The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED. The Evening News,Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 1906. AN ECHO OF THE WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 164, 11 July 1906, Page 4

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

WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 1906. AN ECHO OF THE WAR.

— » . For the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs resistance. For the future in the distan<s>. And the yood that we can do-

The trial of Admiral Roshdestvensky for cowardice and treason is. an episode thoroughly consistent with the past records of the Russian tyranny. And it is strikingly characteristic of the methods of the Autocracy that it did not dare to make this attack upon the unfortunate commander of the Baltic fleet while the deplorable facts of the war were fresh in the minds of the people. To blame the Admiral and the officers of the Biedovy for surrendering is simply farcical. Our readers may recollect that when the Kniaz Suvaroff was on the point of sinking under the tremendous fire concentrated upon it by Togo, the Admiral, who was severely wounded, escaped with his staff from the flagship in a torpedo boat. When a Japanese destroyer overtook this vessel, it surrendered without much resistance, and was brought to Japan with the captive Admiral on board. So far as the Kniaz Suvaroff was concerned, there seems to be no doubt that she was fought gallantly to the last. She lost her funnels aud some of her masts early in the battle, and was then attached by the torpedo flotillas. She was badly injured, and lay an inert mass upon the water. Later in the fight, after Kamimura had brought up his squadron to relieve the pressure upon the few Japanese battleships, he detached several cruisers to diupose of the Rusbian flagship. But according to the Japanese account of the action, the Suvaroff, though lying on her beam ends, still resisted bravely, and to the last fired the only gun she could bring to bear upon the destroyers. Apparently the wounded Admiral was carried by his officers from his flagship just before she sank; and if all the Russian warships had been fought as bravely as the Suvaroff, the Japanese would not , have been able to claim Tsushima as an almost bloodless victory. As to the destroyer Biedovy, to which Roshdestvensky and his staff were transferred after the Boiny had broken down the one thing certain is that the Admiral had no control over the i.ct ous of the crew. He was lying desperately wounded and! unconscious in the bottom of the boat; the engines of the Biedovy had broken down; she was overloaded and damaged by shot and shell. To pretend that the' officers or the crew could have done anything for the honour of Russia by resisting further under such conditions is a cruel perversion of the truth; and to their credit be it said, the men on the Biedovy seem to have been far more anxious to save Roshdestvensky's life than their own. It seems all the more extraordinary that the Autocracy should attempt to make an example of this single boat when we remember the other surrenders that took place during the course of the fight. The most noteworthy incident of this sort was the surrender of Niebogatoff with four ships still in fair fighting trim. But all the naval experts who have dealt seriously with the battle of Tsushima have exonerated Niebogatoff from any suspicion of misconduct or cowardice. "The four ships," says the author of "Japan's Fight for Freedom," ."were subjected to a terrible fire. Their plight was an absolutely hopeless one. They had little ammunition left, and their crews were in a state of nervous prostration after the prolonged agony of the battle, and the night attacks which followed. The Orel was so battered that she was incapable of fast steaming. Officers and men were worn out and dispirited, yet the alternative, if they refused to hoist the white flag, was to endure the Japanese fire for some minutes or hours longer, and then to face the peril of death by drowning. If they scuttled their ships, the Japanese had by the customs of naval warfare, a perfect right to refuse them quarter. Against the Russians were twenty-seven intact Japanese warships, flushed with victory." Under such circumstances as these further resistance would have meant only useless slaughter; and the public opinion of the world, which exonerated Napoleon for saving the lives of scores of thousands of his troops by surrendering at Sedan has never condemned Niebogatoff or Roshdestvensky for refusing to doom their helpless crews to destruction. It must, of course, be admitted that Roshdestvensky was largely to blame for the overwhelming nature of the Russian defeat. According to Mr. H. W. Wilson, of "Ironclads in Action" fame, the Russian admiral displayed almost incredible negligence. He took no precautions, he sent no cruisers of his own ahead to reconnoitre, he did net order the Vladivostok cruisers to search for the enemy. He did not even form his ships in fighting order or clear them for battle till it was practically too late. In the fight itself Roshdestvensky's arrangement of his ships was such as to prevent them from using all their heavy guns, and thus to rob himself of the great advantage in weight of metal that he possessed. "Admiral Roshdestvensky"—we quote again from "Japan's Fight for Freedom"— "proved himself as a leader even more incapable than Admirals Vitgeft and Ukhtomsky, and than this nothing worse can be said. His dispositions were his strategy was obvious, his tactics were those of the nursery, and rendered the fine material under his order worthless." But. thouffh Rcehdeatvenfiky re-

pea ted. and surpassed all tho errors committed by previous commanders of the Russian fleets in Eastern waters, his in* competence certainly will not justify the charges now brought against him and pressed home with vindictive zeal. Not even a Nelson could have so transformed the Russian crews as to make them the equals of Togo's war-worn veterans. Russia's failures by sea, as by land, were due to lack of adequate preparation, of organisation, of discipline, of experience, and of that patriotic fervour in which the Japanese so infinitely surpassed their foes; and to treat any single general or admiral as if he were responsible for the awful disasters which have overtaken Russia is merely to make one man a scapegoat for the Autocracy, in the effort to divert the thoughts of the Czar's hapless subjects from the incurable demoralisation and corruption, wHich .alone made Mukden and Tsushima possible.