Only One Repairing Dock
The most significant confession, indeed, of the crushing character of the blow which at the very commencement of the war the Japanese had succeeded in dealing to their powerful adversary was contained in a subsequent dispatch from the Viceroy to the Czar. Telegraphing on February 11th, Admiral Alexeieff reported "the Czarevitch and the Pallada were brought on the 9th inst. into the inner harbor. The leak in the Retvisan is being temporarily stopped. The repairing of an ironclad is a complicated business, the period for the completion of which it is hard to indicate." This guarded language must be read in the light of the fact that the Russians had only one repairing dock capable of holding a large ship at Port Arthur, and the terrible character of the disaster which within forty-eight hours had befallen the naval power of the haughty Muscovite in the Far East will be realized. The losses in men were not very serious, amounting in all to 10 men killed and 2 officers and 41 men wounded, but the injury to the fleet was practically irreparable. Seven out of Russia's best vessels had been placed hors de combat, her battleships' strength being reduced to 4, namely, the Petropavlovsk, Peresviet, Pobieda and Sevastopol (the last two being themselves under repair when the war broke out), and her already small cruiser force being reduced to two, namely, the Bayan and the Boyarin. The following is the list of the damaged ships:—
Czarevitch, battleship, torpedoed.
Retvisan, battleship, torpedoed.
Poltava, battleship, shelled on the water-line.
Novik, cruiser, shelled on the water-line.
Askold, cruiser, shelled on the water-line.
Diana, cruiser, shelled on the water-line.
Pallada, cruiser, torpedoed.
It should be added that the repairs to the Askold were quickly executed, and that she was able to take part in the subsequent operations a few days later.