Clouds above the Hill

Clouds above the Hill, a longtime best-selling novel in Japan, is now

translated into English for the first time. An epic portrait of Japan in crisis,
it combines graphic military history and highly readable fiction to depict an
aspiring nation modernizing at breakneck speed. Acclaimed author Shiba
Ryōtarō devoted an entire decade of his life to this extraordinary blockbuster,
which features Japan’s emergence onto the world stage by the early years
of the twentieth century.
Volume IV begins with the dramatic battle of Mukden, in which Akiyama
Yoshifuru’s cavalry plays a major part in the action against the Cossacks.
Meanwhile, Admiral Tōgō’s fleet sails to the Tsushima Strait to intercept
the Baltic Fleet en route to Vladivostok. With the help of Akiyama
Saneyuki’s strategies, the Baltic Fleet is totally destroyed and the Japanese
fleet makes a triumphant return to Yokohama.
Anyone curious as to how the “tiny, rising nation of Japan” was able to
fight so fiercely for its survival should look no further. Clouds above the
Hill is an exciting, human portrait of a modernizing nation that goes to war
and thereby stakes its very existence on a desperate bid for glory in East
Asia.

Shiba Ryōtarō (1923–1996) is one of Japan’s best-known writers, acclaimed

for his direct tone and insightful portrayals of historic personalities and
events. He was drafted into the Japanese Army, served in the Second World
War, and subsequently worked for the newspaper Sankei Shimbun. He is
most famous for his numerous works of historical fiction.

Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter, Andrew Cobbing, and Paul McCarthy

Edited by Phyllis Birnbaum
Shiba Ryōtarō is Japan’s best-loved author, and Clouds above the Hill is his
most popular and influential work. In it he celebrates the transformative spirit
of Meiji Japan and examines Japan’s unexpected victory in the Russo-
Japanese War, providing a thoughtful and thought-provoking perspective on
those dramatic times and the people at their center. This distinguished
translation of a modern classic is a landmark event.
Donald Keene, University Professor Emeritus,
Columbia University, USA

Shiba Ryōtarō wrote that from the Meiji Restoration of 1868 through the
Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, Japan transformed its premodern “brown
sugar” society into a modern “white sugar” one, eagerly scooping up crystals
of the new substance in the drive to create society anew. During the Pacific
War, by contrast, the nation’s leaders merely went through empty motions,
and Japan collapsed. This book looks back on that earlier era through the
lens of the later tragedy, depicting the struggles and growth to maturity of
Japan’s young men.
Tanaka Naoki, President of the Center for International
Public Policy Studies, Japan

When the siege of Port Arthur was over and Japan had won, the command-
ing generals from both sides came together face to face at Shuishiying. They
paid honor to each other’s bravery and expressed mutual condolences, and
before parting they shook hands. I have visited that very place, which seems
to me less the site of a Japanese victory than a monument to the souls of
fallen soldiers on both sides. I have no doubt that Clouds above the Hill was
also written to honor those souls.
Anno Mitsumasa, author and illustrator of
children’s books in Japan
Clouds above the Hill
A historical novel of the Russo-Japanese War,
Volume IV

Shiba Ryōtarō

Translated by Andrew Cobbing

Edited by Phyllis Birnbaum

First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 1979 The original work in the Japanese language, Shiba Ryōtarō
© 2014 For the translation of the work in the English language, Japan Documents
The right of Shiba Ryōtarō to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Shiba, Ryōtarō, 1923–1996.
[Saka no ue no kumo. English]
Clouds above the hill: a historical novel of the Russo-Japanese War/
Shiba Ryōtarō; translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter, Andrew Cobbing and
Paul McCarthy; edited by Phyllis Birnbaum.
p. cm.
Saka no ue no kumo, Shiba Ryōtarō.” 1. Shiba, Ryōtarō, 1923–1996.—Translations into
English. 2. Japan—Politics and government—1868–1912. I. Carpenter, Juliet Winters
II. Cobbing, Andrew. III. McCarthy, Paul. IV. Birnbaum, Phyllis. V. Title.
PL861.H68S2513 2012
895.6’35—dc23
2012033404
ISBN: 978-0-415-50889-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-88330-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Scala Sans and Times New Roman
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon
 CONTENTS

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS vii

CHRONOLOGY OF MAJOR EVENTS xi
JAPANESE AND RUSSIAN FLEETS AT TSUSHIMA xiii
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR xx
MAPS xxiii

Part 7, translated by Andrew Cobbing 1

1 Battle 3

2 Retreat 71

3 To the east 128

4 Far-off battleships 148

5 Miyakojima 173

Part 8, translated by Andrew Cobbing 195

1 Enemy warships sighted 197

2 Weighing anchor 207

3 Okinoshima 223

4 Sea of destiny 239

vi contents

5 Firing commands 273

6 Mortal combat 280
7 Utsuryōtō 307
8 Nebogatov 318
9 Hill in the rain 338

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR 1: ON BEGINNING TO WRITE

CLOUDS ABOVE THE HILL 360
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR 2: ON VICTORY AND DEFEAT 364
GLOSSARY 368
 PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS—VOLUMES III AND IV

Abo Kiyokazu (1870–1948): lieutenant commander, chief of artillery for

the entire Japanese fleet.
Akashi Motojirō (1864–1919): colonel and agent provocateur who helped
foment revolution in Russia.
Akiyama Saneyuki (1868–1918): Yoshifuru’s younger brother; staff officer
of Japan’s Combined Fleet at the time of the Russo-Japanese War.
Akiyama Yoshifuru (1859–1930): Saneyuki’s older brother; father of the
modern Japanese cavalry; defeated Russian Cossacks in the Russo-
Japanese War.
Alexeyev, Yevgeny Ivanovich (1843–1918): Russian tsar’s viceroy in the
Far East.
Clapier de Colongue, Konstantin Konstantinovich (1859–1944): chief of
staff to Rozhestvensky in the Russian fleet.
Felkerzam, Dmitri Gustavovich von (1846–1905): commander of the
Russian fleet’s Second Division; died from illness just before the battle
of Tsushima.
Fok, Aleksandr Viktorovich (1843–1926): the highest-ranking officer in
Russia’s Port Arthur army after Stoessel.
Fujii Shigeta (1858–1945): chief of staff of General Kuroki’s First Army.
Gapon, Georgi Appollonovich (1870–1906): Russian Orthodox priest who
organized the march that led to “Bloody Sunday” in St. Petersburg on
January 22, 1905.
Grippenberg, Oskar-Ferdinand Kazimirovich (1838–1916): commander
of the Russian Second Army in Manchuria; very critical of Kuropatkin’s
tactics of drawing the Japanese Army deep into Manchuria.
viii principal characters
Hayashi Tadasu (1850–1912): Japan’s ambassador to Britain at the time
of the Russo-Japanese War.
Iguchi Shōgo (1855–1925): staff officer of Japan’s Manchurian Army
during the Russo-Japanese War.
Ijichi Kōsuke (1854–1917): chief of staff of General Nogi’s Third Army.
Itō Hirobumi (1841–1909): head of the Privy Council; prime minister at
the time of the First Sino-Japanese War.
Itō Sukeyuki (1843–1914): fleet commander during the First Sino-Japanese
War; chief of the Navy General Staff during the Russo-Japanese War.
Kamimura Hikonojō (1849–1916): commander in chief of the Second
Squadron of the Japanese Combined Fleet during the Russo-Japanese War.
Kataoka Shichirō (1854–1920): commander of the Third Squadron of the
Japanese fleet.
Katō Tomosaburō (1861–1923): chief of staff of Admiral Kamimura’s
Second Squadron.
Katsura Tarō (1847–1913): prime minister at the time of the Russo-
Japanese War.
Kaulbars, Aleksandr Vasilyevich (1844–1925): commander of Russia’s
Second Manchurian Army, the main force behind the Russian offensive
in the battle of Mukden.
Kodama Gentarō (1852–1906): chief of staff at General Headquarters of
Japan’s Manchurian Army during the Russo-Japanese War.
Komura Jutarō (1855–1911): foreign minister at the time of the Russo-
Japanese War.
Kondratenko, Roman Isidorovich (1857–1904): Russian general revered
by officers and men at Port Arthur; known for his strong defense of the
port.
Kuroki Tamemoto (1844–1923): commander of the Japanese First Army
in the Russo-Japanese War.
Kuropatkin, Alexei Nikolayevich (1848–1925): Russian war minister and
the commander in chief of the Russian Manchurian Army during the
Russo-Japanese War.
Linevich, Nikolai Petrovich (1838–1908): commander in chief of the
Russian Manchurian Army; after the battle of Mukden, succeeded
Kuropatkin as commander in chief of the Russian armies in the Far East.
Makarov, Stepan Osipovich (1848–1904): commander in chief of the
Russian fleet at Port Arthur and author.
Matsukawa Toshitane (1860–1928): staff officer of Japan’s Manchurian
Army noted for his abilities in offensive strategies.
Meckel, Klemens Wilhelm Jacob (1842–1906): German military officer
and advisor to the Japanese Army.
 principal characters ix
Mishchenko, Pavel Ivanovich (1853–1918): commander of the Cossack
cavalry brigade involved in many battles of the Russo-Japanese War.
Nagaoka Gaishi (1858–1933): vice chief of the Army General Staff during
the Russo-Japanese War; proud of his mustache, which was said to be
the world’s second longest.
Nebogatov, Nikolai Ivanovich (1849–1922): commander of the Russian
fleet’s Third Division during the battle of Tsushima.
Nicholas II (1868–1918): Russian tsar at the time of the Russo-Japanese
War.
Nogi Maresuke (1849–1912): commander of the Japanese Third Army
during the Russo-Japanese War.
Novikov-Priboy, Alexei Silich (1877–1944): writer on board the battleship
Oryol who participated in the battle of Tsushima.
Nozu Michitsura (1841–1908): commander of the Japanese Fourth Army
during the Russo-Japanese War.
Ochiai Toyosaburō (1861–1934): chief of staff of General Nozu’s Fourth
Army.
Oku Yasukata (1846–1930): commander of the Japanese Second Army
during the Russo-Japanese War.
Ōyama Iwao (1842–1916): army minister at the time of the Russo-Japanese
War.
Politovsky, Evgeny Sigismondovich (1874–1905): chief engineer of the
Russian fleet who was killed during the battle of Tsushima; his letters to
his wife were published as a book.
Rennenkampf, Pavel Karlovich (1854–1918): commander of the Russian
left flank during the battle of Mukden.
Rozhestvensky, Zinovy Petrovich (1848–1909): favorite of Tsar Nicholas
II and commander of the Russian Baltic Fleet, which traveled via the Cape
of Good Hope all the way to the Sea of Japan.
Sakharov, Vladimir Viktorovich (1853–1920): chief of staff to Kuropatkin
in the Russian Manchurian Army.
Saneyuki (see Akiyama Saneyuki).
Semenov, Vladimir Ivanovich (1867–1910): staff officer of the Russian
fleet and author.
Shimamura Hayao (1858–1923): chief of staff of the Japanese Combined
Fleet at the time of the Russo-Japanese War.
Smirnov, Konstantin Nikolayevich (1854–1919): commander of the Port
Arthur fortress.
Stakelberg, Georgi Karlovich (1851–1913): commander of the First
Siberian Army Corps.
x principal characters
Stoessel, Anatoly Mikhailovich (1848–1915): commander of the Russian
forces at Port Arthur.
Tatsumi Naobumi (1845–1907): a seasoned veteran who assisted Akiyama
Yoshifuru’s cavalry detachment at Heigoutai; commander of “Tatsumi’s
provisional army.”
Terauchi Masatake (1852–1919): army minister at the time of the Russo-
Japanese War.
Tōgō Heihachirō (1847–1934): commander in chief of the Japanese
Combined Fleet in the Russo-Japanese War.
Tsunoda Koreshige (1873–1930): Nogi’s staff officer who later, at Nogi’s
suggestion, campaigned to have Stoessel’s life spared.
Uehara Yūsaku (1856–1933): chief of staff of General Nozu’s Fourth
Army.
Uesugi Kenshin (1530–1578) A prominent sixteenth-century daimyo
known for a series of battles with his rival diamyo Takeda Shingen at
Kawanakajima.
Uryū Sotokichi (1857–1937): commander of the Fourth Division of the
Japanese Combined Fleet in the Russo-Japanese War.
Utsunomiya Tarō (1861–1922): Japanese military attaché in London.
Vitgeft, Vilgelm Karlovich (1847–1904): acted as commander in chief of
the Russian fleet at Port Arthur after Makarov’s death.
Wilhelm II (1859–1941): German kaiser.
Witte, Sergei Yulyevich (1849–1915): Russian finance minister 1892–1903;
strong opponent of the Russo-Japanese War.
Yamagata Aritomo (1838–1922): architect of the modern Japanese Army
and chief of the Army General Staff during the Russo-Japanese War.
Yamamoto Gombei (1852–1933): Satsuma-born officer responsible for
modernization of the Japanese Navy; navy minister at the time of the
Russo-Japanese War.
Yoshida Shōin (1830–1859) A scholar and ideologue; he educated young
samurai who would later become leaders of the Meiji government. He
was executed by the shogunate.
Yoshifuru (see Akiyama Yoshifuru).
Yuan Shikai (1859–1916): Chinese army leader; first president of the
Republic of China.
 CHRONOLOGY OF MAJOR EVENTS

1603 Establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate

1825 Shogunate issues order to repel foreign ships
1853 U.S. Commodore Perry’s warships appear in Edo Bay (now
Tokyo Bay)
1854 Perry reopens Japan to the Western world, ending the period
of national seclusion that began in 1639 and lasted more than
two hundred years
1868 Collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate
Meiji Restoration
1868–1869 Boshin War
1877 Satsuma Rebellion
1889 Promulgation of the Meiji Constitution
1894 Outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War (August)
Yalu River naval battle (September)
1895 Destruction of the Chinese fleet at Weihaiwei (February)
Peace treaty signed at Shimonoseki (April)
Triple Intervention (April–May)—Japan forced by Russia,
France, and Germany to relinquish the Liaodong Peninsula
1898 Spanish–American War
1900 Boxer Rebellion in China
1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance signed in London (January)
1904 Outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (February)
Battle over the crossing of the Yalu (April)
Siege of Port Arthur (August–January 1905)
Battle of the Yellow Sea (August)
Battle of Ulsan (August)
xii chronology of major events
Battle of Liaoyang (August–September)
Battle of Shaho (October)
Russian Baltic Fleet departs the Baltic Sea (October)
1905 Battle of Heigoutai (January)
Battle of Mukden (March)
Tōgō’s Combined Fleet defeats the Baltic Fleet at Tsushima
off the coast of Kyushu (May)
Peace treaty signed in Portsmouth (September)
 JAPANESE AND RUSSIAN FLEETS AT TSUSHIMA

The battle of Tsushima was not merely the most climactic naval battle of
the “pre-dreadnought era,” the age of coal, steam, and steel warships before
the First World War, it was also one of the most decisive naval battles in
history. Readers will encounter the names of many Japanese and Russian
ships during the course of Shiba’s narrative of the battle, and a brief survey
of the most significant ships and the organization of the two fleets may prove
useful.
On the morning of the battle, May 27, 1905, the Japanese had four
powerful new battleships—Mikasa, Asahi, Fuji, and Shikishima—each armed
with four 12-inch guns. They also had eight new armored cruisers—Asama,
Tokiwa, Azuma, Yakumo, Iwate, Nisshin, Kasuga, and Izumo—mostly armed
with four 8-inch guns. In 1905, these were the two types of ships that counted.
Indeed, it was expected that only the heaviest guns—the 12-inch battleship
guns—would prove decisive. However, Tōgō did not have many battleships,
and so in spite of the armored cruisers’ weaker guns and armor, he was
forced to include them in his single battle line to oppose the Russian
battleships.
The Russians had five new battleships: Alexander III, Suvorov, Borodino,
Oryol—all with four 12-inch guns—and the somewhat weaker Oslyabya with
four 10-inch guns. These five ships were the real threat to Japanese command
of the sea, and Tōgō’s top priority was to destroy them. But in addition, the
Russians had three older, slower, and weaker battleships—Sisoy Veliky,
Navarin, and Nicholas I—giving them eight battleships to the Japanese
four. They also had three examples of the “coast defense ship”—Apraxin,
Senyavin, and Ushakov. These were small, slow, heavily armored ships with
10-inch guns. With their low “freeboard”—low deck height above the
xiv japanese and russian fleets at tsushima
water—they were likely to take waves on board in heavy seas, hindering
their ability to fight in such conditions. The Russians also had several old
and weak armored cruisers—Vladimir Monomakh, Dmitri Donskoi, and
Admiral Nakhimov, only the last of which had 8-inch guns.
Thus, the Japanese had sixteen 12-inch guns, versus the Russian twenty-
six 12-inch and fifteen 10-inch guns aboard their heavy armored ships. But
would those aboard the six old, small, and inefficient Russian ships really
be able to play a significant role in the battle? The Russians, meanwhile,
had nothing equivalent to the thirty 8-inch and one 10-inch guns aboard the
Japanese armored cruisers. And would these big, fast, seaworthy, and
relatively lightly armored Japanese ships be able to stand up against the heavy
guns and armor of the Russian battleships and coast defense ships? World
naval opinion was divided.
The Japanese fleet was organized into three squadrons. The First Squadron
under Tōgō—also fleet commander—included the four battleships plus the
armored cruisers Nisshin and Kasuga. The Second Squadron, under
Kamimura Hikonojō, included the other six armored cruisers and the Fourth
Division’s protected cruisers. These were all at anchor in Chinhae Bay on
the Korean side of the Tsushima Strait, waiting for reports of the Russian
fleet before the battle began. Along with them were much of Japan’s large
force of torpedo craft, that is, destroyers and torpedo boats. On patrol in the
Tsushima Strait was a scouting line of two protected and four auxiliary
cruisers, supported by Dewa Shigetō’s Third Division of four protected
cruisers. Kataoka Shichirō’s Fifth Division of old warships from the battle
of the Yalu, including the antiquated ex-Chinese battleship Chin’en, sortied
to join them from its base on Tsushima Island.
Meanwhile, the battle line of the Russian fleet approached the entrance
of the Tsushima Strait in three divisions, the First Division under Zinovy
Rozhestvensky including the four new Borodino-class battleships. The
Second Division, under the putative command of Dmitri Felkerzam (who
had died just before and whose death remained unknown to most of the
Russian fleet during the battle), included the new Oslyabya and the old
battleships Sisoy Veliky and Navarin, and the old armored cruiser Admiral
Nakhimov. The Third Division, under Nikolai Nebogatov, included the old
battleship Nicholas I and the three coast defense ships.
Both fleets included numerous smaller warships. The Japanese had
fourteen protected cruisers, twenty-one destroyers, and fifty-seven torpedo
boats. The Russians had five protected cruisers and nine destroyers. Indeed,
the Russians were seriously worried about the numerous Japanese torpedo
craft, while the Japanese conversely expected great results from them. The
 japanese and russian fleets at tsushima xv
Russians also had their convoy of auxiliary merchant-type supply and
support ships to protect.
Perhaps one final point requires some explanation. In one sense, the fleets
were essentially equal, in that both contained exactly four first-class, powerful
new battleships with 12-inch guns, and it was the encounter of these eight
ships on which the battle turned. On paper, the battleships were very similar
in size, gunpower, and speed. But while the four Japanese battleships had
been built by the British, the four best Russian battleships, the Borodinos,
were new and powerful but had serious design flaws. They were constructed
according to French theories of battleship design, which were logical and
imaginative, but proven incorrect during the battle. First, their sides curved
inward rather than flaring outward at the waterline, so that their high main
decks were narrower than their hull at the waterline, a characteristic called
“tumblehome.” This provided wider arcs of fire for guns mounted along the
ship’s side, but decreased the stability of the ship and made it more likely
to capsize under the influence of internal flooding.
In addition, these ships also followed the “all or nothing” theory of armor
protection. The British-built Japanese battleships had their heaviest armor
along their sides at the waterline, and their sides above the “belt” were
covered by thinner armor. By contrast, the armor of the French-designed
Borodinos was mostly confined to a very strong belt at the waterline and to
their gun turrets, but their high sides and upperworks were largely
unprotected. French designers held the thinner armor to be useless due to
the particular behavior of armor-piercing shells, which are mostly solid steel,
with a small inner cavity containing explosive. These armor-piercing shells
are typically detonated by the shock of the shell hitting armor plate, with a
short time delay, which permits the shell to pass through the armor and
explode in the interior of the ship.
Heavy armor is intended to be thick enough to prevent the penetration of
the largest caliber of armor-piercing shells, including 12-inch shells. British
designers included thinner armor above the heavy waterline belts of their
battleships to keep out smaller-caliber shells, but the French believed that
this thinner armor would only cause greater damage from the heaviest shells.
According to their theory, 12-inch shells that struck the thinner armor would
smash through it, but the thinner armor’s resistance would shock the shell
fuse enough to make it explode after penetrating, doing great damage inside
the ship. Better, the French believed, to have no armor except the very
heaviest, which was capable of keeping out every shell, including 12-inch
shells. This heavy “belt” would serve to protect the waterline, along with
the engines and magazines below it. In the French view, armor-piercing shells
xvi japanese and russian fleets at tsushima
that struck the high, unarmored sides of the French battleships would not
receive sufficient shock to detonate, and they would pass completely through
the ship without exploding, doing relatively little damage.
Such French theories had not counted on the “high-explosive” shells used
by the Japanese. These had thin cases and sensitive fuses, and in addition
were filled with a large quantity of the devastatingly powerful Shimose
explosive. While such high-explosive shells were indeed unable to penetrate
Russian armor, they did explode on contact with the extensive unarmored
sides and superstructures of the Russian battleships—with terrible effect.
The tables of organization below give the names of the battleships,
armored cruisers, coast defense ships, and protected cruisers on both sides,
plus the nine Russian destroyers, and the obsolete Japanese warships. The
many Japanese destroyers and torpedo boats are too numerous to list
completely, though some of them also played important roles in the battle.

