz refused to listen to any such proposition. If the only honor to be gotten out of the affair was by a desperate attack he was not going to forego his share of it. He would go out and sink with the Variak. So the Koryetz also cleared for action. It was done in such haste that all moveables that were unnecessary were thrown overboard, a topmast that would not come down in the usual manner was hewn down with an axe and by half past eleven the two vessels were ready to go out to their doom. It was an almost hopeless task—an entirely hopeless one unless the Japanese should change their minds or should make some grave mistake, and neither of these things was at all probable. The Russians were going to certain destruction. Some call it rashness, not bravery, but they say not well. The boats were doomed in any case and it was the duty of their officers and crews to go forth and in dying inflict what injury they could upon the enemy. To go into battle with chances equal is the act of a brave man, but to walk into the jaws of death with nothing but defeat in prospect is the act of a hero, and the Japanese would be the last to detract from the noble record that the Russians made. Time has not yet lent its glamor to this event, we are too[too] near it to see it in proper proportions, but if the six hundred heroes of Balaclava, veterans of many a fight, gained undying honor for the desperate charge they made how shall not the future crown these men who, having never been in action before, made such a gallant dash at the foe?
Chapter XXVII.
The Battle of Chemulpo.... Russian survivors on neutral boats.... Blowing up of the Koryetz.... sinking of the Variak.... Russians leave Korea.... hospital in Chemulpo.... skirmish at Pyeng Yang.... Korean Japanese Protocol.... end of Peddlar’s Guild.... Marquis Ito.... Yi Yong Ik retires.... Japanese conservative policy in Korea.... skirmish at Chöng-ju.... suffering of Koreans in north.... apathy of Korean Government.... burning of palace in Seoul.... Korean currency.
It was a cloudless but hazy day and from the anchorage the Japanese fleet was all but invisible, for it lay at least eight miles out in the entrance of the harbor and partly concealed by Round Island which splits the offing into two channels. The two boats made straight for the more easterly of the channels, their course being a very little west of south. When they had proceeded about half the distance from the anchorage to the enemy’s fleet the latter threw a shot across the bows of each of the Russian boats as a command to stop and surrender, but the Russians took no notice of it. The only chance the Russians had to inflict any damage was to reduce the firing range as much as possible for the Variak’s guns were only six inches and four-tenths in caliber and at long range they would have been useless. This was at five minutes before noon. The Japanese fleet was not deployed in a line facing the approaching boats and it was apparent that they did not intend to bring their whole force to bear upon the Russians simultaneously. We are informed that only two of the Japanese vessels, the Asama and the Chiyoda, did the work. It was not long after the warning shots had been fired that the Japanese let loose and the roar that went up from those terrible machines of destruction tore the quiet of the windless bay to tatters and made the houses of the town tremble where they stood. As the Variak advanced she swerved to the eastward and gave the Japanese her starboard broadside. All about her the sea was lashed into foam by striking shot and almost from the beginning of the fight her steering-gear was shot away so that she had to depend on her engines alone for steering. It became evident to her commander that the passage was impossible. He had pushed eastward until there was imminent danger of running aground. So he turned again toward the west and came around in a curve which brought the Variak much nearer to the Japanese. It was at this time that the deadly work was done upon her. Ten of her twelve gun-captains were shot away. A shell struck her fo’castle, passed between the arm and body of a gunner who had his hand upon his hip and, bursting, killed every other man on the fo’castle. Both bridges were destroyed by bursting shell and the Captain was seriously wounded in the left arm. The watchers on shore and on the shipping in the harbor saw flames bursting out from her quarter-deck and one witness plainly saw shells drop just beside her and burst beneath the water line. It was these shots that did the real damage for when, after three quarters of an hour of steady fighting, she turned her prow back toward the anchorage it was seen that she had a heavy list to port which could have been caused only by serious damage below the water-line. As the two boats came slowly back to port, the Variak so crippled by the destruction of one of her engines that she could make only ten knots an hour, the Japanese boats followed, pouring in a galling fire, until the Russians had almost reached the anchorage. Then the pursuers drew back and the battle was over. The Koryetz was intact. The Japanese had reserved all their fire for the larger vessel. The Variak was useless as a fighting machine, for her heavy list to port would probably have made it impossible to train the guns on the enemy, but all knew that the end had not yet come. The Russians had neither sunk nor surrendered. The threat of the Japanese to come in at four o’clock was still