The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORTED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1905. TOGO'S TRIUMPH.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 138, 10 June 1905, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORTED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1905. TOGO'S TRIUMPH.

For the cause that lackn assistance. For the wrong that need* resist****, for the future tn tftc dustanoe. And the good that we emm, do.

We can hardly expect full and conclusive details of the great battle of Tsushima till the war is over, and the

immense mass of material which it supplies has been dealt with by competent historians and naval experts. So far the descriptions of the conflict arc chiefly ramaikable for their diversity and inconsistency. Togo's report furnishes a general idea of the nature of the engagement, in the brief and laconic phraseology which, for official purposes, the Japanese seem to have made peculiarly their own. Roshdestvenski's account of the battle is quite colourless, and the lack of detail _s explained by the fact that the Admiral was wounded early in the fight, and was unconscious for the greater part of its duration. The account supplied in our cables to-day is furnished by the Russian officers of Admiral Enkvist's squadron now interned at Manila; and as we can well understand that they are anxious to clear their

reputations by offering some reasonable excuse for retiring so early from the fight "in the internets of humanity" we can hardly expect that their view of the battle is wholly unprejudiced. It will be observed that they carefully throw the blame for their defeat upon Roshdestvenski, alleging that he was taken comjjletpjy by surprise, and that the Russian fleet had not even received the order to clear for action. While it is almost incredible that Roshdestvenski should have attempted the passage of the Korea Channel without taking some precaution against attack, the incidents of the fight seem to show that he was not prepared for the suddenness and ferocity of Togo's onslaught, and the battle was lost in the very first hour. The ingenious tactics by which Togo is said to have utilised liis torpedo boats with disastrous effects upon the Russian warships are at least probable; and though the accounts hitherto received differ in almost all other particulars they agree- in admitting that the Russians were absolutely out-manoe-uvred and out-fought by the Japanese.

At this stage of the war it is interesting to look back at the forecasts made by those competent to speak with authority upon the methods that would probably be followed by the Japanese when the decisive moment arrived. Writing before the battle, one naval expert advised Togo to send in his cruisers to ram the Russian warships; another suggested that Japanese merchant vessels should be sacrificed with the same object in view; another advocated the use. of torpedo boats manoeuvring among the ships of the line. The naval expert of the "Daily Graphic." who has all along displayed a very intelligent conception of the possibilities of the Japanese fleet, ridiculed the idea of bringing light vessels into action against battleships, and predicted that the Japanese would begin operations with Ion" range fire concentrated upon the battleships, and more especially on the Rus-

sian flagship. It was assumed, with justice, that tlfe superior speed of the Japanese warships and the greater accuracy of their fire would thus balance thr numbers of the Russian squadron. •«• ''Times'" military correspondent, however, held to the opinion that, <>onsidering Togo's inferiority in number of battleships and his immense superiority in fast cruisers, he should be prepared to sacrifice some portion of his smaller vessels in a desperate dash at the Russian fleet. Five years ago Capt. Bacon, the organiser of the British submarine service, publicly described the course of action that would necessarily be followed by any fleet circumstanced like Togo's, and prophesied that in such a fight the fast craft would be "hurled at the enemy like a shot from a gun," without thought of safety or escape, but solely with the object of doing all conceivable damage before they were sunk. To some extent Togo has justified this prediction; but his immense superiority in torpedo destroyers, and the greater accuracy of his long range fire, enabled him first to disorganise and then to destroy the hostile fleet without being called upon to expend his cruisers in a "naval <?avalry charge" before the main body of the fleet engaged. Writing after the battle, the "Times'" correspondent points out that Togo battered the Russians at long range before letting loose his torpedo boats upon them; and *he incidents of the fight appear to establish ! more firmly than ever the value of accurate long-range fire from heavy guns, and the eiiieiency of the torpedo, when I skilfully and fearlessly employed.

It is perhaps too early to attempt any continuous description of ike tejrible

struggle that was waged in the Korea Channel on that memorable Saturday and Sunday, May 27th-28th. But even with the meagre details- at our command, we can already see that the scene was as picturesque and dramatic as the keenest sanse of "the eternal fitness of things" could desire. We can see Togo with his few war-worn battleships and Kamimura's grsat fleet of cruisers lurking in wait among the inlets and islands that fringe the Korean coast near Mesampho; while all round countless destroyers lie ready to dart upon the unsuspecting foe. At last, the longrexpected message comes from the scouts that the enemy is at hand; the rising gale clears away the mist that shrouds the strait, and before the Russians can realise their fate Togo is upon them. Firing their great guns with deadly accuracy while still five miles away, the Japanese fleet divides and sweeps round the devoted Russian squadrons, while the fast cruisers head them' off from the north, where lies Vladivostok and safety. Taken by surprise, the Russians at first send back an answering fire. But their crews are almost untrained, their ammunition is poor, their ships are slow, and before sunset they arc hemmed in by the enemy, a disordered mass of battered wrecks, "held/ - ' as Togo sent word to Tokyo, like beasts of prey taken in a net. Then fame the great opportunity of the Japanese. "With judgment that amounted to inspiration" thoy closed in upon their victims, and as night fell, the torpedo boats were sent forth upon their deadly work. Manned by the heroes whoae kinsmen "resolved to die," had taken the fir%ship.i into the very jaws of death at Port Arthur, men who had learned "the breathless game of war," amid the snowstorms and the icy spray of the northern seas, '"like a swarm of locusts" the destroyers swooped down upon their prey. Something we have already learned of the horrors of that awful night: how the Russian sailors, frenzied by the inferno of doxith around them, sought safety by plunging inlo the sea, how the wounded were cast into the waves in hundreds to leave space for the survivors to man the guns, how in the midst of these scenes of torment and despair, the crews turned savagely upon their leaders and hurled overboard the Admiral and the officers who had brought them to such a fate as this. And amid the thunder of the cannonade, across the broad tracks cast by the searchlights upon the foam-crested wave?, the destroyers, likr? "the choosers of the slain" of old, marked out the bravest victims for destruction. We wiJj never know, and it is as well that we should never know, all the tragedy of that bitter fight. But while we praise the heroism and the self-devotion of the Japanese, we may spare a little sympathy for the piteous fate of the hapless Russians, who through long hours faced death in myriad forms, seeing well that they wore defenceless, listening for "the muffled knocking stroke' , that would tel! how the blow had gone home, knowing that their only escape from a dreadful doom lay in the sea, where, "streaked with ash and sleeked with oil" the waves had already closed above the noblest vessels of their fleet. And whatever effect the battle of Tsushima may have upon the course of the world's history we may at least hope that this hideous slaughter and the horror that it must evoke throughout the civilised worid will ren der it impossible for nations in the future to deal lightly or recklessly with the chance and prospect of war.