THE FLEETS AT TSUSHIMA

Japanese Combined Fleet

Combined Fleet, Tōgō Heihachirō, commander in chief
First Squadron, Tōgō Heihachirō, commander

First Division, Nashiha Tokioki, commander

modern battleships:
Mikasa, flagship of Tōgō Heihachirō
Asahi
Fuji
Shikishima
armored cruisers:
Nisshin
Kasuga
dispatch vessel:
Tatsuta

Third Division, Dewa Shigetō, commander

protected cruisers:
Kasagi
Chitose
Otawa
Niitaka
 japanese and russian fleets at tsushima xvii
Second Squadron, Kamimura Hikonojō, commander

Second Division, Misu Sōtarō, commander

armored cruisers:
Izumo, flagship of Kamimura Hikonojō
Azuma
Asama
Yakumo
Tokiwa
Iwate
dispatch vessel:
Chihaya

Fourth Division, Uryū Sotokichi, commander

protected cruisers:
Naniwa
Takachiho
Akashi
Tsushima

Third Squadron, Kataoka Shichirō, commander

Fifth Division
old protected cruisers:
Itsukushima, flagship of Kataoka Shichirō
Hashidate
Matsushima
old battleship:
Chin’en
dispatch vessel:
Yaeyama

Sixth Division, Tōgō Masamichi, commander

protected cruisers:
Izumi
Suma
Akitsushima
old armored cruiser:
Chiyoda

Seventh Division, Hosoya Sukeuji, commander

old ironclad Fusō, plus a number of small gunboats and obsolete warships
xviii japanese and russian fleets at tsushima
Besides these ships, the First and Second Squadrons had destroyer divisions
and torpedo boat divisions. The Third Squadron had torpedo boat divisions.

Russian Baltic Fleet

In spite of its apparent organization into divisions, the Russian fleet fought
as a single, if ill-coordinated, unit at Tsushima. Admiral Dmitri Felkerzam
was dead, and Admiral Nikolai Nebogatov did not know this, even though
this made him second in command of the fleet.

Second and Third Pacific Squadrons, Zinovy Rozhestvensky, commander

in chief

First Division, Zinovy Rozhestvensky, commander

modern battleships:
Suvorov, flagship of Zinovy Rozhestvensky
Alexander III
Borodino
Oryol

Second Division, Dmitri Felkerzam, commander

modern battleship:
Oslyabya, flagship of Dmitri Felkerzam
old battleships:
Sisoy Veliky
Navarin
armored cruiser:
Admiral Nakhimov

Third Division, Nikolai Nebogatov, commander

old battleship:
Nicholas I, flagship of Nikolai Nebogatov
coast defense ships:
Apraxin
Senyavin
Ushakov

Attached Protected Cruisers

Zhemchug
Izumrud
 japanese and russian fleets at tsushima xix
First Cruiser Division, Oskar Enkvist, commander
protected cruisers:
Oleg
Aurora
old armored cruisers:
Dmitri Donskoi
Vladimir Monomakh

Second Scouting Division

protected cruiser:
Svetlana
armed merchant cruiser:
Ural

Destroyer Flotilla
Bedovy
Buiny
Bravy
Bystry
Blestyashchy
Bezuprechny
Bodry
Gromky
Grozny

Auxiliaries (transports, hospital ships, tugs, etc.): Almaz, Anadyr, Irtuish,

Kamchatka, Koreya, Rus, Svir, Oryol, Kostroma
 A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

This translation project has benefited from the expertise and assistance of a
number of people, most importantly, Takechi Manabu, of the Center for
Intercultural Communication, who has checked the translations, researched
background information, and created most of the introductory materials. He
is a devoted fan of Clouds above the Hill; Shiba Ryōtarō and our project
are fortunate indeed to have his invaluable help. Noda Makito checked the
translations in Volume IV.
Lynne Riggs, also of the Center for Intercultural Communication, has been
our indefatigable behind-the-scenes advisor and liaison with various business
concerns. Assisted by Imoto Chikako, she obtained appropriate images for
the covers and the required permissions. Anne Bergasse and Kiwaki Tetsuji
of Abinitio Design are the cover designers.
We are grateful for the cooperation of the Shiba Ryōtarō Memorial
Foundation, with special thanks to Uemura Motoko, who helped answer our
various questions.
Tamara Agvanian has toiled as our official Russian expert, going to great
lengths to track down the English equivalents for the Russian names and
terms in our text; Miguel Romá joined the search for other non-Japanese
names. Komiyama Emiko of Komiyama Printing Company created the map
graphics. HyunSook Yun was a great help with Korean names and terms.
Bruce Carpenter looked up Chinese sources, interpreted Chinese poems, and
provided vital advice.
Robert Patrick Largess was our military consultant, finding the appropriate
English for the many guns, ships, and other military terms in the text; he
compiled our explanatory “Japanese and Russian fleets in 1904” and
“Japanese and Russian fleets at Tsushima.” In addition, his vast knowledge
in other fields has served to improve these translations in many ways.
 a note from the editor xxi
My personal thanks to Teruko Craig and Stuart Kiang for their helpful,
speedy advice.
Above all, everyone who has contributed to this translation of Clouds
above the Hill thanks Saitō Sumio of Japan Documents, whose enthusiasm
and determination have brought this project to fruition. He did not only decide
to have this immense novel translated and succeed in organizing a translation
team, but he has also been a tremendously loyal supporter of our efforts.
His patience, generosity, and, most importantly, his calm in the face of
assorted difficulties have made this work a great pleasure for all.

* * *
Clouds above the Hill was originally published as a serial in the newspaper
Sankei Shimbun from April 22, 1968 to August 4, 1972. Traces of the
serialization remained when the entire novel was published in book form;
those traces can be seen in this translation as well. The section breaks are
often indications of the end of a day’s installment, although there are times
when we’ve merged sections or moved the breaks around. At the start of a
new section, Shiba frequently summarized what had gone on just before to
help readers who had missed the previous installment. We’ve tried to
eliminate some of these repetitions, but they are too numerous to eliminate
entirely.
In the main, we have used pinyin to transcribe Chinese place and personal
names; exceptions are well-known places and names like Port Arthur,
Mukden, and Genghis Khan. Some of the famous sites around Port Arthur
are in English.
Shiba alternates between the metric and imperial systems in his
measurements, but we’ve made certain measures consistent: we’ve used the
imperial system for naval guns; metric for land guns.
Japanese names are in Japanese order, the family name followed by the
given name. Ages are cited in the traditional Japanese method of calculating
ages—a child is one on the date of birth and two the following New Year’s
Day.
We have not corrected any errors Shiba may have made regarding
historical fact or translations from other languages. “General Staff” refers
to the Army General Staff unless otherwise noted.

Phyllis Birnbaum
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 Lidarentun

203-
Meter
Hill

Russo-Japanese War
Route of the Baltic Fleet from European Russia to the Sea of Japan
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 Part 7
Translated by Andrew Cobbing
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 1
BATTLE

By an extraordinary coincidence, plans for a major offensive were also

underway at Alexei Kuropatkin’s General Headquarters in Mukden. As
we’ve seen, the Russians had attacked the left wing of the Japanese Army
around Heigoutai in late January, striking at the detachment there under the
command of Akiyama Yoshifuru; eventually, they had been pushed back
following the arrival of a hastily formed relief force commanded by Tatsumi
Naobumi. In addition, Kuropatkin had been so alarmed by the relief force’s
arrival that he needlessly gave the order to withdraw. The Russians pulled
back to Mukden, having achieved nothing.
There were some young staff officers who put the failure of the operation
down to their own cautious approach. “It was so close,” one young captain
said.
Major General Alexei Evert, who as chief of operations was the Russian
counterpart of Major General Matsukawa Toshitane, agreed. “One more push
and the enemy’s left wing might have collapsed.”
Even after the Russian withdrawal, Evert tenaciously continued gathering
intelligence on the enemy’s movements, and he learned that they were
busily transferring their units around. Those troops sent to shore up the left
wing, which had been caught off guard by the surprise Russian attack, were
returning to their original positions.
“In that case,” thought Evert, “they still have not grasped our plan, even
after such a fierce assault on their left wing.” In his view, the Japanese looked
on the recent battle as just a large reconnaissance mission by the Russians,
rather than a full-scale offensive. He was right.
“This battle of Heigoutai,” Matsukawa Toshitane said, “was just a matter
of our guests”—the Russians—“paying us a visit to have a look around.”
4 battle
This kind of thinking, as we know, infuriated Akiyama Yoshifuru, who had
insisted all along that it had been a full-scale offensive.
“That’s why,” Evert concluded, “we must strike again!”
The Russians had to do so before this opportunity passed them by. If they
launched an attack on an even larger scale while the enemy was reordering
its lines with all these troop movements, surely the Japanese Army would
be thrown into chaos. This was their chance to strike a single decisive blow
in Manchuria.
Evert presented his views to Lieutenant General Vladimir Viktorovich
Sakharov, who, as the chief of staff of the Russian Manchurian Army, was
the Russian equivalent of Kodama Gentarō.
Sakharov had been thinking along the same lines and immediately agreed.
“Go ahead and draw up the plans,” he told Evert, uttering his next words as
though he were reciting some heroic poem. “This won’t be like the last
attack—we’re going to do it really properly this time!”

* * *
When Sakharov spoke about doing it properly this time, he meant that the
Russian showing had been somewhat improper at the battle of Sandepu and
the nearby village of Heigoutai.
Last time around, the operation had been planned by General Grippenberg,
who had just arrived from European Russia. This operation had been a ruse
designed to outsmart Kuropatkin. In his position as commander in chief,
Kuropatkin had approved the plan, but only with great reluctance.
Grippenberg had launched a fierce attack on Akiyama Yoshifuru’s
position, on the Japanese left wing. He also fought hard against the enemy
reinforcements as they arrived, but his operation was undermined by
Kuropatkin’s lack of support. If the commander in chief had only used the
Russian First Manchurian Army to attack the overstretched Japanese center,
as arranged beforehand, while Grippenberg kept the enemy left wing pinned
down, they should have been able to break through.
But in the end Kuropatkin just folded his arms and did nothing.
Kuropatkin did not go ahead as planned because, had he had done so and
won a great victory, the laurels would have gone to Grippenberg instead.
He would have promptly lost his own standing in the Russian Army. In most
countries, this would have been hard to believe, but in an autocracy like
Russia, government officials made decisions more out of concern for their
own positions than state interests.
In a related case, around the same time on January 18, the French diplomat
Maurice Paléologue held a meeting in Paris with Fyodor Dubasov, a major
 clouds above the hill 5
general of the Russian Navy. Under the terms of the alliance between the
two states, the French government was, of course, supporting Russia.
Since Dubasov was a staff officer based at Imperial Headquarters in
St. Petersburg, Paléologue assumed he would have a detailed knowledge of
Rozhestvensky’s fleet, which was then on a long voyage to Asia on the tsar’s
orders. To Paléologue’s amazement, Dubasov knew nothing about this.
Afterward, Paléologue wrote of how, as the conversation turned to the topic
of Rozhestvensky’s Baltic Fleet, he and the French naval officers present
were left stunned when, “between two puffs of his cigar, the casual Dubasov
cried out, ‘Ah! Dear old Zinovy Petrovich! How is he, I wonder? And where
might his fleet be now?’”
Caught in the middle of a complex international issue, France was at this
stage obliged to look out for the needs of Rozhestvensky’s fleet as it stopped
at various ports of call en route. In the course of their work, the French Navy
and Foreign Ministry’s secret service were receiving updates on the Baltic
Fleet. It was absurd that a staff officer from Imperial Headquarters in St.
Petersburg should hear his old comrade’s name and react by wondering
nostalgically where he might be. In that autocratic state, however, govern-
ment officials cared only about winning the favor of the supreme ruler, the
tsar; the whereabouts of the fleet was not a matter of great concern. The
same was true of Kuropatkin.
But let’s return to our theme.
Major General Evert, the chief of operations, had finished off what
Lieutenant General Sakharov, Manchuria chief of staff, called a “proper”
plan. Field Marshal Ōyama and General Kodama would have been astonished
if they had known about it. This was to be a major operation, drawing on
the total Russian troop strength of over three hundred thousand men in
Manchuria. The First Army was to engage with the enemy before the Second
and Third Armies joined in a full-scale assault.
During the afternoon on January 31, Sakharov knocked on Kuropatkin’s
door with these plans in his hand.
As he listened to Sakharov’s explanation, the commander in chief read
the document enthusiastically until, halfway through, he suddenly seemed
to lose interest. Sakharov asked him what the problem was, but he just shook
his head and replied, “Nothing.”
Outside, the bell of the Russian Orthodox church began to ring. The church
tower was visible through the window. Kuropatkin waited until the chimes
had stopped before saying, “I don’t agree with this plan of operation. We
should strike once more at Sandepu instead.”
Sakharov was stunned. Kuropatkin had taken an extremely negative
attitude when Grippenberg had tried exactly this just recently. By not
6 battle
responding at the critical moment, Kuropatkin had actually assured the
plan’s failure. Grippenberg was so angry that he had resigned and returned
to European Russia. Kuropatkin actually believed there was nothing wrong
with Grippenberg’s tactics, but he simply did not want to let him carry them
out. He wanted to appropriate that strategy for himself.
Once Grippenberg had departed, Kuropatkin handed over command of
the Second Army to Major General Sergei Mylov of the Eighth European
Army Corps, who had long been a favorite of his. Mylov was only to serve
as an acting commander.
Kuropatkin set about his grand scheme. First, he ordered Mylov to collect
intelligence on the Japanese left wing in the Sandepu area. These positions
were still being held by a combined force consisting of Akiyama Yoshifuru’s
cavalry brigade, together with some artillery and infantry. The reinforcements
that had arrived during the battle of Heigoutai were in the process of leaving.
“So they are weak there!” Kuropatkin cheerfully said when he heard this.
His aim was to destroy the positions held by those puny Japanese cavalry
soldiers on the left wing and attack the enemy rear guard, while also breaking
through the center and chasing Ōyama Iwao as far as the coast of the
Liaodong Peninsula. He was so supremely confident that he could not find
so much as a single weakness in this plan.

* * *
Kuropatkin, indeed, was glowing with self-confidence. His regular features
and well-trimmed, flaxen-colored whiskers always were in keeping with his
reputation as a brilliant general, but such was his confidence in this plan of
operations that he looked even imperious.
“Mylov has given my plan his one hundred percent approval!” he glowed.
Mylov had discovered that Akiyama Yoshifuru’s positions on the Japanese
left wing were weakly protected, proving Kuropatkin’s acumen in planning
to break through at this point and wheel around behind the enemy rear guard.
He set about drawing up a powerful battle formation, saying, “We must strike
at the enemy”—Akiyama Yoshifuru—“with as much force as we can.”
The assault was to be carried out by the Second Manchurian Army.
Command of this army was uncertain because Mylov had been only an acting
commander since Grippenberg’s indignant resignation and return home. It
would be unthinkable to entrust such a major task to just an acting
commander. In the end, General Aleksandr Kaulbars of the Third Manchurian
Army assumed command. His post was then filled by promoting General
Aleksandr Bilderling, at the time commander of the Seventeenth European
Army Corps.
 clouds above the hill 7
In passing, it should be noted that the Japanese military structure consisted
of armies, divisions, and brigades in order of size, whereas the Russians had
one extra unit, the army corps, which was next in size to a full army. Since
Kuropatkin’s plan was to use a full army, the largest military unit there was,
to attack what amounted to a single brigade, his chances of success were
extremely high. It was practically as fail-safe as trying to smash the ground
with a hammer.
He was so taken with the idea of ensuring the success of this plan of
operations that he even devised another scheme to increase his chances
of success. He decided to form a combined assault brigade as the spearhead
of the Second Army. For this, he created six new battalions by handpicking
crack units from the First and Third Armies. Together, they made what could
be described as a special unit for attacking entrenched positions, much like
the White Sash Troop, which the Japanese had used in the siege of Port
Arthur. This new brigade had a single mission—to break through the enemy
lines at Sandepu. Their orders were to crush the cavalry brigade under
Akiyama, whose men had dismounted from their horses and were dug in
behind their field positions. While the special assault unit engaged Akiyama’s
brigade, the main force of the Second Army would push on south and wheel
around to attack the Japanese rear guard.
Moreover, Kuropatkin prepared yet another powerful weapon for the
attack on Akiyama’s positions. He added siege guns from the Third Army,
significantly increasing the Second Army’s firepower. Guns were an essential
requirement for any attack on enemy lines. Since Akiyama’s positions
consisted of nothing more than earthworks piled high, just one shot from a
siege gun would be enough to blow one of these defenses clean away.