active. As soon as the Variak dropped anchor the British sent off four hospital boats to her with a surgeon and a nurse. Other vessels also sent offers of aid. But it was found that the Russians had decided to lie at anchor and fight to the bitter end and at the last moment blow up their vessels with all on board. What else was there for them to do? They would not surrender and they could not leave their ships and go ashore only to be captured by the enemy. They would play out the tragedy to a finish and go down fighting. Upon learning of this determination the commanders of the various neutral vessels held another conference at which it was decided that the Russians had done all that was necessary to vindicate the honor of their flag and that, as it was a neutral port, the survivors should be invited to seek asylum on the neutral vessels. The invitation was accepted and the sixty-four wounded on board the Variak were at once transferred to the British cruiser Talbot and the French cruiser[cruiser] Pascal. As the commanders of the neutral vessels knew that the Variak and Koryetz were to be sunk by the Russians they paid no particular attention to the reiterated statement of the Japanese that they would enter the harbor at four and finish the work already begun. The passengers, crew and mails on board the steamship Sungari had already been transferred to the Pascal and an attempt had been made to scuttle her but she was filling very slowly indeed. It was about half-past three in the afternoon that the officers and crew of the Koryetz went over the side and on board the Pascal. A train had been laid by which she would be blown up and it is supposed that she was entirely abandoned, but some spectators assert that they saw several men on the forward deck an instant before the explosion took place.
It was generally known throughout the town that the Koryetz would be blown up before four o’clock and everyone sought some point of vantage from which to witness the spectacle. Scores of people went out to the little island on which the light-house stands, for this was nearest to the doomed ship. It was thirty-seven minutes past three when the waiting multitude saw two blinding flashes of light one following the other in quick succession. A terrific report followed which dwarfed the roar of cannon to a whisper and shook every house in the town as if it had been struck by a solid rock. The window-fastenings of one house at least were torn off, so great was the concussion. An enormous cloud of smoke and debris shot toward the sky and at the same time enveloped the spot where the vessel had lain. A moment later there began a veritable shower of splintered wood, torn and twisted railing, books, clothes, rope, utensils and a hundred other belongings of the ship. The cloud of smoke expanded in the upper air and blotted out the sun like an eclipse. The startled gulls flew hither and thither as if dazed by this unheard of phenomenon and men instinctively raised their hands to protect themselves from the falling debris, pieces of which were drifted by the upper currents of air for a distance of three miles landward where they fell by the hundreds in peoples’ yards.
When the smoke was dissipated it was discovered that the Koryetz had sunk, only her funnel and some torn rigging appearing above the surface, if we except her forward steel deck which the force of the explosion had bent up from the prow so that the point of it, like the share of a huge plow, stood several feet out of water. The surface of the bay all about the spot was covered thickly with smoking debris and several of the ship’s boats were floating about intact upon the water.
The Variak was left to sink where she lay. The forty-one dead on board were placed together in a cabin and went down with her. She burned on till evening and then inclining more and more to port her funnels finally touched the water and with a surging, choking groan as of some great animal in pain she sank. As the water reached the fires a cloud of steam went up which illuminated by the last flash of the fire formed her signal of farewell.
It was arranged that the British and the French boats should carry the Russians to a neutral port and guarantee their parole until the end of the war.
This wholly unexpected annihilation of the Russian boats naturally caused consternation among the Russians of Chemulpo and Seoul. The Russian Consulate was surrounded by the Japanese troops and the Consul was held practically a prisoner. The Japanese Minister in Seoul suggested to the Russian Minister through the French Legation the advisability of his removing from Seoul with his nationals, and every facility was given him for doing this with expedition and with comfort. A few days later all the Russians were taken by special train to Chemulpo, and there, being joined by the Russian subjects in Chemulpo, they all went on board the Pascal. This vessel must have been crowded, for it is said that when she sailed she had on board six hundred Russians, both civilians and military men.
Twenty-four of the most desperately wounded men on board the neutral ships were sent ashore and placed in the Provisional Red Cross Hospital. For this purpose the English Church Mission kindly put at the disposal of the Japanese their hospital at Chemulpo. Several of these wounded men were suffering from gangrene when they came off the Pascal but with the most sedulous care the Japanese physicians and nurses pulled them through.