* * *
Akiyama Yoshifuru, meanwhile, had little inkling of the incredible fate that
lay in store for him as once again his small brigade would be forced to take
on the main force of the Russian Army. He did wonder if the enemy might
try the same tactic another time, but this was not his only guess. He also
thought of various other possible stratagems the enemy might be planning.
Even if Yoshifuru could have looked into the future and foreseen that
the Russians would once again attack the village of Heigoutai—or nearby
Sandepu—he would still not be in a position to ask headquarters to take any
defensive action beforehand. The Japanese Army might respond to an
emergency by dispatching its limited reserve strength to positions here and
there, but once the danger had passed, these units would return to their
original positions or take up new posts.
8 battle
So even if he could have predicted the Russian attack, Yoshifuru could
not and would not request help, and his single brigade would simply have
to face an entire enemy army on its own. Just as in the recent battle of
Heigoutai, no emergency relief force would be forthcoming from head-
quarters until Yoshifuru’s men were no longer capable of holding on
themselves. And even if his brigade were crushed before help could arrive,
their efforts would still have been all worthwhile so long as this bought enough
time to allow the Japanese reinforcements to force the enemy back when
they finally got there, just as Tatsumi Naobumi had managed before. Whether
it was attack or defense, to serve in the Japanese Army, with its critical
lack of troop strength, one could not count on sacrifices from one’s comrades.
The only way to respond to the threat was to sacrifice oneself.
In any event, the plan that had taken shape in Kuropatkin’s mind had
been calculated with mathematical precision. Akiyama Yoshifuru would be
crushed.
As usual, however, Kuropatkin’s mood suddenly changed, and all because
of one matter. He was concerned about the whereabouts of Nogi’s army of
one hundred thousand men (in fact, there were just thirty-four thousand),
which had previously taken Port Arthur. Kuropatkin used cavalry scouts and
field intelligence from local guides to collect as much information as possible
on Nogi’s movements.
Of the army that had fought under Nogi at Port Arthur, two divisions had
since arrived in Liaoyang, while another division seemed to have replaced
the Eighth Division near the railway station at Yantai, where the Japanese
had their headquarters. This was all Kuropatkin knew. The information he
had was hazy, of course, and there was a general tendency to overestimate
the numbers involved, but in broad terms certain indications supported such
thinking. Although he managed to recognize these developments, Kuropatkin
never suspected that Nogi’s army might be preparing to swing round to the
Japanese left wing and attack his own right flank.
But he received some surprising news.
“Nogi’s one hundred thousand will attack Vladivostok.” This was the
report received from Major General Konstantin Desino, military attaché to
the Russian legation in Beijing. Vladivostok was simply too far away. As
far as Kuropatkin was concerned, he could disregard this information.
What he could not ignore from Desino’s report was the news that after
landing in the Wŏnsan area in Korea, only part of Nogi’s army was to attack
Vladivostok, while the main force would make its way via Nikolsk (the
present-day Ussuriysk) to the Ussuri region before striking at Kuropatkin’s
own rear guard.
* * *
 clouds above the hill 9
For Kuropatkin, Nogi’s one-hundred-thousand-man army was an object of
fear. It was not so much its troop strength but the question of exactly where
this force, which had transformed itself into a field army during the siege
of Port Arthur, was going to appear next. Now that this major fighting unit
had been freed up for use, Ōyama and Kodama could employ it wherever
they liked. In Kuropatkin’s mind, Nogi’s army appeared to have wings. He
did not know where it would fly off to or where it would land. So according
to Kuropatkin’s intelligence from Beijing, Nogi’s army was going to deploy
far to the Japanese right, wheel around to the left and appear behind the
Russian rear guard.
But this was precisely the opposite of what Ōyama and Kodama actually
had in mind. Their intention was to deploy Nogi’s army on the Japanese left
wing so that it could wheel around to the right and attack the enemy rear
guard. This outflanking maneuver, confined geographically only to the
immediate environs of the battlefield around Mukden, would be on a much
smaller scale than the grand operation reported from Beijing.
Kuropatkin’s information from Major General Desino had featured place
names far to the east of Manchuria in Korea and the Primorsky Region.
Names such as Wŏnsan, Nikolsk, Ussuri, and Vladivostok flashed in the
back of Kuropatkin’s mind like buried landmines exploding in quick
succession. He had to contend with the extraordinary notion that Nogi’s main
force would eventually emerge behind his own rear guard.
The Beijing intelligence had clearly misconstrued some information
relating to plans for the new Japanese Fifth Army—better known as the Army
of the Yalu—which had just been created on orders from Tokyo. It was an
easy enough mistake for Desino to make. After all, the main force of the
Army of the Yalu was the Eleventh Division from Shikoku, which had just
been transferred from Nogi’s army. In his days as a major general, Nogi had
once commanded this division himself, and it had recently won distinction
fighting against heavy odds during the assault on Port Arthur.
In those days, it was possible to tell which army branch and regiment a
soldier or officer belonged to by the marks on his uniform. If the enemy
knew what his regiment was, they could also tell which division he was in.
In that sense, intelligence was simple.
What they could not tell was that the Eleventh Division had left Nogi’s
army and had been incorporated into the Army of the Yalu. Local scouts on
the ground simply assumed, “If that’s the Eleventh Division, this must be
Nogi’s army!” They seem to have reached this conclusion after trailing some
regiment or battalion of the Eleventh Division.
As the Army of the Yalu had been created at the instigation of Imperial
Headquarters in Tokyo, it naturally acquired a bad name at Japanese General
10 battle
Headquarters in Yantai, which was in charge of field operations in
Manchuria. Matsukawa Toshitane liked to mock the army by pronouncing
its name in a funny way that sounded like the call of a wild duck, implying
that it was an easy prey and therefore an unwanted obstacle. As we’ve
discussed, the army had been formed for the political objective of winning
territory from Russia following the war. From an operational standpoint, its
creation was indeed foolish, since it served no purpose during the decisive
conflict between the main forces of the Russian and Japanese armies on the
Manchurian plains.
Yet the Army of the Yalu would have an impact on the enemy that neither
Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo nor Ōyama and Kodama had ever
anticipated.
Kuropatkin was not entirely unaware of this new army. He had heard of
it from another intelligence report. Not only did he know, but he wondered
why the Japanese would even want to create such a ridiculous temporary
fighting force. While the Russians were sending over wave after wave of
crack troops from European Russia, the enemy was rounding up middle-
aged war veterans tilling the fields in Japan and using them to form an army
of standby reservists consisting of the First Standby Reserve Division and
Sixteenth Standby Reserve Brigade.
In Kuropatkin’s view, such troops had no fighting strength at all.
Moreover, standby reservist divisions did not usually have their own
commissariat either, so there was not even any systematic provision of
supplies. As Kuropatkin said to Lieutenant General Sakharov, he thought it
unlikely that this Japanese force would be really capable of any independent
action. He did sense that the Japanese Army was nearing exhaustion, but
he always had a tendency to overestimate the enemy. To his misfortune, he
managed to grasp the general outline, but he did not use this as a basis for
his operations.
While Kuropatkin knew about the formation of the Army of the Yalu,
mistaken intelligence put it at only a division and brigade of standby
reservists and nothing else. This incomplete information further warped his
judgment. He did not know that a crack unit in the shape of the Eleventh
Division, or what amounted to Nogi’s combat force, had also been
incorporated into the new army. This missing information confused him.
Kuropatkin thought that the enemy troops trying to outflank him way out
to the side and threatening his rear guard must be Nogi’s army. This was
his conclusion as he weighed the misleading report from Beijing on Nogi’s
movements and the field intelligence he had received about the Army of the
Yalu. It was a terrifying prospect, but one that arose from his own tempera-
ment rather than the thinking of a trained military man. A man of this nature
 clouds above the hill 11
may have been useful enough in the War Ministry in St. Petersburg, but he
was not really suited to orchestrating the movements of a large army in the
field. It was to imperial Russia’s misfortune that such a man had been
appointed commander in chief.
He did consider a sudden change of plan, but preparations for the assault
on the Japanese left wing at Heigoutai were already in progress. Commanders
were issuing orders, the army corps was on the move, divisions were
advancing, and artillery troops were being transferred. To halt such an
operation already underway was, in a sense, even more difficult than
attacking the enemy.

* * *
For Ōyama and Kodama, February 19 was memorable as the day when the
plan of operations for the battle of Mukden was decided and when
Matsukawa Toshitane sent out written orders to each army. The commander
of each army was summoned to gather at headquarters in Yantai the following
day.
But February 19 was also an important day for the Russian Army under
Kuropatkin. On this day, the commander and chief of staff in each of the
Russian armies assembled for a council of war. Both armies, coincidentally,
bore a close resemblance to each other. But there was this difference: Ōyama
and Kodama were looking to force a decisive battle and drive the Russians
back, but Kuropatkin, the one who had initially wanted to force the issue,
now assembled his generals to hint at a change in circumstances that might
even warrant abandoning the operation altogether. He just could not say it
openly. This man of the world was planning to explain the situation and
wait for his generals to say, “In that case, let’s cancel the plan.” This would
allow him to avoid responsibility for the change, and if any criticism arose
afterward at the Imperial Palace in St. Petersburg he could always point to
the fact that it had been his generals’ opinion as well.
The venue for this war council was not Mukden, but a railway station
called Xiahewandun in the countryside to the south of Mukden, beyond an
iron bridge across the Hun River. Despite its rural location, this was the
terminus for the railway line to the Guchengzi area, and there were a number
of railway buildings there. They held their meeting in one of those buildings.
Lieutenant General Sakharov, Manchuria chief of staff, acted as chairman.
In that role, he should have presented the agenda, but Kuropatkin told him,
“I will explain the situation.” If he allowed the more bullish Sakharov to
talk, it might affect the subtle outcome he was hoping to achieve. After
casting a keen gaze over his generals seated around the table, Kuropatkin
launched into a speech that would be remembered long afterward.
12 battle
He began by explaining that the fall of Port Arthur and the battle of
Heigoutai had left the Russian Army at a serious disadvantage. As a preamble
to what he was going to say next, he presented the outlook in a pessimistic
light, blaming Lieutenant General Stoessel at Port Arthur and General
Grippenberg at Heigoutai for their current predicament. This had put him
in a difficult position.
“The Japanese Army now has a real advantage. In particular, Nogi’s army
is free to move at will. And I have received sound intelligence on how and
where Ōyama plans to use Nogi’s one hundred thousand men.”
Some of the commanders and staff officers were clearly alarmed.
“Where will Nogi appear?”
In reply to this question, Kuropatkin told the assembled commanders
exactly what he had learned through Major General Desino’s intelligence
from Beijing. He also added some speculation of his own. “Nogi could appear
behind our rear guard in the Mukden area, or he might swing round to the
Jilin area or even as far north as Harbin. According to some further
intelligence, the enemy is planning to advance as far as Mongolia and secure
the cooperation of mounted bandits there to attack the railways to the rear
of our army.”
This was true. He was referring to the advance cavalry troops that
Akiyama Yoshifuru had released from his own brigade and dispatched far
afield. One detachment under Lieutenant Colonel Naganuma Hidefumi had
begun operations on January 9 and advanced far behind the Russian lines
into eastern Mongolia. Much to Kuropatkin’s irritation, this had destroyed
the railway bridge over the Xinkai River to the south of Kuanchengzi. At
the same time, a second advance cavalry detachment under Major Hasegawa
Inukichi had set out on January 12 and spent more than sixty days lurking
behind the Russian lines, sporadically harrying the enemy, sabotaging
railway lines, and attacking warehouses stocked with provisions.
These operations by Akiyama’s brigade played on Kuropatkin’s nerves
and clouded his thinking. Eventually, they not only dampened his enthusiasm
for a decisive battle, as he had shown at the war council, but they also
restrained him from concentrating the troop strength he really needed for
this final showdown. Afterward, these developments made people say that
the diversionary tactics by Akiyama’s brigade caused the Russian defeat at
the battle of Mukden.
In his address to the war council, Kuropatkin said that he was relying
on the Russian cavalry under Lieutenant General Pavel Mishchenko to
guard the railway from these far-flung attacks. This cavalry corps of Cossacks
was the pride of the Russian Army, and the force the Japanese feared most.
But as Kuropatkin explained, Mishchenko’s fearsome troop was deployed
 clouds above the hill 13
far from the front lines in the Songhua River area and in the end would play
no part in the battle of Mukden itself. The combined threats of Nogi’s army
and Akiyama’s brigade had moved Kuropatkin to reassess his current plan
of operations.
“We are in an unfavorable position,” he repeated, and concealing his real
intent he lied. “I have convened this council to hear your candid opinion
about our future strategy.”
But General Kaulbars, commander of the Second Army, was already
making preparations for the assault on the Japanese left wing, and he replied
after consulting with his chief of staff: “General, you are worrying too much.”
Declaring that this was the time to recall the saying that “attack is the best
form of defense,” he requested permission to attack the Japanese left wing
as planned. Kuropatkin found himself isolated, for not only General Linevich,
commander of the First Army, but even Major General Evert, the chief of
operations on his own staff, agreed with Kaulbars. In the end, the meeting
adjourned that day after reaffirming the existing strategy.

* * *
General Kuropatkin might be a better subject of study for a psychologist
than a scholar of military history. It was he who had wanted a rerun of the
battle of Heigoutai. To that end, his staff had drawn up a plan of operations,
which he himself had approved, and he had given the orders for a major
redeployment of troops. From start to finish, it had been his idea, and he
was the one who had carried this out. This was not an unpopular plan since
it had been greeted with enthusiasm by his staff and endorsed by his generals.
Yet he hesitated when the time came to put it into effect.
He began to feel apprehensive about where Nogi might appear, even
though this was by no means a new factor in the equation. He was also deeply
concerned by the damage that some units of Akiyama’s brigade, then at large,
had begun to inflict on transport links and other installments behind Russian
lines. Common sense would suggest that this level of activity by the enemy
cavalry was all part of the normal course of war, just as a fireman is only
there to put out fires.
But as we know, Kuropatkin’s delicate nerves did not allow him to take
this view. Instead, he had suddenly assembled his generals and done all he
could to persuade them to throw out his plans for a general assault on
Heigoutai. In the end, however, everyone present had been against this veiled
idea of cancelling the operation.
So as he adjourned the meeting, he had no option but to say, “Let’s go
ahead with the existing plan.”
14 battle
Kuropatkin had a reputation for being the brightest man in the Russian
Army, having once written up brilliant answers in an elegant hand to the
exam questions he faced at the Imperial Military College and subsequently
the Imperial Military Academy. In the field as well, he was always trying
to write up answers not so much in response to the enemy but to his own
questions. Perhaps that’s the idealistic approach.
On returning to Mukden after the war council on February 19, he kept
wrestling with his own thoughts and, unable to sleep that night, he eventually
rose in the early hours of the following morning and began writing
letters to each of his generals. In essence, these letters told them that he was
calling off the operation after all. Of course, he did not write down the
word “abandoned” as such. Being the strategist he was, he embellished the
sentences with all sorts of impressive tactical logic, and in that sense he was
every inch a genius of military studies.
“Having thought long and hard,” he wrote, “I believe Nogi’s army will
take one of two possible routes. It will either attack our left wing or advance
far behind our lines to the Ning’guta and Jilin area. In either case, the enemy’s
general reserve force will no doubt advance to the center around Fushun.”
In fact, such a force was practically non-existent, but Kuropatkin was
applying his own strategic logic and assumed the Japanese were keeping
several divisions in reserve. “This would pose a threat to our center, rendering
our plan of operations useless. Therefore, we have no option but to call off
implementation of our plan.”
This amounted to nothing more than the grumbling of an old woman. He
was just repeating elements that they already knew well enough and using
military terms to gloss over the fact that he was simply scared of opening
up a new front.

* * *
Even at this point, Kuropatkin could not bring himself to state flatly that he
was abandoning the plan. He felt obliged to add some embellishment, not
to protect the Russian Empire, but rather to protect his own position within
the establishment. He had at least to consider how he was going to explain
his timidity on this occasion in case it ever attracted the attention of the
imperial court.
He prepared a plan just to suit this future explanation. Soldiers would die
as a result, but that was always the fate of the soldier in a state controlled
by an autocrat (the tsar). Soldiers must die to protect the bureaucrats from
the whim of the dictator, and as soldiers in such a country, their deaths were
a matter of course. Their only consolation was that they died knowing they
 clouds above the hill 15
would be sent straight to heaven by the religious authority synonymous with
the tsar himself and expressed through the Russian Orthodox Church.
Kuropatkin wrote an explanation to each of his generals. “By cancelling
the plan we are not really abandoning it but just postponing the decisive
battle until March. That is when our reinforcements from European
Russia”—which Ōyama and Kodama feared above all—“will reach the front.
When they arrive, we will go on the offensive. In the meantime, if we do
nothing but wait, the morale of our troops will probably be shaken. We must
make a token attack that is just enough to raise their spirits. So we will attack
Sandepu. If we take Heigoutai as well, we will call a halt there and wait for
our reinforcements to arrive.”
Naturally, this letter threw the commanders of each Russian army at the
front into a state of confusion. They were all opposed to the idea.
To start with, Kuropatkin’s revised plan to wait until March was unrealistic
due to the situation on the ground. In March, there would be warm winds
blowing across the Manchurian plains, and the melting ice on the Hun and
other rivers would make crossings difficult. The roads would also be covered
in mud, making it impossible to transport gun carriages with any speed. They
all wanted orders to attack at once. Ōyama and Kodama would have agreed
with Kuropatkin’s generals on this point, for the main reason why they were
also planning a major offensive at this time was to strike before the ice
melted. Of course, they were unaware of each other’s plans.
General Kaulbars commanded the Second Army, the main force in the
Russian offensive, and he stuck firmly by the original plan, refusing to accept
Kuropatkin’s new proposal. In the end, the commander in chief bowed to
the pressure from his generals and decided to return to his original plan. In
the meantime, they had wasted several days. This lost time would deliver a
fatal blow to Kuropatkin’s operations.

* * *
Kuropatkin finally went ahead. The decision was taken for the Russian
offensive to commence on February 25. Afterward, it would emerge that
this was just two days after the Japanese planned attack. Details will follow,
but this attack was launched by the Army of the Yalu on February 23 when
it engaged the Russian left wing encamped around Qinghecheng. As a result
of this assault, the smoke from the battle of Mukden—the largest battle the
world had ever seen—would cover the sky over the days ahead.
No matter what would follow, the Russian Army certainly had a grand
plan of attack. The Second Army, heading for the Heigoutai area held by
Akiyama Yoshifuru, would first of all use the Eighth Division to launch an
16 battle
artillery attack. Their target was to be the field works at Sandepu held
by Colonel Toyobe under Yoshifuru’s command. This was defended by just
three thousand cavalry and infantry who were dug in, supported by three
machine guns and a few field guns. As a composite group of sharpshooting
troops would also assist the Eighth Division, this meant that fifty thousand
Russian troops would converge on the single village of Sandepu.
The Tenth Army Corps in the Second Army, with its force of over twenty
thousand men—the size of two divisions—was to attack another of
Yoshifuru’s positions at Yabatai, while Rennenkampf’s crack cavalry corps
drove on far behind the Japanese lines. Meanwhile, the Third Army would
support the Second Army’s assault on Sandepu, and, when the Tenth Army
Corps went on to attack Lidarentun (the village where Yoshifuru had his
headquarters), this would strike at Yoshifuru’s other weak positions in the
surrounding area such as at Guaqietai and Sanjiazi.
This was to be the overall framework, but throughout, of course, Akiyama
Yoshifuru had no idea of the Russians’ intentions. If this assault had been
put into effect, his life would probably have ended there and then at the age
of forty-seven. What saved him during the time he spent at Litairendun was
Ōyama and Kodama’s aggressive plan of attack. While Kuropatkin was
variously reconsidering, cancelling, and finally implementing his plans,
Yoshifuru was already in the process of embarking on an attacking maneuver
of his own, following new orders he had received from General Headquarters.
At this stage, Yoshifuru’s brigade was still attached to the Second Army
under the command of Oku Yasukata, but simultaneously he was ordered
to coordinate and protect the lines of communication of Nogi’s army, which
was moving forward from the Japanese left toward the Russian right wing.
It meant that his brigade was now in effect assigned to two different units
at the same time.
Yoshifuru’s orders from the headquarters of Oku’s army specified, “Your
mission is to facilitate communications between the Second and Third
Armies, support the left wing of the Second Army, and do everything
possible to assist the advance.” He was to advance as far forward as the right
bank of the Hun River. In addition, he had already received a memorandum
from Field Marshal Ōyama that read, “This battle is a contest between almost
the entire strength of our Imperial Army and the strongest force the enemy
can field in Manchuria. Whoever emerges victorious will be the master of
the whole campaign, so we really can call this the Sekigahara of the Russo-
Japanese War.”

* * *
 clouds above the hill 17
Kuropatkin had drawn up the perfect plan, going to the trouble of finalizing
the most thorough preparations for attack himself until he was completely
satisfied. “With this, the enemy’s weak left wing”—under Akiyama
Yoshifuru—“will collapse.” His unusually boastful tone underlined just
how supremely confident he felt. That confidence was to be crushed by a
single warning bell, the appearance of the Army of the Yalu.
To avoid any confusion over terms such as left and right wing, for this
battle of Mukden we will refer instead to the eastern and western fronts,
just as we did with the battle of Shaho. It goes without saying that the Russian
Army lay to the north and the Japanese Army to the south. As they faced
each other, the wings of both armies were spread far on either side to the
east and west. Just as the Russians were preparing to launch their full-scale
offensive on the western front (against the Japanese left wing under Akiyama
Yoshifuru), a warning bell began to ring from far beyond the tip of the eastern
front.
“It’s Nogi! It must be Nogi!” Kuropatkin immediately thought.
Unfortunately for Kuropatkin, Nogi’s real army was at this time moving
instead toward the western front, but he did not have the presence of mind
to foresee this.
Kuropatkin was convinced that Nogi must be approaching because, as a
strategist of such a nervous disposition, he was always obsessed by his
greatest fears whenever conducting his operations. He saw the one hundred
thousand men of Nogi’s army who had stormed Port Arthur as a formidable
reserve force. He used all the resources at his disposal to search and gather
intelligence, and throughout he fixed his thoughts on the single question of
the direction from which Nogi’s army would appear.
His misfortune, and that of the Russian Army, lay in this thought process
of his. He always moved in response to the enemy. He was always looking
at what the enemy would do. Despite his knowledge of military studies in
theory, he based his strategic thinking on defensive psychology when putting
these theories into practice in the war zone. With such an approach, the
enemy’s moves became his sole concern, and he was left at their mercy. In
short, his thinking was ruled by fear.
For Kuropatkin, Nogi’s army was a phantom enemy that took on a
monstrous form in his mind. This was the terrifying apparition that, he
imagined, had appeared in the mountainous terrain at the tip of the eastern
front. In reality, this was the First Standby Reserve Division of the newly
formed Army of the Yalu, which was filled with old veterans. These standby
reservists did not have the stamina of active servicemen in the regular
divisions, and having been rounded up and dragged to the war zone without
their wives and children, they had trouble keeping their spirits up. They were
18 battle
equipped, moreover, with old weapons and had only a primitive supply train.
Effectively, this was a second-rate army, which, after staggering along those
winding mountain paths, used its rifles and booming field guns to open fire
on the tip of the Russian Army’s left wing on the eastern front.
For Kuropatkin, this was no joke. He was gripped by such a sense of
terror that he rushed to change the grand plan he had drawn up for a general
offensive on the western front.

* * *
The maneuvers of the Army of the Yalu in the mountains on the eastern
front showed none of the animated spirit that the Japanese Army had
previously displayed in driving back the Russians on the Manchurian plains.
Although counted as one of the participating armies on paper, in reality, the
Army of the Yalu did not have sufficient fighting strength to allow it to be
thought of as an “army” at all. The Eleventh Division, the only troop of
active servicemen, still had not arrived from Port Arthur. Kawamura Kageaki,
who commanded this army, had only the First Standby Reserve Division at
his disposal. Consisting of veterans and many officers who were former one-
year volunteers, this division must have had less than half the fighting
strength of a real division.
The soldiers in the First Standby Reserve Division had been drafted from
southern Kyushu, and Ishikawa and Toyama Prefectures. Not only ill-
trained, they were not yet operating cohesively as a military unit since they
had been dragged to this war zone just a hundred days after their new division
had been formed. That this troop of standby reservists was now playing an
important role clearly shows how drained the Japanese Army had become.
And the troop was not playing just any role: they fired the first shots of the
battle of Mukden.
The First Standby Reserve Division began its maneuvers on February 19.
This was the day before the commanders of each army had assembled at
headquarters in Yantai to receive their orders. They had to mobilize before
anyone else because their field of operations was in such difficult
mountainous terrain.
The division consisted of two brigades of standby reservists. The com-
mander of the Sixth Standby Reserve Brigade was Colonel Kusaba Hikosuke.
Usually the command of a brigade was assigned to a major general, so to
have a colonel in charge was something of an exception. At headquarters,
Chief of Operations Matsukawa Toshitane shook his head as he wrote in his
diary, “These brigades of standby reservists are totally useless!”
The First Standby Reserve Division was under orders to attack
Qinghecheng. This mission alone was probably too demanding. The town
 clouds above the hill 19
of Qinghecheng was situated on a plain to the west of the mountains, and
enemy troops on the eastern tip of the Russian Army’s two grand wings
were encamped in the area. This force, known as the Qinghecheng Corps,
was under the command of Lieutenant General Mikhail Alexeyev. It
consisted mainly of the Fifth East Siberian Rifle Division (minus two of its
regiments) and the Seventy-first Infantry Division (under Major General
Eduard Ekk), and was supplemented by a large mixed force including the
bulk of the Transbaikal Cossack Brigade, the Siberian Combined Infantry
Brigade, some cavalry regiments, artillery troops, and engineers. They were
dug into semipermanent positions in the fields and hills outside Qinghecheng
with some strong emplacements arranged in a line around the mountains.
Just over ten thousand Japanese veterans, dragged there from the Hokuriku
region and villages of southern Kyushu, were supposed to attack these
major Russian defenses.

* * *
The veterans of the First Standby Reserve Division were marching along a
winding route through the mountains on the eastern front. Among the drafted
officers were some second lieutenants already in their forties and captains
over fifty years old. Having been suddenly hauled out of their settled civilian
life, they were so exhausted at the end of even a single day’s march that
they all were gasping for breath.
They also had no maps.
At Kawamura’s headquarters, they had a map that had been captured from
the enemy, although this was nothing more than a simple chart. Copies were
made and distributed to the regimental and battalion commanders. Everyone
else from the rank of company commander on down had to rely on a
compass to plot the direction of their advance.
The Russians did not have large numbers of troops in these mountains,
but the Japanese did encounter some enemy scout patrols in advanced
positions. Standby reservists though they were, with over ten thousand men
in their division, they were able to push back these small units one by one.
On February 21, the First Standby Reserve Division drove a small Russian
troop out of the village of Wanliuhe.
“Let’s stop and rest here for the day,” Major General Nakai Shigesue,
the division’s commander, said to his staff officers. Seeing how exhausted
these reservists looked, they all agreed. The action had lasted just three days,
but the men looked tired enough to have been in combat for a hundred.
Another reason for stopping was the danger of running ahead alone.
According to the plan, the First Standby Reserve Division was to coordinate
20 battle
operations with the Eleventh Division. While the First Standby Reserve
Division deployed on the right wing of the Army of the Yalu, the Eleventh
Division would take up a position on the left so they could combine to attack
Qinghecheng to the west. The Eleventh Division had not yet arrived in the
area, even though it had long since left Port Arthur. This prompted concerns
about pushing forward alone.
Meanwhile, the Eleventh Division with its core of regular troops from
Shikoku had experienced such bitter fighting in Port Arthur that it could
now be called a battle-hardened unit. Its supply train, however, lacked
enough pack horses or vehicles to transport all the provisions and ammuni-
tion, and so was not really equipped for a long-distance march up to the
eastern front. They managed somehow by hiring carriages and coolie labor
locally along the way, but all in all they marched forward in total disarray.
A Chinese informer working for the Russians who saw this procession
reported to Major General Ekk, “It was so long that if you saw the head of
the column in the morning you wouldn’t see its tail before dusk.”
The narrow path the Japanese division was negotiating through the
mountains apparently allowed packhorses to proceed only in single file. But
the report about this that Ekk forwarded to Kuropatkin left the impression
that there were three divisions, when there was actually only one.

* * *
The Army of the Yalu fired the first shots in the battle of Mukden. In the
mountains on the eastern front, the fighting lasted twenty days, and, although
hardly the most convincing display, the conflict was always intense,
demonstrating just how difficult the war was becoming for a Japanese army
clearly showing signs of exhaustion.

* * *
“If only the Eleventh Division were here now,” moaned the officers of the
First Standby Reserve Division as they waited for their comrades, who had
fought with such distinction at Port Arthur. Fortunately, the Eleventh
Division managed to overcome difficult conditions and arrived sooner than
expected; they began to deploy to their left on February 23.
That day, a blizzard swept across the mountains from morning onward,
and visibility was close to zero at times. The First Standby Reserve Division
had braved the snow at half past six in the morning and begun its advance,
reaching as far as Hejiadakou by one in the afternoon. The slopes were very
steep, and the division was caught between two small enemy units on the
high ground above them. By the time evening fell, they had made no further
headway because they were decimated by enemy fire.
 clouds above the hill 21
The main Russian encampment under Lieutenant General Alexeyev was
situated to the southeast of Qinghecheng. The Japanese Eleventh Division
mainly attacked this area, but even they were amazed by the unexpectedly
stubborn Russian resistance. Recalling their bitter recent experience, the
soldiers said, “This is just like Port Arthur.” They even started calling this
engagement “Little Port Arthur.” These men from Shikoku were by no means
weak in spirit, but the painful memory of Port Arthur still lingered,
dampening their resolve.
Of course, the Russian position was just a field fortification and nothing
like the permanent fortress at Port Arthur. Nevertheless, the Russians had
used all their expertise to make skillful use of the terrain when constructing
this base, and unleashing a fierce volley of gunfire, they inflicted heavy losses
as the Japanese Army approached. Even so, calling this “Little Port Arthur”
was an overstatement.
The high ground the Japanese took to calling Hachimakiyama did bear
some resemblance to 203-Meter Hill. A feature of Russian entrenchments
was to build two rings of concentric trenches girdling the summit and the
higher ground, and place defensive guns at strategic points. But the Japanese
soldiers whispered among themselves that this looked like 203-Meter Hill
because, once again, they were ordered to target an enemy position with a
bayonet charge and suffered the same sort of sacrifice as a result. Needless
to say, they were repelled. Incredibly, this bayonet charge involved the entire
troop strength of both the First Standby Reserve and Eleventh Divisions.
“Not again,” despaired the soldiers. More than a year after the outbreak
of the war, the division’s staff officers had become set in their ways, and
their tactics had settled into the same familiar “form.” This had been rolled
out with predictable regularity in every combat ever since. It was the soldiers,
of course, who were the victims of this “form.”

* * *
Speaking of “form,” an army and the way an army behaves in combat are
essentially all about formations. After the Russo-Japanese War, it became
the custom to train as staff officers those men who could remember the
greatest variety of formations. Textbooks that were based on battle orders
issued during the war also set the tone for education on strategy at the
Army War College. Absurdly enough, and what was unthinkable in other
fields, military circles saw nothing abnormal about employing the same
“formations” from the Russo-Japanese War right up to the Pacific War.
The British staff officer who preempted and crushed the Imphal offensive
toward the end of the Pacific War said, “The Japanese have a curious army.
22 battle
The most foolish men among them wear the sashes of staff officers.” A
military man is a slave of form, and it is something that does not disappear
until the army and the state system it represents also fade. A man who actually
creates new forms is a genius, and indeed Napoleon’s fame as a strategist
was founded on the formations that he devised. He used them to carry all
before him in Europe, and, when they no longer proved effective against his
enemies, both he and his formations were overthrown.
In the case of this attack on the Russian position southeast of Qinghecheng,
the man who noticed that the “form” did not work was not Lieutenant Colonel
Saitō Rikisaburō, chief of staff of the crack Eleventh Division, but Lieutenant
Colonel Hashimoto Shōtarō, chief of staff of the First Standby Reserve
Division, a unit that had been derided as a troop of old men.
“We are losing too many men to no effect with all these frontal assaults,”
he complained, and since he had been assigned to such a weak division he
tried to work out what course would enable even weak soldiers to win. That
was why he advanced to the front to reconnoiter the lay of the land and the
Russian positions. He managed to find an area of dead ground not covered
by the enemy’s guns. Aware of the importance of using covering fire for
his troops during any assault, he laid careful plans in consultation with
Lieutenant Colonel Yamaoka Shigetoshi, commander of the Artillery
Regiment. The assault resumed at daybreak on February 24. First, the troops
on the left wing advanced. Carrying hand grenades, the men were under
orders simply to take out the enemy’s supporting gun battery. The Japanese
artillery gave them plenty of covering fire. Using this approach, they easily
attacked and destroyed the Russian battery.
While these troops attacked on the left wing, the main force also advanced
with covering fire from four machine guns. This kept the enemy fire at bay
as a company charged forward into the area of dead ground. The Eleventh
Division to their left continued its attack in the time-honored fashion used
at Port Arthur, finally managing to overrun this “203-Meter Hill” after six
hours of fighting.
After that, it was easy going. The Russians abandoned each of their
positions and fell back on Qinghecheng. When the Japanese went on to attack
the town itself, they found that the enemy had set fire to the buildings during
the night and withdrawn to a new line at Daling to the northwest. This was
very much the Russian style of fighting. At Daling, they built new positions,
challenging the Japanese Army to risk even further casualties.

* * *
Too small to really merit the description of an “army” and with morale not
what you could call high, the Army of the Yalu managed to sustain overall
 clouds above the hill 23
forward momentum. Still, skirmishes continued after taking the small town
of Qinghecheng, and some units were driven back, while others were held
up when they came under enemy fire.
From time to time, this determination not to lose forward momentum could
be a tragic flaw of the Japanese military, but it was also this alone, rather
than firepower or troop strength, that sustained the army as a whole during
the course of the Russo-Japanese War.
After the fall of Qinghecheng, Commander Kawamura Kageaki gave out
orders to “Advance and occupy Maqundan,” and on February 26 the Eleventh
Division began marching in that direction. On the way, they had to negotiate
a number of defensive positions laid by the Seventy-first Infantry Division
under Major General Ekk. At eight o’clock in the evening, as they were
resting in their camp, the soldiers of the Eleventh Division were suddenly
alarmed by the sound of a great cheer that went up from the Russian Army
in the highlands ahead of them. “Hurrah! Hurrah!” the Russians were crying
out over and over again from their own encampments on those hills. The
leaders of the Army of the Yalu could not understand why this was
happening.
In fact, the Russian Seventy-first Infantry Division had just been informed
that Commander in Chief Kuropatkin was dispatching Rennenkampf’s corps,
the largest mobile force at his disposal, as a relief force. The Russian troops
on the eastern front were saved.
Yet it was precisely this action of Kuropatkin’s that would reduce the
chances of victory for the Russian Army in Manchuria.
“Nogi’s army of one hundred thousand has appeared on our left wing”—
this illusion in Kuropatkin’s mind had prompted him to amend his plan of
operations, give new orders, and redeploy. That was why the cries of
“Hurrah!” rose from the Russian soldiers on the eastern front.
After taking this step, Kuropatkin also told his chief of staff, “Sakharov,
Rennenkampf’s corps alone is not enough.”
Sakharov did not agree. “I think it’s enough for what is required,” he
said, but he did not press the matter any further. That would have only led
to an argument. In the Japanese Army, the two military functions of command
and strategic planning were separated from the divisional level upward so
that, for example, Ōyama was in overall command and Kodama in control
of tactics. In the Russian Army, the commander in chief also had a clear
tactical role. As far as Sakharov was concerned, Kuropatkin was his superior
officer. When Kuropatkin voiced his opinion on tactics, Sakharov just had
to bow to his authority.

* * *
24 battle
Sakharov could not help thinking that, unquestionably, Rennenkampf’s
corps was quite enough to reinforce their left wing (on the eastern front). If
they sent any further troops, it would fundamentally undermine their plan
of operations to strike at the Japanese Army’s left wing (on the western front).
Kuropatkin, however, insisted. Since he had the final say, there was no
control mechanism within the Russian Army command structure to stay his
hand when he made what everyone saw was a tactical error. The same could
be said of Rozhestvensky, admiral of the Baltic Fleet, and if extended to the
state level, of the whole tsarist system.
Looking back after the event, it is difficult to understand exactly why
Kuropatkin moved one-fifth of his entire troop strength to the eastern front.
In order to confront the challenge posed by the two divisions of the meager
Army of the Yalu, he sent not only Rennenkampf’s corps as the first
contingent of reinforcements, but also the Siberian First and Seventy-second
Divisions, and two infantry regiments as well. Since this weakened the
Russians’ strategic reserve force, the Siberian Sixteenth Army Corps had to
be withdrawn from the front line.
Even if Kuropatkin’s guess had been correct, and Nogi’s one hundred
thousand men were really on the eastern front, his response was still
excessive. His original plan had been to launch a general offensive against
the Japanese Army’s left wing (on the western front). His new strategy was
probably close to rejecting or undermining this original plan altogether.
His action was justifiable not so much in terms of tactical logic but in
order to settle his nerves. He suspected that Nogi’s aim was to cut off the
Russians’ line of retreat.
Because the Japanese Army placed much value on forward momentum,
they would have found Kuropatkin’s plan of operations for the grand
offensive on Sandepu hard to understand: he had incorporated a contingency
plan for withdrawing in the eventuality of a Russian defeat. If the Russians
lost this battle of Mukden, Kuropatkin’s intention was to retreat north to
Tieling. In Kuropatkin’s view, the movements of Nogi’s army (actually the
Army of the Yalu) indicated that the enemy was trying to wheel behind the
Russian lines and strike there. This obsessive mindset was the only
conceivable reason why Kuropatkin would decide to move such a large force
to the eastern front.
For the Army of the Yalu on the ground, this new development was a
terrible calamity. A huge Russian force appeared in front of their own weak
contingents, and a desperate struggle against heavy odds was soon underway.
Yet the Army of the Yalu was somehow spared total obliteration because
Kuropatkin kept vacillating from one side to the other, rushing his huge
 clouds above the hill 25
Russian force back to its original position when he discovered the actual
Nogi’s army bearing down on his right wing.

* * *
This is how the Japanese forces lined up from right to left: Fifth Army
(Kawamura)—also called “Army of the Yalu”; First Army (Kuroki); Fourth
Army (Nozu); Second Army (Oku); and Third Army (Nogi).
While the Third (Nogi) and Fifth (Kawamura) Armies went ahead with
their long-distance outflanking maneuvers on either side to strike behind the
enemy lines, the armies under Kuroki, Nozu, and Oku in the center would
launch a frontal attack. Given the Russians’ superior firepower and troop
strength, and also their formidable defenses at strategic points, this was not
a battle the Japanese could even remotely hope to win. It was a perilous
venture, for only by employing aggressive tactics and steeling themselves
for huge casualties could they even gain a marginal victory.
And even in the unlikely event they somehow won, both Ōyama and
Kodama were resigned to losing their entire fighting strength in Manchuria.
This was why Kodama Gentarō had devised a grand scheme—and kept
reminding leaders in Tokyo about it—to open peace negotiations after the
battle in order to end the Russo-Japanese War. He was trying to buy a
diplomatic victory with blood—hardly a sweet success. Fundamentally, he
did not believe that the Russo-Japanese War could be resolved with a purely
military victory.
Even after the Russo-Japanese War actually started, Kodama never lost
sight of his commonsense judgment that the Japanese simply had no chance
of beating the Russians. He went ahead anyway on the premise that Japan
would be destroyed unless they at least did something. If they somehow
managed to scrape through with a marginal victory, they could appeal to
sympathetic states to use their diplomatic weight to end the war.
At any rate, the field campaign so far had been what Kodama called a
marginal victory. But after more than a year of fighting, Japan’s capacity to
pursue the war had now reached the breaking point. Regardless of whether
they won or lost an encounter that was unprecedented in world military
history, their fighting strength would no doubt be totally spent by the time
the dust settled on the battle of Mukden.
Kodama could rely only on the blood of his own soldiers in order to win
this battle. Once the plan of operations was in place, he thought only of how
to ensure that none of the units retreated, no matter how bitter the fighting
became, and just kept moving forward until they had won on points, so to
speak.
* * *
26 battle
In any military operation, the morale of the soldiers is bound to plummet
unless they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. With the battle of
Mukden ahead, the five Japanese Army commanders could see a flicker of
weak light. At the same time, they knew full well there would be some brutal
fighting along the way.
This was conspicuously so in the case of Nogi Maresuke. The strategic
objective he had been assigned was a long-distance march to outflank the
enemy’s right wing, and then he was supposed to wheel around to attack
the Russian rear guard. He saw the tragic nature of his mission since his
entire army would surely be sacrificed in the process.
“Nogi’s one-hundred-thousand-man army.” This was the figure in
Kuropatkin’s head, but actually in Nogi’s real army just over thirty-four
thousand men fought in the battle of Mukden. The breakdown was as
follows: First Division (Tokyo), 10,516 men; Seventh Division (Asahikawa),
9,229 men; Ninth Division (Kanazawa), 11,428 men; Second Cavalry
Brigade, 1,135 men; Second Artillery Brigade, 2,099 men.
During the operation, a combined troop consisting mainly of Akiyama
Yoshifuru’s First Cavalry Brigade was also placed temporarily under Nogi’s
command. The casualty figures after the battle clearly show how demanding
this mission was for Nogi’s army. Not including Akiyama’s brigade, the
dead and wounded amounted to more than six hundred officers and seventeen
thousand soldiers. Thus, the army lost roughly half of its total strength. These
figures point to a situation close to defeat. It is not clear how many casualties
the Japanese inflicted on the enemy, but they found fifteen thousand
abandoned bodies and took three thousand men prisoner, and so the Russian
losses were not small either. Yet, despite what Kuropatkin may have thought,
the losses were not necessarily very large by any objective standard, given
the overall size of the Russian Army.
Some units of Nogi’s army such as the Ninth Division, which fought a
series of fierce battles in rapid succession, sustained losses that amounted
to near annihilation. Less than a third of its officers emerged unscathed, and
two-thirds of its soldiers were lost, with total casualties amounting to 6,249
men. Composed of troops recruited from the regimental districts of
Kanazawa, Toyama, Tsuruga, and Sabae, this division had already suffered
terrible losses at Port Arthur, and its depleted ranks had only recently been
restored with the arrival of reinforcements from Japan. Yet it once again
sustained so much damage that collapse was imminent.
As Tsunoda Koreshige, a staff officer in the Third Army, wrote afterward,
“By the end of the battle of Mukden, Nogi’s army was totally spent.”
Wherever Nogi went, some tragic outcome seemed sure to follow.
* * *
 clouds above the hill 27
While the Army of the Yalu continued fighting on the eastern front, Nogi
Maresuke, in command of the Third Army on the western front, had yet to
make a move. He had caught a cold.
On February 23, he was running a high temperature, and by the following
day his fever was so severe that he was barely conscious. On the twenty-
fifth, however, his temperature dropped, and he felt better. Just as members
of his staff were beginning to breathe easily again, a report arrived with the
good news: “The Army of the Yalu has taken Qinghecheng.”
Thinking that his army must march at once, Nogi sent a telegram to
General Headquarters requesting permission to move. This was entirely his
decision. The telegram he received in reply ordered him to advance on the
twenty-seventh. At nine o’clock in the morning on February 27, Nogi’s entire
army began to move.
The plains were still frozen, and they faced a constantly howling
wind. Every unit began advancing toward its designated target. The Second
Cavalry Brigade under Major General Tamura Hisai thundered toward
Shaohuangqipu, the First Division under Lieutenant General Iida Shunsuke
marched toward Liujianfang, the Seventh Division under Lieutenant General
Ōsako Naotoshi marched toward Maoertou, and the Second Artillery Brigade
moved in the direction of Haojiagangzi.
Yet the Ninth Division, which would suffer the heaviest sacrifice of all,
remained in place and began its preparations for battle. This division would
play a pivotal role in providing support at the hub of this difficult outflanking
maneuver. Over the next few days, fighting continued on a small scale against
some enemy outposts.
On the morning of March 1, the third day of battle, a deep, earthshaking
rumble of gunfire was heard to the east. This was the day the whole Japanese
Army went on the offensive. Furthest to the east, the Army of the Yalu
continued its advance, supported by Kuroki’s army as it began its own frontal
assault in the center, while in the center the artillery of Nozu’s and Oku’s
armies used all their firepower to bombard the enemy positions there.
Nogi’s army continued to move.
From around two o’clock in the afternoon, the fighting grew more intense
as the Japanese encountered increasing enemy resistance. The Russians had
noticed that something was afoot on the western front and their Second
Manchurian Army, which was defending this wing, rushed to address the
problem. Kuropatkin had previously mistaken the Army of the Yalu for Nogi
when it attacked the eastern front and had responded by moving a large force
there. But in Mukden he realized that Nogi’s real army had struck on the
western front instead.
28 battle
He told himself that now that they knew where Nogi really was, there
was nothing to fear. This time, he was not in the least bit alarmed and began
making preparations to move much of the strategic reserve force, which had
been deployed in the east, back to the western front. Whenever he launched
an offensive, Kuropatkin was so high-strung that he became practically
neurotic, but when it came to responding to an enemy attack he was a
different man, self-composed and defiant as he marshaled his defenses with
aplomb.

* * *
On March 1, the third day of Nogi’s advance north, the fighting became
truly intense. Nogi was impatient to make rapid headway, but his staff officers
kept receiving telephone calls from headquarters berating the Third Army
for being so slow. Ever since Port Arthur, General Headquarters had held
an extremely low opinion of Nogi’s abilities, and they were quite arrogant
in all their messages as they tried to spur his army on.
“Why isn’t the Ninth Division moving?” someone from headquarters
barked at one of Nogi’s staff officers over the telephone that day.
As far as Nogi’s staff officers were concerned, the Ninth Division’s role
was to give support to the army’s outflanking maneuver and advance only
when the other units had reached their designated targets. But headquarters
picked holes in this plan, and the only response they sent over the wire was
“Don’t try to be so smart!”
Even Nogi, who always followed orders from headquarters, turned red
with fury when he heard about this conversation afterward. His staff officers
took out their anger on the Ninth Division and reprimanded the subordinate
officers, “Stop sitting around daydreaming!”
These men of the Ninth were in an impossible situation. Nogi’s staff
officers themselves had given specific orders for their division to stay put
at the hub of the maneuver. But on the same day, the Seventh Division
advanced so far to the west that its lines of communication with the Ninth
Division were broken.
“Why didn’t the staff officers of the Ninth Division use their own
judgment and advance without waiting for orders from headquarters?”
Stung by this dressing down from General Headquarters, Nogi’s staff
officers took their revenge by lashing out at the Ninth Division’s
headquarters. As the fighting grew more intense, such hysterical demands
flowed frequently and mercilessly from the higher command to the lower-
level command posts.
“What can they possibly know, sitting so far from the battleground?”
junior staff officers invariably shouted back.
 clouds above the hill 29
At three o’clock in the afternoon, the Ninth Division moved forward,
advancing in a manner that epitomized the Japanese Army of this time. They
marched across the flat, snow-covered plain that gleamed like a mirror, and
not even a mouse scurrying across this white surface could have hoped to
escape the gaze of the Russian soldiers on the high ground above. Under
attack from highly accurate enemy gunfire, the 11,428 men of the
Ninth Division just kept on marching forward in an orderly file as if they
were still on the parade ground. The Russian shells were, in particular,
concentrated on the route of the Ninth Artillery Regiment. These soldiers
had begun their march some 4 kilometers away from the enemy, and after
advancing 2.5 kilometers they managed to reach their goal. Along the way,
their regimental commander, an officer named Ujida Toranosuke, was
suddenly blown to pieces by an exploding Russian shell. When the flash of
light and smoke cleared, there was no sign of either Ujida or the horse he
had been riding. Another soldier immediately took up the command, and
the file kept marching forward without even breaking step.

* * *
In writing this account, our general policy has been to exclude any graphic
descriptions of fighting, but here I will briefly offer two or three eyewitness
accounts to give a full sense of the battle of Mukden. The first is from a
soldier’s notebook.
Tobita Teishirō (a farmer) was an artillery engineer second class from
the village of Kamedake, in Nita, Shimane Prefecture, and he died on
November 24, 1942, at age sixty. He had enlisted in the Okayama Engineer
Battalion when he was twenty and immediately went to war. He disembarked
at the port of Dalian in May 1904, and thereafter he faithfully kept a
campaign diary which he wrote in pencil in a little handmade notebook.
His education extended only to primary school in his local village, and
his writing style has a stout, rustic air that calls to mind the world of an
obscure young commoner at that time. His engineering battalion was attached
to the Fifth Division (in Oku’s army), which was from Hiroshima and under
the command of Lieutenant General Kigoshi Yasutsuna. Oku’s army held
the center together with Kuroki’s and Nozu’s armies. The Fifth Division
received its orders on February 26.
There is just a single line in Engineer Second Class Tobita’s diary entry
for that day.

February 26. Snow. We gathered at 0830 hours and carried on with

yesterday’s construction work.
30 battle
The previous day, they had advanced close to the front line at Liutiaokou
and started building an observation platform for the artillery. They were
carrying on with this task. As it turned out, their labors were totally unrelated
to the battle of Mukden since the order they received on the twenty-sixth
transformed the Fifth Division’s mission. Tobita’s diary entry for the next
day shows that work on the platform was abandoned.

February 27. Fine. Sudden order. Gathered at 0540 hours. Our Third
Company received orders to provide support to the artillery.

They were in Liutiaokou, and this is how Tobita described the fighting that
day.

At 0800 hours our guns opened fire. The enemy promptly responded and
fired back. When I took out my mess tin at lunch, I found that the bitter
cold overnight had frozen the rice as hard as a pebble. It was difficult to
eat, but I had no choice but to try to nibble the edges. Then we had to dig
out a path for our field guns, so we carried our tools to the target area
around the artillery commander’s trench. But while we were digging a path
from there into the next field, we must have been spotted by the enemy
because suddenly five or six shrapnel shells exploded over our heads. We
did not suffer any casualties though, and while we were there the artillery
opened fire so we stopped our digging.

Afterward, as the engineering battalion took cover close by and rested,

Engineer Second Class Tobita read a letter from home. By the time he
finished reading, twenty shells from the enemy’s heavy guns had exploded
within a 10-meter radius around him.
Next are some excerpts from the diary of a platoon leader, Infantry First
Lieutenant Inokuma Keiichirō, who was from the village of Shirosatoi,
Gumma, Gumma Prefecture. Born in 1883, he was twenty-three years old
by Japanese count. He had graduated from the Army Academy at the time
war broke out and became an officer attached to a company in the First
Infantry Regiment (Tokyo). He died of illness soon after the war, but
throughout the campaign he kept a diary in his large notebook. This was a
substantial document, the equivalent of more than four hundred pages of a
standard writing pad with four hundred characters per page.
His regiment was attached to the First Division (Tokyo), which was part
of Nogi’s army as it went on its long outflanking march toward the far side
of Mukden. In describing the weather on February 26, the day his division
 clouds above the hill 31
received the order to advance, Tobita only mentioned snow, but Inokuma’s
diary provides more detail.

On the twenty-sixth, snow fell heavily all day, settling to a depth of about
7 or 8 inches. As far as I could see in every direction, the plain of Manchuria
was a featureless, silver world. This evening we received orders for a general
advance. The Manchurian Army is to attack Mukden starting from the
twenty-eighth. So our Third Army is under orders to threaten the enemy’s
right flank and rear guard by marching all the way around to the northwest
of Mukden.

They each seem to have set off wearing just one winter overcoat to keep
out the cold. The clothes issued to Japanese soldiers to keep them warm
were very rough, and apart from their one overcoat, they had just a single
woolen blanket and padded woolen undershirt. But as Nogi’s army had to
march the greatest distance of all, they needed to lighten their equipment
further. Before they set off, the soldiers were required to hand in their blankets
and vests to the commissariat.
Inokuma’s regiment from Tokyo started out from its billeting area on
February 27 at four o’clock in the afternoon so that they could march
through the night. The snow had all but stopped, but having fallen continually
the previous day it lay thick on the ground, burying the soldiers’ legs as they
made their way forward. On February 28, the sky was clear.

At 0730 hours we suddenly heard lots of gunfire. Some large shells fell all
around our army, and just a single shot immediately caused seven
casualties.

Because Nogi’s army was trying to outflank the enemy, there were no direct,
all-out engagements. When they were discovered by a small troop of the
Cossack corps guarding the Russian right wing, the sudden bombardment
demonstrated just how mobile the Russian cavalry could be. Russian sources
show that the troop was part of the detachment under Major General
Aleksandr Grekov, attached to the Second Army, and was equipped with
cavalry guns.
While on patrol duty, the Cossack troop scanned in all directions from
the top of a ridge and became aware of the advance of Nogi’s army. As
cavalrymen, they were supposed to just withdraw and report on what they
had found, but before pulling back, they covertly drew their guns up in a
line and fired off a few rounds in quick succession. They promptly halted
their fire and disappeared from view. According to Inokuma’s diary, the
32 battle
Japanese artillery responded by drawing up their own gun battery, but by
the time they started firing, the Russian cavalry and guns had vanished.

* * *
“The quality of the soldiers has deteriorated,” First Lieutenant Inokuma wrote
during the long march of Nogi’s army. In the early days of the attack on
Port Arthur, the First Regiment had consisted entirely of regular servicemen.
As casualties mounted, reserve conscripts were drafted to replace them. Very
large numbers of these reinforcements had joined Nogi’s army while it was
recovering its strength for the long march north.
The soldiers who had been around since Port Arthur wore old and battle-
worn clothes, so these fresh recruits with their new caps and uniforms were
instantly recognizable. Because they had been rushed to the war zone after
just three months of intensive training with a division still stationed in Japan,
they had not yet acquired the army discipline found in seasoned soldiers.
“Just rabble, that’s all they are!” thought First Lieutenant Inokuma
whenever he saw them. He might become thirsty at times while on the march
but, with his full year of experience in the field behind him, he had developed
firm beliefs. “A soldier is made as he learns to put up with hardship, hunger,
and thirst. Even if a soldier possesses superb technique or great knowledge,
he is totally useless without this grounding.”
The reinforcements in their new uniforms could not bear their thirst and
resorted to scooping up snow lying beside the road. Anyone who ate or drank
this dangerous Manchurian snow or water was liable to come down with
dysentery. The more men who fell ill and had to be evacuated from the front,
the weaker the army became. So soldiers wearing old uniforms would never
eat anything like snow, no matter how thirsty they became.
Whenever the noncommissioned officers acting as platoon leaders saw
soldiers eating snow, they ordered them to stop. But the officers could not
keep watch constantly, and so the soldiers managed to eat the snow all the
same.
In his diary, a horrified Inokuma deplored the effect these reinforcements
were having on the Japanese Army’s prospects. “No better than a flock of
crows, these reserve conscripts now make up the bulk of our army.”
Looking at this young first lieutenant’s lament from the opposite point
of view, one might have said that, yes, the inclusion of these weaker troops
indeed slackened army discipline, but their sins amounted to nothing more
than eating snow. This hand-wringing about the fate of the nation over such
a small matter shows the high quality of the Japanese troops that had
managed to survive the early stages of the war and still made up half the
army.
 clouds above the hill 33
The advance of Nogi’s army in this first stage of the operation had been
so rapid that the baggage train of packhorses could hardly keep up. The
following evening, as the reserve conscripts were eating snow and disturbing
this young first lieutenant, the entire regiment went hungry. It was the middle
of the night before the baggage train arrived with their provisions, so
the regiment ate their meal from the previous evening at two o’clock in the
morning, barely catching any sleep before they resumed their march two
hours later.

* * *
The Japanese had seized the initiative in the battle of Mukden, but the Russian
armies, already in the process of redeploying according to Kuropatkin’s
plans, also managed to respond promptly with some time to spare.
On the third day of battle, the gunfire on both sides grew more intense.
The 1,200 Russian and 990 Japanese guns began to roar and explosions split
the heavens; most deafening of all were the shells from the heavy guns
soaring through the air like countless trains racing across the sky. Even Nogi’s
army, which persistently complained of insufficient firepower and kept
lobbying headquarters for more, was hauling 140 guns on its march north.
But the enemy standing in Nogi’s way, the Russian Second Manchurian
Army, had 452 guns of its own. After spotting Nogi’s approach, this army
quickly shifted its artillery positions to check the Japanese advance.
Here we will comment on the artillery used in the battle of Mukden. For
artillery support, the Japanese Army was short of both guns and ammunition,
so Ōyama and Kodama tried to concentrate them in strategic points. From
the outset, their strategy was to use firepower as far as possible in the center,
and that was why the most guns were given to Nozu’s army, which was
positioned there. Especially in the early stages of the battle, the infantry of
Nozu’s, Oku’s, and Kuroki’s armies did not move, and only the artillery
was really active. The only infantry on the move was the Army of the Yalu,
advancing on the eastern front, and Nogi’s army in the west. The armies in
the center just sat tight and used firepower alone to try to overawe the enemy.
They hoped this grand bombardment would have several effects. First, it
would concentrate Kuropatkin’s focus on the center. Second, the armies on
either wing (Yalu and Nogi) might find it easier to move. The third effect
was more direct: they would have to use shells to carve open the shield of
concrete and frozen ground protecting the partially fortified Russian positions
in the center.
“We’ll use our guns to hammer them as hard as we can.” Matsukawa
Toshitane, who had drawn up the plan of operations, said this repeatedly to
describe what was to come. He was the one responsible for transforming
34 battle
the ordinary word “hammer” into a military term. Matsukawa often used
that word, and, whenever he did, he would strike the desk with his fist,
sometimes with such force that his pen stand overturned.

* * *
The Japanese Army’s only field gun was the Arisaka Type 31, which was
officially called the “quick-firing field gun.” The guns used by the Japanese
Army in the First Sino-Japanese War ten years earlier were—though this is
hard to believe—made of bronze. This was the only army in the world still
using a medieval material like bronze for its standard guns. The Japanese
used these antiquated weapons because of the chaos the military had endured
in the decades since the Meiji Restoration.
To wage a war, you must have iron. In years to come, oil would also be
added to the list. For a country like Japan, where these natural resources
were practically nonexistent, it was basically impossible to dream of
becoming a modern military power. In the years following the Meiji
Restoration, the ideas behind the slogan “Revere the Emperor, Expel the
Barbarians,” which had so shaken the preceding age, were harnessed by the
new state to promote strengthening the national defense. This created the
need for guns.
Krupp guns were therefore purchased from Germany, and for the time
being these were used as the army’s standard weapons. This was meant to
be only a temporary measure, since the high command was doubtful that
they could ever truly build an army with foreign-made guns and ammunition.
In 1878, an army council was convened on the subject of artillery reform.
It confirmed the fundamental policy that guns should be built at home, using
domestic resources and native factories. Because the iron ore required to
produce guns did not exist in Japan, the conclusions of the panel did not
satisfy the army command but rather had the opposite effect of disturbing
them still further.
An unexpected letter arrived at the Army Ministry. This was from a French
artillery officer named Jules Brunet, who had spent some time in Japan when
he was sent by Napoleon III’s government to serve as a military advisor to
the old shogunate government. “Japan has plenty of copper. Why don’t you
make bronze guns instead?” he suggested. Brunet also told them that a new
bronze gun had just been developed in Italy.
The Army Ministry, which had been plagued with worry over the question
of iron ore, received his proposal as if it had been uttered by their savior.
The machinery needed to produce this gun was immediately imported from
Italy and installed at an arsenal in Osaka, where several prototype guns were
 clouds above the hill 35
made. They experimented with these by loading and firing Krupp shells,
and were pleased with the results.
The artillery committee agreed that “these new guns are really excellent”
because, in the late 1870s, there was little thought of launching any overseas
campaigns. The “excellent” guns had a muzzle velocity of 420 meters per
second and a maximum range of just 5,000 meters. By comparison, the
German Rheinmetall field gun with the same 75-millimeter caliber had a
muzzle velocity of 700 meters per second and a maximum range of 14,000
meters. So the Japanese gun really was just a toy. But this was the bronze
gun they used to fight the First Sino-Japanese War.
The bronze guns produced as a result of this strange but typically Meiji-
style logic proved useful enough in the First Sino-Japanese War. It was not
that the Chinese artillery had inferior weapons. In fact, they used Krupp guns,
considered the most advanced in the world and incomparably better than the
Japanese Army’s pieces. The Chinese soldiers, however, were so awestruck
by the power of the shrapnel fired by the Japanese bronze guns that they
took to calling them “heavenly shells.”
The reason for this is not entirely clear. Perhaps it was because the
Japanese were using the powerful smokeless explosive the army had
developed in 1888. This was too volatile to be really suitable for use with
these bronze weapons and frequently caused their barrels to crack, but when
shells were successfully fired, their destructive power had a great effect on
the enemy. Even so, they could not be called superior to Krupp shells, so
the Chinese soldiers may have been so impressed with these “heavenly
shells” because of the war-weariness pervading their ranks. After all, these
were ethnic Han Chinese, struggling to understand why they should die
fighting for a foreign Manchu court toward which they felt no loyalty.
The bronze field gun that roared during the First Sino-Japanese War was
phased out in 1899 and replaced by the new Arisaka Type 31 quick-firing
field gun, which became the standard weapon. This gun, the main field gun
used in the Russo-Japanese War, was produced after buying examples of
the best guns from around the world and testing them to compare their relative
strengths and weaknesses.
In terms of muzzle velocity alone, there was great variation among these
sample weapons. While one was 550 meters per second, others like the Krupp
model were only about 440. But the gun with a 550-meter muzzle velocity
had a suspect fuse system, and the loading mechanism was also poor. The
Krupp gun had a slow muzzle velocity, but it had the most rapid fire at seven
rounds a minute; its fuse and loading mechanisms were also sound. The
British Armstrong gun, which had won such a fearsome reputation around
36 battle
the world during the early years of Meiji, had undergone several improve-
ments in recent years, but this could only fire three rounds per minute, the
slowest rate of all the top-class guns in the world.
This process of acquiring information shows how technology developed
in Japan. The desire to produce world-class machinery within thirty years
of the Meiji Restoration naturally led to imitation. Japanese acquired the
best examples to be found anywhere, and then examined the strengths and
weaknesses to create a product made in Japan.
Though a safe approach, there was a fatal flaw. In contrast to technology
created from scratch, this process never improved on the existing level
of the product in question. Inevitably, Japan sometimes lagged behind the
world standard. To develop the Arisaka Type 31 gun, for example, the
“world’s best guns” had been purchased in 1896. The experiments and trials
took time. By the time the Arisaka Type 31 was designated the standard
field gun in 1899, other countries were already one or two steps ahead in
developing their own new ideas. Within the Japanese Army, this method of
acquiring technology was handed down for so long after this that it became
ingrained in the system.

* * *
But let’s get back to the subject of the artillery used in the battle of Mukden.
In June 1899, the Army Ministry announced, “The new weapon is to be
called the Arisaka Type 31 quick-firing field gun.” By the standards of the
day, this was by no means a superior weapon. The old Murata Type 22 rifle
that the Japanese Army had used was, by comparison, impressive even by
international standards. But it was not so much a case of the Arisaka Type
31 being technically inferior; rather its use exposed the military officials’
narrow-minded, traditional approach to machinery.
This was apparent in the odd, self-imposed restraint military officials
revealed when they would say, “This will do for Japan.” Economy, in short,
characterized the entire Japanese Army from the time it was first formed.
As its structure, strength, and equipment showed, the army had never really
been designed as an expeditionary force since the creation of the first
garrisons in early Meiji and through the 1870s. Rather, the army had existed
solely to suppress internal revolts. This basic premise created an entity
different from the armies in Europe.
We have described how military thinking in the 1880s was transformed
by the new “Prussian-style system” devised at the army’s invitation by Major
Jacob Meckel. The Prussian attitude, which had developed from always
viewing neighboring France as the potential enemy, came to dominate the
minds of military men in Japan and allowed no room for independent
 clouds above the hill 37
thought. From then on, they all became predisposed to foreign expeditions,
whether they were even aware of this or not.
Yet as far as equipment was concerned, the old outlook from the garrison
period, when the Japanese Army was entirely focused on keeping down
trouble at home, survived. “These weapons will do for Japan,” military
officials continued to say. This subconscious sense of frugality persisted right
up until the destruction of the Japanese Army in 1945. It later gave rise to
a curious tradition derived from the gallant but eccentric illusion—and one
reminiscent of the aesthetics of tea ceremony—that they could somehow
compensate for their shortage of firepower with their fighting spirit alone.
Such a metaphysical approach, of course, did not yet exist at the time of the
Russo-Japanese War.
The point is—the attitude behind the production of this poor Arisaka Type
31 field gun had its origins in a Japanese Army that had started life in
garrisons and did not venture outside the country to fight in foreign
campaigns. Again, the new weapon was based on a comparison of the best
guns purchased in 1896 from various countries. Already behind the times
because they started with 1896 models, the officials did not combine the
strengths of each weapon but instead always settled for the middle ground.
The muzzle velocity was above average but still only 490 meters per second.
The rate of fire, so critically important for a field gun, was the worst of those
tested. Compared with the six or seven rounds per minute that was then the
norm, this gun could fire only three. This strange limitation seems to have
been the result of the parsimony of army officials who downplayed their
own country’s strength and said, “Japan does not have vast supplies of shells,
so there is no point in firing them too fast.”

* * *
The Arisaka Type 31 field gun was a finely made piece of machinery, but
compared with the Russians’ standard guns there was a clear difference
between old and new. Like all the new field guns throughout the world, the
Russian model had a recoil system. The Japanese field gun did not.
When an artillery piece fires, it kicks backwards from the shock. From
the time cannons were first invented and up until the First Sino-Japanese
War, both barrel and carriage would lurch back whenever a gun was fired.
The gunners would then have to roll the gun forward to its original position.
As a result, it always took some time before they could fire the next round.
This was how the Arisaka Type 31 field gun operated. Only a kind of
spring attached to the spade area at the back helped slightly in preventing
the gun carriage from sliding back. That was about it!
38 battle
The Russian field gun, however, already had a hydraulic recoil system
fitted to the barrel. This used oil pressure to absorb the recoil on firing and
return the barrel to its original position. The gun carriage did not move at
all. The gunners could just continue firing, increasing the rate of fire. They
did not have to reset their sights for each and every shot. The recoil system
had been invented in France, the land of artillery, in 1897. Large guns were
subsequently fitted with this mechanism, which went on to become a standard
feature.
European powers, as we’ve noted, managed to develop by copying each
other’s technology, but this recoil system amazed them all. They competed
to install it, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War, all field and
mountain guns, dependent as they were on mobility, were fitted with the
recoil system as a matter of course.
Japan had not been entirely unaware of the appearance of the recoil system
in 1897, an epoch-making event in the history of firearms. After all, with
work on the Arisaka Type 31 underway at the time, they were if anything
oversensitive to new developments. Engineers in Japan did feel that they
should fit a recoil system too, but according to army tradition, the engi-
neering department was considered subordinate to combat officers, who had
a habit of questioning whether innovative new weapons or devices would
really work. On this occasion as well, they used plausible-sounding
objections to disparage those in favor of the system.
“It may be sturdy, but the more you use it, the less effective it will be,
and in the end the barrel will not return to its original position. Especially
when firing at an elevation of over 9 degrees, the breech of the barrel will
sink between the flanks of the gun carriage, and the loading mechanism won’t
open.”
Yet the Russians, for whom artillery was a national passion, immediately
employed the new device. The power of this system would be demonstrated
on the Manchurian plains.
“We have nothing to fear from the Japanese field guns,” said Major
Mozheiko, the staff officer who designed the defenses at Jiubingtai on the
Russian left wing. A comparison of the field guns used by both sides in the
Russo-Japanese War certainly shows a clear gap, not just in terms of whether
or not they had recoil mechanisms fitted, but also in terms of performance.
The muzzle velocity of the Japanese guns was only 490 meters per second,
while it was as much as 590 meters for the Russian guns, which had been
modeled on French-style field guns. There was also a significant gap in their
maximum range, 6,200 meters for the Japanese compared with 8,000 meters
for the Russians.
 clouds above the hill 39
The disparity in range might become crucial in a combat situation that
found the two armies facing each other from a great distance. Only the
Russians would be able to fire on their targets while the Japanese guns would
remain silent.
“Is there no way we can increase the range of the Type 31 gun?” was a
question more frequently asked during the war as the Japanese Army became
more concerned about this problem. Adjustments were tried out on the spot.
A handy way to extend the gun’s range was to raise the elevation, which
would lift the muzzle as high as possible. This adjustment was made on every
field piece in the war zone. It involved minor remodeling of the gun mount
and a slight adjustment of the ratchet. As a result, the maximum range of
these guns during the battle of Mukden was increased to as much as 7,800
meters, although, of course, this meant there was also some impairment in
accuracy.
Since the Arisaka Type 31 field gun was not fitted with a recoil
mechanism, its rate of fire was also slow. With every shot the gun carriage
jumped backwards. The gunners would grip the wheels and roll the gun back
into place. They could no longer use the previous aim so they had to set
their sights all over again. The rate of fire achieved under test conditions
was “three rounds per minute,” and on the battlefield this generally proved
to be two rounds. In many instances, the gunners fired from covered
positions, so the four-step process of firing, recoiling, rolling the gun back,
and taking aim again took even longer than usual.
The Russian guns could fire six or seven rounds per minute. This was
more than twice as fast as the Arisaka Type 31 and meant that each Russian
gun was worth two or three Japanese pieces.
“But our field guns are very mobile,” Japanese officers used to tell their
men to lift their spirits. For both sides, it took six horses to haul a single
artillery piece so there was no real difference in mobility. But the Japanese
gun weighed 0.9 tons and the Russian gun, 1.2 tons. So it was lighter, but
nothing to be really proud of.
The Japanese shells, though, were superior. The Arisaka Type 31 field
guns used both high-explosive howitzer shells and shrapnel, but the Russian
guns could fire only shrapnel. When a shrapnel shell exploded, it sent
countless bullets flying in all directions, killing men and horses, but it was
less effective against earthworks and other entrenchments. High-explosive
shells, on the other hand, not only had more destructive power than shrapnel
against men and horses, but were much more effective in punching holes
through the enemy’s defenses. In the years to come, the artillery in every
army would use only high-explosive shells, and the Japanese military can
claim to have led the way in this.
40 battle
* * *
The Russians had much greater firepower. The Japanese had 990 pieces, the
Russians, 1,200. And remember—the Russian rate of fire was three times
as fast. The artillery units in the Japanese standby reserve divisions did not
even have the Arisaka Type 31 field gun and had to make do with the bronze
pieces used previously during the First Sino-Japanese War. The total Japanese
figure of 990 includes these bronze guns.
These facts made Kodama gloomy. After the siege of Port Arthur, when
he first drew up his plans for a battle at Mukden, he had cheekily suggested,
“Let’s use those 28-centimeter howitzers, which worked so well at Port
Arthur!” Ignoring his stunned staff officers, he had gone ahead and made
preparations. These were the same guns that had caused problems even at
Port Arthur. Such weapons were set up in coastal forts to protect a country
from attack, and of course were permanently installed so that they could not
really be moved; they were anyway not the kind of gun that was readily
mobile.
Under orders from Imperial Headquarters, the Japanese Army had broken
up the concrete foundations of some guns at the Kannonzaki battery at the
mouth of Tokyo Bay, dismantled them, and sent them on to Port Arthur.
Readers will recall that Ijichi Kōsuke, the chief of staff of Nogi’s army at
Port Arthur and an artillery man, was not at all pleased when he heard about
this, seeing the weapons on the way as a liability. “What do they think they’re
doing? They don’t know anything about guns.”
Yet in the end these guns played a lead role in delivering the final blow
to the defenses at Port Arthur. The experts put in charge of them said at first
that once the guns were installed, the concrete would take over a month to
fully dry. To everyone’s surprise, they were able to start firing after just a
week.
For Kodama to say, “Let’s transport these 28-centimeter howitzers to the
Manchurian plains” was as bizarre as telling his men to move islands or
mountains. A 28-centimeter howitzer set up in a permanent position was
like a reinforced concrete building, not something you could just move
around at will. Even so, those guns had been moved for Port Arthur, and
Kodama ordered them to be moved again.
The artillery corps and engineers set about putting this plan into action
and, amazingly enough, six of the eighteen guns used at Port Arthur were
moved like mountains and appeared on the battlefield in front of Mukden.
Throughout the whole operation, no single episode so graphically demon-
strates the character of the Japanese Army as the transport of those howitzers.

* * *
 clouds above the hill 41
The Russian Army’s positions, center front of Mukden, were heavily
fortified. In particular, the area facing Nozu’s army was almost entirely
blocked off by an interconnected series of first-rate strongholds. The
defensive bases on Wanbaoshan and Tashan typified Russian preparations,
as did the position on the lower ground at nearby Liujiangdun.
The Russian batteries were perched on higher ground, with large numbers
of heavy guns and field guns totally protected by defensive screens. Below
these were trenches ringed with barbed wire and various machine guns posted
to keep approaching enemy infantry at bay. These installations were
strategically positioned to cover all angles, leaving no area of dead ground.
In the meticulous care and skill that went into constructing their field
fortifications, the Russians probably earned their reputation as the finest army
in the world.
“Our infantry can’t get anywhere near them.” This assessment by Ōyama
and Kodama was the reason why Nozu’s army had been given so many large
guns.
On February 21, the order went out: “Heavy artillery, prepare to fire at
once, and be ready at all times to respond as required.”
By this stage, all the heavy guns, including the 28-centimeter howitzers,
were already in position. These were situated to the far rear of the Japanese
Army and hidden away among some ravines in complex, mountainous
terrain out of sight of the enemy. The distance from there to Wanbaoshan
was 7,000 meters, in naval terms equivalent to the range of a battleship’s
large guns.
On the morning of February 27, these 28-centimeter howitzers, together
with the other heavy guns—15-centimeter and 12-centimeter howitzers, 15-
centimeter and 10.5-centimeter guns, and 12-centimeter mortars—all began
their bombardment. This was conducted on a moderate scale to conceal the
Japanese Army’s overall plan. The shelling was accurate, falling in turn on
Wanbaoshan and the other Russian gun emplacements, but these were well
protected and so not badly damaged.
What shook the Russian soldiers’ nerves was the thunderous roar of shells
flying through the air from the 28-centimeter howitzers. Splitting the heavens
as the shells raced from south to north, this stirring sound heartened the
Japanese, especially the men in the Tenth Division (Himeji), who were under
orders to attack Wanbaoshan. Mad with joy, a soldier cried, “I never knew
the Japanese Army had such powerful guns!”
The Russian batteries arranged in a line on Wanbaoshan promptly
returned fire. They used large numbers of 15-centimeter siege guns, the most
powerful field pieces they had, to try to destroy the Japanese heavy gun
positions. The exchange of fire between these heavy guns was like a
showdown between battleships at sea.
42 battle
Pinpointing the location of the enemy’s guns was the first imperative.
The Russians kept switching their targets and firing in various directions to
seek these out, but were unable to determine the exact locations in the course
of the entire battle.
It was easier for the Japanese heavy guns to train their fire, as they knew
precisely where the Russian gun emplacements were. Nevertheless, even
though the terrible roar of the 28-centimeter howitzers astonished the enemy,
the Japanese did not inflict great damage since they used shells made from
pig iron, due to the shortage of steel.
Despite the terrifying noise they made, the 28-centimeter howitzers also
proved relatively ineffective because the earth was frozen solid. Even those
giant shells just bounced off the ground and failed to destroy the enemy’s
defenses.
This was the case not only for the giant 28-centimeter guns. The Japanese
Army employed more than 250 pieces of artillery large and small (including
the 28-centimeter guns) in attacking the Russian field positions at
Wanbaoshan and the surrounding area. This was an unprecedented concentra-
tion of firepower for them. They also used a vast amount of ammunition,
despite the severe shortage of supplies; for example, on March 2, they fired
5,000 shells from their field guns and roughly 3,800 shells from their
mountain guns in the course of a single day.
Still, the Russian positions remained active without showing the remotest
sign of weakening, marking a victory for the Russian engineers. The
headquarters of the Tenth Division, under orders to attack Wanbaoshan,
decided that they had no choice but to carry out a direct charge, the Japanese
Army’s specialty, and on March 2 the full strength of the division’s infantry
marched forward.
In the end, it was Port Arthur all over again.
Casualties were severe, a pattern that would be repeated the next day and
the day after that until, after being hit by a full-scale enemy counterattack
on March 5, all the units on the front line were practically wiped out. On
this one day alone, the Tenth Division, which had a total strength of 10,000
men, suffered 2,362 casualties and was so weakened that it no longer could
operate like a full division.
The assaults on their respective fronts by Oku’s and Kuroki’s armies in
the center were similarly checked by the Russians’ strong defenses. These
armies hardly made any progress, and a heavy gloom descended over
General Headquarters.
“Just not enough shells!” This comment was frequently heard in Yantai.
Ōyama and Kodama had been forced to remain conscious of their ammuni-
tion supply throughout the campaign. Even as this operation continued, they
 clouds above the hill 43
had to keep one eye on the munitions store, looking on in horror at the
dwindling number of bullets and shells.
At the battle of Liaoyang, the Japanese used nine million bullets but the
Russians more than tripled that number, using thirty million. At the battle
of Shaho, the Japanese again used nine million, compared to the Russian
twenty-four million. At the battle of Mukden, it was twenty million bullets,
a record amount for the Japanese Army, but the Russians used eighty million.
At Liaoyang, the Japanese fired one hundred twenty thousand shells, while
the Russians used one hundred forty thousand. At Shaho, a hard-fought
battle that ended in a stalemate, the Japanese fired one hundred thousand
shells, the Russians, an unusually low sixty thousand.
Before the battle of Mukden, the army had been diligently laying in stores
of shells sent over from Japan at their winter quarters. As a result, they fired
a total of three hundred fifty thousand shells, far more than in any other
battle. The Russians fired five hundred forty thousand.

* * *
“If possible, avoid engaging en route, and strike at the enemy rear guard.”
As Nogi’s army carried out its sweeping outflanking maneuver, the soldiers
continued their advance north like a file of ants. Day after day, they kept
marching. They didn’t know why they had to march like this each day, facing
an onslaught of blizzards and howling winds that seemed intent on blowing
their lines away. At night, they tried to snatch some sleep as best they could
on the frozen ground, all the while remaining on guard against the threat of
an enemy attack.
The foot soldiers were mainly from Tokyo, Yamanashi, and Chiba
Prefectures, along with those from Hokkaido and Hokuriku. These infantry
divisions were joined in this operation by the Second Cavalry Brigade and
Second Field Artillery Brigade. Although their orders were to “If possible,
avoid engaging,” with each passing day, the skirmishes became more
frequent, and the enemy force grew larger. Kuropatkin had finally understood
the movements and intentions of Nogi’s army.
“The tactics from headquarters are too elaborate. Even if we try to fool
Kuropatkin, we can’t expect him to fall for it. We need to be more direct.”
Captain Tsunoda Koreshige, a staff officer in Nogi’s army, constantly
repeated this criticism, and, from the way things were starting to look, he
was probably right.
As we’ve already mentioned, the overall plan from General Headquarters
was in effect a judo move. Use the Army of the Yalu to break through on
the eastern front, thus making Kuropatkin move troops to that side. At the
same time, use Oku’s and Nozu’s armies to bombard the center and force
44 battle
him to listen to the booming sound of their guns. The Japanese hoped the
sound of these guns would confuse Kuropatkin and make him think that the
attack on the eastern front was just a feint, with the real assault to come
through the center. They hoped that in his confusion, Kuropatkin would
transfer the troops he had moved to confront the Army of the Yalu back to
the center. If this went according to plan, the numerically weak Army of the
Yalu would be spared total annihilation.
When the curtain went up on Act Two, Kuropatkin would be wandering
aimlessly center stage. Nogi’s army would suddenly rush forward into this
scene, trying to slip past and around behind the Russian rear guard. According
to the Japanese script, Kuropatkin would be thrown into total panic at this
moment. Of course, he would probably respond by moving the troops he
had sent to the eastern front back to the west. The Japanese could take
advantage of the resulting confusion by using Oku’s and Nozu’s armies to
strike through the center and take Mukden in one blow.
“Will it really work?” wondered Captain Tsunoda at Nogi’s headquarters
as he followed the script he had been given and went on producing battle
maneuvers for his men.

* * *
Nogi’s army on the march was not so much encountering difficulties as
advancing toward a truly ghastly phase. This was especially true of the Ninth
Division (Kanazawa). After heading left far to the west, Nogi’s army was
turning right and trying to sweep around to the east behind the enemy and
attack Mukden from the rear. The Ninth was under orders to occupy a pivotal
position at the hub of the wheel as the army made the turn in its grand
outflanking maneuver. If this were the scene of a fire, it would be much like
standing on the roof of a burning house and holding a fireman’s standard
aloft.
Kuropatkin did not lose his composure quite as much as Japanese
headquarters had hoped. He did move his reserve force to the eastern front
and back to the west, but upon recognizing the new Japanese force on his
right wing as Nogi’s army, he started pouring large numbers of troops into
the area. For the time being, his target was the pivotal position of the Ninth
Division, which was providing support while the main force of Nogi’s army
embarked on its turn. The Ninth Division was supposed to keep moving
together with the rest of Nogi’s army, but this did not proceed according to
plan because the Russians stretched out their defensive wing and blocked
them off.
As soon as this division—and the same may be said of Nogi’s whole
army—stretched its wing by, say, a distance of 10 kilometers, the Russians
 clouds above the hill 45
would immediately react by stretching out their own wing even further, to
stop the Japanese from breaking past their lines (much like the game called
tōsembo, “You shall not pass”).
What is known in military studies as extending the line at the flank had
begun. The Russians would maintain the advantage as long as this continued
since they had more troops in reserve. In addition, the Ninth Division, which
was supposed to keep its position on the inside of the turn, was dragged
from its place by some fierce Russian resistance and sorties.
The Ninth Division’s chief of staff was Colonel Adachi Aizō, an artillery
man by training, and the commander was Lieutenant General Ōshima
Hisanao. Ōshima seemed near admiration when he kept repeating each day,
“Look, Adachi, the enemy’s coming again!” But the enemy was not just
coming. The Ninth Division seemed to be tunneling through the heart of a
blazing fire.
Ōshima Hisanao is often confused with another lieutenant general and
his namesake from the Chōshū domain Ōshima Yoshimasa, but since
Hisanao was originally from Akita Prefecture he had no connection himself
with the dominant Satsuma and Chōshū factions in the Meiji government.
After deciding to join the army at an early age, he had gone up to Edo during
the last years of the shogunate to train in Dutch studies. Following the Meiji
Restoration, he enlisted, overcoming various difficulties to win promotion
to the rank of first lieutenant. He served as an army minister’s vice chief of
staff during the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, proving that his abilities were
recognized, even though he was not associated with Satsuma or Chōshū,
During the siege of Port Arthur, he won distinction as Nogi’s most
courageous divisional commander and was known affectionately among his
men as “Hige-san”—Mr. Beard.
As the pivot of Nogi’s whole army, Ōshima sometimes dismounted from
his horse and marched with his infantry in order to recover feeling in his
frozen toes. As he marched, he wore a sword thrust through a white crepe
waistband wound over his heavy overcoat, making him look like a samurai
warrior from the Akita domain who had come up to Edo in the last years of
the shogunate.
Ōshima’s Ninth Division had a wretched mission, for they had to march
at night and fight by day, and during a twelve-day period of continuous
fighting, March 3 was the only day when they had relatively little contact
with the enemy. Over the course of the whole battle, they lost about half
their men (with 6,294 dead and wounded), and by the end their fighting
strength had been severely weakened. Because of the enemy’s ferocious
attacks, the Ninth Division could not maintain its position at the hub of the
turn and was pushed out far to the north. Suddenly, the Ninth became the
46 battle
central column among Nogi’s divisions, and, by the end of the battle, still
sustaining casualties, it emerged on the extreme left wing to the north of
Mukden.
The Japanese were down to bare bones, their strength being whittled away
all the while by the Russians’ overwhelmingly superior numbers. But even
if the Japanese faltered at times, they never took a step back and just kept
going, and this ultimately led to victory. But, then again, it is extremely hard
to say whether or not this could really be called a victory.
“Beware the Russian withdrawal” was a watchword in Western military
studies. This warning came from their habit of falling back just as a ploy to
make the enemy sustain further casualties. In Japan, the definition of victory
had not changed from the time of the Gempei War to the era of Warring
States. To win, according to an old expression, was “to tread on the enemy’s
grass,” which meant barreling across stretches of territory until you broke
into the enemy’s base camp. This was why Nogi’s army was advancing north.
Spattered with the blood of both the enemy and its own men, the Ninth
Division in particular became a ghost of its former self, but it never stopped
going forward.
After an intense battle on March 2, Oku’s army on Nogi’s right at last
managed to break through enemy lines. The artillery had spent the whole
day raining shells down on the Russian positions and managed to outgun
them at last. Even so, the Russian guns continued to show signs of activity
while the Japanese infantry advanced, and during the fighting near Beitaizi,
for example, more than two hundred soldiers of the Fourth Division (Osaka)
were blown to pieces by a single blast. Everyone up to the engineers kept
launching hand grenades into the Russian trenches, only to have the enemy
throw grenades back. Before long, they were fighting at close quarters with
bayonets.
After this engagement, the Russian Army retreated under the cover of
snowfall, abandoning more than five hundred fallen troops. To capitalize on
Oku’s victory, headquarters ordered Nogi’s army to cut off the enemy’s line
of retreat.
Or rather they tried to give the order.
Nogi’s army’s telephone line had been cut.
“Call Nogi’s army,” shrieked a staff officer at headquarters. “Still no
reply?” With the line dead, nothing could be done. The line between
headquarters and Nogi’s army was cut off for the whole day.
General Headquarters finally issued an order on March 1: “Nogi’s army
to advance at full speed.” At General Headquarters, a story was told about
how General Nogi became so furious when he heard this that he cut the
 clouds above the hill 47
telephone line himself before carrying out the order. In fact, the phone line
had been cut by a falling shell.

* * *
For both the Russian and the Japanese armies, no struggle had ever been as
bitter as the battle of Mukden. Each morning before daybreak, Kodama
emerged from headquarters in Yantai and waited for the sun to rise. When
he saw the first rays of light, he would bow his head and pray, “Please, let
me see some glimpse of victory.”
On the ground, there was not even the remotest sign of this.
Day after day, the same pattern repeated itself as a fierce exchange of
shelling continued across the plains as far as the eye could see. Day and
night, the infantry and engineers continued their assaults on the positions of
three hundred thousand Russian troops, and the cavalry repeatedly charged,
but still there was no sign of any progress. Instead, whole sections of the
Japanese Army frequently crumbled as they were driven back by the enemy.
“A glimpse. Just a glimpse.” In all this confusion, Kodama kept looking
for some sign of Russian weakness that he could exploit, but this was by no
means easy to find. He certainly was not asking for a great victory.
“If only we can just gain the upper hand.” This was his earnest desire,
for by finishing on top he hoped to pave the way for peace negotiations and
to gain the most advantageous terms possible.
Knowing full well that this battle would destroy the fighting strength of
the Japanese Army, Kodama was in constant contact with Yamagata Aritomo
about peace talks. Even with the well-thought-out plan of operations that
Kodama had devised for the battle of Mukden, the Japanese could not make
up for their fatal weakness—insufficient troop strength—while the Russians,
with their superior numbers, appeared to be able to weather the storm easily.
For example, the Army of the Yalu, which had set out to break through
the left wing of the Russian Army on the eastern front, had made some head-
way in the early stages of the fighting. They drove off the enemy’s advance
posts, but once Kuropatkin sent a vast force consisting of Rennenkampf’s
corps and two other army corps, their advance had ground to a halt in front
of the high ground around Maqundan and Jiubingtai. The outlook improved
only slightly later, and even while Nogi’s army was advancing, the Army
of the Yalu struggled to fend off the enemy’s counterattacks.
On the western front as well, the Russian Army was making an impressive
show of strength. On March 1, the Eighth Division under Tatsumi Naobumi,
the unit of Oku’s army closest to Nogi on the left wing, attacked the enemy
positions around Sifangtai—“Four Directions Platform”—together with the
Ninth Division of Nogi’s army. As the place name suggests, Sifangtai was
48 battle
an area of high ground with good visibility in all directions. It had been
strongly fortified by the Russians, who unleashed terrible damage on the
Japanese troops advancing toward them across the plains below. The
Russians had also launched a light gas balloon above the area so they could
see all the Japanese Army’s movements and used it to give firing directions
to their artillery and machine guns. Setting out on their assault, the men in
these Japanese divisions simply marched forward. Soon Japanese blood was
spilled everywhere on these snowy plains, and, viewed from the balloon high
above, the white ground dappled with red was an indescribably grim
spectacle.

* * *
At the beginning of the battle, Akiyama Yoshifuru and his detachment
(comprised of the First Cavalry Brigade and others) had been attached to
Oku’s army. He was still under Oku’s command when he received orders
to facilitate the advance north of Nogi’s army. But on March 2 he came
under the temporary command of Nogi’s army. This change was to “make
Akiyama lead the way ahead of Nogi’s advance north and destroy the
railway to the far north of Mukden.”
A gigantic troop of cavalry had to be formed by combining Akiyama’s
detachment and the Second Cavalry Brigade, which had already been
attached to Nogi’s army. The commander of this brigade, Major General
Tamura Hisai, was originally from Kōchi Prefecture and had the same rank
as Yoshifuru, although Yoshifuru had more seniority.
At nine o’clock in the morning on March 2, Tamura received this notice
from Nogi’s headquarters: “Akiyama’s detachment, now attached to our army
with immediate effect, will set out this morning and should appear on our
left wing.” At forty minutes after five the following morning, he received
another order: “Tamura’s detachment to take orders from Major General
Akiyama with immediate effect. Both detachments to join forces under the
name ‘Akiyama’s corps.’” So was formed the largest cavalry troop in this
campaign, consisting of seven cavalry regiments, two machine gun platoons,
and one artillery company.
This new troop had three thousand horses, and so if the high command
had understood the special strengths of the cavalry and used them
accordingly, an historic example of military tactics might have resulted. But
the high command was not really capable of exploiting the cavalry’s full
potential for surprise attacks and rapid thrusts. Both Ōyama and Kodama,
together with Matsukawa Toshitane, drew up strategies that were tightly
based on battle positions and troop numbers on both sides, but they shied
away from any rapid strikes. Constrained by always having to fight with
 clouds above the hill 49
inferior numbers, they were probably wary of making great leaps of
imagination. They stood to lose everything if they ventured such a leap and
failed.
Setting out from the bank of the Hun River, Yoshifuru led his fifteen
hundred horses toward Dafangshen where they were to rendezvous with
Tamura’s detachment. By good fortune, they met up with Tamura on the
way. When Tamura saw Yoshifuru approach on his mount, he saluted, turned
his horse’s head around, and galloped through the snow to his side.
Yoshifuru spoke first: “Tamura, let’s have a drink together in Mukden!”
They drew up their tactical arrangements. Tamura’s Second Cavalry
Brigade would take the lead on the advance north toward Dafangshen. At
twenty past ten the same morning, they were approaching Xiaofangshen, a
village on the way, when they were fired on by two hundred Russian infantry
and sixty cavalry concealed behind some plaster walls. The Japanese pushed
them back and went on to reach Dafangshen, only for a fearsome enemy to
appear from further north. This was an entire Russian division under
Lieutenant General Aleksandr Birger. As they had just arrived from European
Russia, these troops were fitted throughout with new uniforms and
equipment, and their weapons were straight out of the army arsenal. This
chance encounter of course led to more fighting.

* * *
That morning, General Kaulbars, commander of the Russian Second
Manchurian Army, received some astonishing news from one of his cavalry
patrols.
“A Japanese force about the size of a full division is advancing toward
Mukden along the Xinmin–Mukden highway.” This rough estimate of the
division’s strength was a bit of an exaggeration since the force in question
was Akiyama’s corps.
Kaulbars tried to respond, but his troops were already deployed in their
defensive positions and swamped with the task of handling several units of
Nogi’s army, which seemed to be coming from all directions.
Communications with the front line did not always go smoothly, and so even
this level-headed commander was unsure about which unit he should use to
confront this “full division.”
“Where the hell is Birger?” he shouted at his staff.
Leading the main cavalry force, Lieutenant General Birger had more than
a total division under his command. But he was far to the northwest of the
Second Army, in the village of Gaolidun, more than 10 kilometers away
from the most advanced units of Akiyama’s corps. Actually, all that Kaulbars
really knew was that Birger had been in Gaolidun.
50 battle
The night before, Kaulbars had received orders from Kuropatkin to
constrict the spreading front line as much as possible and cover Mukden
(this order would be one of the causes of the Russian defeat). When Kaulbars
had conveyed these instructions to his officers, Lieutenant General Dmitri
Topornin, commander of the Sixteenth European Army Corps, immediately
sensed danger. “Lieutenant General Birger’s detachment is too far away.
Unless we are careful, the Japanese will cut him off from the rest of the
army.”
Topornin sent an order to Birger to head for Mukden, but he did not know
if the cavalry dispatched to deliver this message ever arrived. The Russian
cavalry may have been the best in the world as a fighting unit, but they were
extremely poor at reconnaissance and delivering messages.
It was the following morning that Topornin heard about the appearance
of an enemy division (Akiyama’s corps). He immediately sent a sizeable
force of cavalry to search for Birger, who had been ordered to “Disengage
from the enemy in front and cover the approach to Mukden. Withdraw to
Mukden but maintain reconnaissance on enemy troop strength.”
If this order had been to fight to the last man instead, Yoshifuru and his
entire force might not have survived. In fact, Birger never received this order.
He learned about Akiyama’s approach from his own scout patrols and
responded by launching a fierce attack.

* * *
Akiyama’s corps did not have great strength in numbers, but its advance
north had been fast enough to disconcert Kuropatkin. Topornin’s main force
approached their right flank on March 2 to check on their progress. But
Yoshifuru just ignored them and kept moving forward, so that by the next
day he had managed to pull far away from Topornin’s army corps. Yoshifuru
had no real concerns about his rear guard, for he knew that a supporting
force would soon be on its way behind him. Each unit formed a column
linked to a supporting force, with Akiyama’s corps in front, followed by the
First Division, Fifteenth Standby Reserve Brigade, Second Field Artillery
Brigade, and Seventh Division.
These units could look after Topornin’s army corps. Yoshifuru’s job was
to make use of the cavalry’s special strength and advance full speed ahead.
On March 3, he reached Dafangshen. His advance guard was fighting enemy
soldiers holding out in the northern part of this large village, when a Russian
detachment under Lieutenant General Birger—the one Kaulbars was looking
for—suddenly appeared and opened fire.
Birger had nine infantry battalions, while Akiyama’s corps had just two
companies; Birger had three artillery batteries with twelve guns, while
 clouds above the hill 51
Akiyama’s corps had just six cavalry guns. Akiyama’s corps did have more
cavalry, with eighteen troops compared to Birger’s eight. In effect, Birger
had three times the troop strength of Akiyama’s corps. But the Japanese did
have twelve machine guns, which the Russians lacked.
“This must be a large Japanese cavalry corps” was Birger’s first
impression. His guess was right. Practically all the cavalry brigades the
Japanese had in Manchuria were now concentrated under Yoshifuru’s
command. Birger was not too concerned at the prospect of fighting the
Japanese cavalry. As a Russian prisoner of war confessed, “We were taught
that the Japanese cavalry was generally weak, poor in horsemanship,
unskilled with weapons, and that there weren’t a lot of them.”
In contrast, Lieutenant General Watanabe Tatsuo, who was involved
in the battle at Dafangshen, would afterward write in his memoirs,
“The Russian cavalry is superior to their infantry. Not only brave, they are
excellent fighters and horsemen, deserving particular respect for their
obedience in following orders. They do have two weaknesses: they are not
agile enough and always avoid hand-to-hand combat.”
Not only was this true of the cavalry, the Japanese Army as a whole may
have been slightly superior to the Russians in their tactical skill and hand-
to-hand combat.

* * *
This encounter would go down in the history of the Japanese cavalry as the
momentous battle of Dafangshen, but throughout his life Akiyama Yoshifuru
never liked to talk about it. If pressed, he would only reply in his Matsuyama
accent, “It was a narrow escape. We just held on.”
After the campaign, Captain Kōno Tsunetoshi, who was a staff officer in
the Second Army, was ordered to compile a history of the Russo-Japanese
War. He went around asking those involved about every aspect of the
various engagements, but Yoshifuru alone refused to be drawn in. “Why
don’t you ask someone else?” he said with a downcast look.
This also happened with the battle of Dafangshen. Kōno had no choice
but to meet with Yoshifuru’s subordinate officers instead and ask them what
had really happened. After hearing these accounts, he was struck with
admiration at Major General Akiyama’s skillful deeds. Kōno also discovered
that the character of each regimental commander was well suited to his
respective duties. But when questioned by Kōno about this, Yoshifuru just
waved his hands in rebuff and said, “Look, it’s nothing of the sort.”
Yoshifuru’s headquarters was in a local mausoleum. On his table he kept
a pistol and a water flask. The long strap attached to the pistol was always
strung around his neck. This was so he could shoot himself if the enemy
52 battle
reached his headquarters. As in his everyday life, he prepared himself for
what might happen with simplicity and clarity. The water flask was filled
with Chinese liquor, and it was the job of an orderly called Watanuki to
procure supplies. This meant going around to local peasants’ houses and
getting them to sell their poor homemade alcohol. Yoshifuru was always
drinking these high-proof spirits from his flask.
He also smoked constantly, but he never had any matches. Instead, he
always called out to his adjutant, “Hey, Kiyooka! How about a light?”
Captain Kiyooka found this puzzling. Why didn’t he keep a box of
matches in his pocket if he smoked so much? But Yoshifuru had been like
this ever since his student days in France. After learning how to ask for a
match in French, he’d take out his cigarette and stop people to ask for a
light, whether he was at a party or out on the street. Only when he went to
sleep did he put a box of matches by his bed. Even in the war zone, he kept
smoking away in bed at night. He couldn’t call on anyone to help then, so
he did strike his own matches.
“Why doesn’t he do that during the daytime too?” Kiyooka and others
wondered.
Because he smoked so much in bed, the area around was littered with
butt ends. In the morning, the floor would be covered, and it was one of
Watanuki’s main tasks each morning to sweep up these butt ends and throw
them away. The louder the gunfire became, the more Yoshifuru smoked and
drank. This was particularly so during the battle of Dafangshen.

* * *
A comic incident occurred when Yoshifuru was directing operations in
Dafangshen. A Russian soldier walked into the room in the mausoleum he
was using for his headquarters. Although the middle of the day, it was dark
inside, and Yoshifuru was peering at a map laid out on his desk by
candlelight. The map had been made by the enemy.
When he happened to look up, he saw standing before him a Russian
soldier so tall that his head reached the beams of the ceiling. Imagining for
a moment that the enemy must have made it this far, Yoshifuru shouted,
“Who the hell are you?” and reached for the pistol on his desk that he had
prepared for such a disaster, intent on putting a bullet through his own head.
But the soldier, upon seeing Yoshifuru’s face, was terrified. He let out with
a scream and fled.
They were both laboring under a misapprehension. The Russian was a
prisoner of war who had surrendered a few days before, but he was still in
the camp because there was no transport to evacuate him from the front. On
 clouds above the hill 53
that day, Yoshifuru’s orderly Watanuki happened to be away, so his adjutant
Captain Kiyooka had put the Russian on duty in his place.
The Russian soldier, whose name was Pyotr Vasilyevich, rushed back to
Captain Kiyooka. “I have just seen a terrifying man.”
Kiyooka could speak Russian, and, when he heard his story, he understood
what must have happened. “That was General Akiyama.”
When he heard this, Vasilyevich shook with fear even more and begging
not to be kept there any longer, pleaded to be sent at once to Matsuyama.
It seems that Yoshifuru had won quite a reputation among the Russians,
who were under the impression that he was a terrifying man.
When he heard about this afterward, Yoshifuru said, “Ah, so he’s off to
Matsuyama, is he?” referring to the internment camp in his own hometown.
To keep up its diplomatic reputation, the Japanese government of those
days felt the need to show the world that Japan was not a backward country.
The government had become a first-class student of international law in its
treatment of prisoners of war. This did not simply mean treating Russian
prisoners with kindness but also involved putting great effort into giving
them a warm reception. There were internment camps in a number of
locations, but the one in Matsuyama was the most famous and so well known
among Russian soldiers at the front that when they surrendered, they would
call out, “Matsuyama! Matsuyama!” as they ran toward the Japanese lines.
This is what Yoshifuru meant by “So he’s off to Matsuyama?”
In the former castle town of Matsuyama, where Yoshifuru had grown up,
the Russian prisoners could stroll through the streets at their leisure. They
were received with kindness by the local population, and not a single one
of them was treated with contempt.

* * *
Yoshifuru loved the cavalry charge. Cavalrymen were soldiers whose basic
purpose was to attack. If the high command used them with skill, they could
carry the day with one great charge, transforming the situation on the
battlefield.
At the Army War College in Tokyo, they still talked of the day when
Yoshifuru had said, “This is what the cavalry does,” as he smashed his fist
through a window pane and, oblivious to his bleeding hand, carried on with
his lecture. “Did you get my point?”
Punching the glass was certainly an effective way of getting his message
across to junior officers about the nature of the cavalry. Although you might
injure your hand, you would also break the window. In order to achieve a
breakthrough, tacticians and commanders had to risk losing their entire
54 battle
cavalry, but the cavalry, if used with skill, could make an impact like no
other kind of troops.
Yoshifuru had been nurturing the cavalry since his days as a captain and
as a major, and had always tried to explain to the high command how it
should be used. But in all the battles during this great war against Russia,
he never had the chance to carry out the adventurous charge he dreamed of.
This was also the case in the battle of Dafangshen. From start to finish, he
kept saying, “In order to win we must defend.”
He made all his cavalry dismount, had the horses taken to the rear, and
deployed his men in defensive positions. He intended to use firepower from
these positions to cut down the advancing Russian troops. It was a strategy
that the Russians themselves were particularly good at and amounted to
roughly the exact opposite of Yoshifuru’s belief that the true strength of the
cavalry lay in raids and surprise attacks.
By suppressing his own instincts, he found the path to victory. He never
had enough men, and the enemy always had superior numbers. Also the
situation his troops found themselves in was not conducive to an adventurous
strategy that might lead to their being thrown into disorder and routed. If
Akiyama’s corps disintegrated, the outflanking maneuver of Nogi’s whole
army would collapse at a single stroke.
Just as he had always done, Yoshifuru chose a way to avoid losing rather
than a way to win. The battle began at ten o’clock in the morning. Yoshifuru
ordered the entire force at his disposal to remain in position, giving everyone
specific assignments; a fierce exchange of gunfire went on for four hours.
Yoshifuru could only marvel at Lieutenant General Birger’s skill as he kept
switching his artillery positions and intensely focusing his fire from three
different directions.
The assault by the Russian infantry also was a marvel of courage. At times,
they came within 800 meters of Yoshifuru’s artillery positions. Even then,
Yoshifuru refrained from having his own cavalry charge and instead used
all the artillery he had to repulse them with tracer rounds. At one point, a
column of a thousand Russian troops approached Yoshifuru’s left wing
before fanning out.
But Yoshifuru relied throughout on firepower, sending just a single
company to shore up this front. The fire from the cavalry guns and machine
guns rained down constantly on the Russian infantry, felling half of them
in their tracks and driving back the rest. Yoshifuru was taking up the same
sort of stance that Stoessel had adopted at the siege of Port Arthur.
* * *
Of all his subordinate officers, Yoshifuru placed the most trust in Colonel
Toyobe Shinsaku. As commander of the Fourteenth Cavalry Regiment,
 clouds above the hill 55
Toyobe was not the most resourceful soldier, but he was calm and tenacious,
and in the recent battle of Heigoutai, he had held on to his position at Sandepu
until the very last.
On this occasion as well, Yoshifuru had placed Toyobe in the vanguard
during the advance north. This meant that the greatest pressure from the
enemy fell on him. Toyobe’s force was not a pure cavalry troop, but a
combination of units from different army branches arranged in what was
called the Akiyama system. Equipped with three machine guns and a
company each of cavalry guns and engineers, it had greater firepower than
a Russian unit of similar size.
When Yoshifuru heard at around two o’clock in the afternoon that Toyobe
had been wounded during the fighting, he cried out in disbelief, the only
time he ever did so throughout the entire campaign.
“Is it true?” he asked in a shaking voice. He quickly recovered his
composure, muttering that he would be next.
Afterward, when his adjutant Captain Hattori Masahiko described to
people just how intense this defensive action had been, he offered as
evidence: “Even Akiyama-san was beside himself!”
But Toyobe’s wound was not so serious. After leaving the regiment’s
headquarters and leading his men on the front line, he had been hit in his
right leg by a bullet that went straight through his flesh. “The bullet’s gone
through,” he announced, dressing his own wound with a bandage. He did
not even receive any treatment at the field hospital.
The Russians persisted with wave after wave of attacks. About three of
these were full-scale assaults, but Yoshifuru never allowed them to reach
his lines and continued using firepower to push them back. When the sun
began to sink in the sky, the Russians called a halt to their attacks, and, after
setting fire to their storehouse to the north of Dafangshen, they began to
withdraw under cover of black smoke. Since this was the best army in the
world at this type of operation, they carried out their retreat in a thorough
and orderly way. The rear guard was still in position and kept up a constant
barrage of covering fire as one by one each unit pulled back.
Watching the enemy maneuvers through his binoculars, Yoshifuru let out
a gasp of admiration. “There’s the Russian Army for you!” Under normal
circumstances, he would have chosen this moment to capitalize on these
developments by shifting to the pursuit. Yet he refrained from doing so.
Despite the intensity of this battle, his strategy had managed to preserve his
forces almost unscathed. If he chased after them now, the enemy—for this
was the Russian style of withdrawal—would doubtless use all their
counterattacking skills to surround and destroy them.
56 battle
Yoshifuru pushed only the artillery forward. To protect these batteries,
he placed machine gun units among the field guns. He did not pursue the
enemy with the cavalry or infantry, the soldiers most likely to sustain
injuries, but instead he chased them fiercely with shells and bullets. This
threw the Russians into great confusion, and in the end they were unable to
recover their dead and wounded as they fled to the northeast. They were
struck such a blow that Lieutenant General Birger’s detachment was unable
to take part in the final decisive clashes in the battle of Mukden.
Night fell.
Almost all the enemy troops had withdrawn or scattered, but there
remained one Russian unit to the north of Dafangshen that continued to
bombard Yoshifuru’s camp with shells and bullets.
“What are they doing?” Captain Hattori asked Yoshifuru, looking for some
explanation. Yoshifuru had no staff officers of his own, so he had the dual
role of command and tactical control.
Instead of answering, Yoshifuru asked Hattori for his opinion. “What
do you think they’re doing?” He was unsure himself what the enemy was
up to.
There were three possibilities. One was that this unit had remained behind
as the pivot of a further general assault to follow after sunrise the next day.
Another was that this was simply the rear guard covering the withdrawal of
the main force. Or, third, perhaps a single commander had stayed behind on
his own initiative to carry on the fight.
This third scenario did not seem right. The Russian commanders and
soldiers always followed orders faithfully, and it was inconceivable that they
would just continue fighting of their own accord. The second explanation
was also a bit far-fetched. If they were covering the withdrawal, their
mission should have finished several hours ago.
“They’ll probably come again tomorrow,” Yoshifuru decided.
If they launched another attack, in true Russian style they would probably
use twice as many troops as they had today. Their tactics would improve
because they had learned much about Yoshifuru’s troop strength and
deployment from today’s fighting. They would doubtless attack with better
effect.
“The best thing to do is run,” Yoshifuru thought, preferring to turn and
hide elsewhere.
If they evacuated Dafangshen and withdrew 3 to 5 kilometers, the villages
of Caojiatun and Chalukou would be suitable places to mount a defense. He
decided that they should make their camp there that night to avoid any
unnecessary casualties. If this had been a battle in the era of Warring States,
 clouds above the hill 57
the decision to advance or retreat would be simply up to the captain. In this
modern army, he had to consult his superior officers.
Yoshifuru telephoned Nogi’s headquarters to present his proposal and
received permission to pull back. Although he had won the battle, he did
not pursue but instead withdrew. By then, he had a reputation for his know-
how and the flexibility of his leadership in combat. Due to such celebrated
exploits, he would go on to a rare achievement, elevation to the rank of
general. He gained this prize even though he spent almost his entire career
with his own unit and never served as an army bureaucrat in the military
administration or high command.
That night, while Yoshifuru remained at his post, his troops in turn
decamped and left. While this was in progress, something unusual happened.
“Enemy attack!” a voice cried from the front line. The shout was echoed
all over the camp, throwing the men into confusion, until it reached
Yoshifuru’s headquarters.
Yoshifuru immediately went out of the mausoleum building and shouted,
“It’s not an enemy attack. It’s a mistake, just a mistake!”
His words were instantly relayed in all directions, and the whole army
calmed down. Yoshifuru was convinced that the remaining enemy troops
still firing to the north of Dafangshen would not receive orders or have
enough firepower to launch a night attack.
By around ten o’clock at night, they had evacuated Dafangshen.

* * *
But the Russian Army did not come again in the manner that Yoshifuru had
feared. As the sun rose the next morning, there was no sign of any attack.
“Looks like they’re not coming,” Captain Hattori said in the gray light
before dawn.
“Something must’ve happened.” Yoshifuru spoke in his Iyo accent. He
didn’t say this to sound funny, but there was something comical in his words,
and everyone, including his orderly Watanuki, struggled not to burst out
laughing.
Yoshifuru showed off all his skill as he now chose this moment to shift
to a fierce pursuit. If they went after the Russians, they should be able to
escape with only minor losses while at the same time inflicting heavy
casualties on the enemy. Akiyama’s corps resumed its advance north with
fresh vigor.
Yoshifuru took a swig from his water flask as he rode ahead. It was filled
with Chinese liquor, as usual. Watanuki, his orderly, considered Yoshifuru
the most undemanding of officers to serve under, though there was one hard
part of the job—keeping him supplied with his liquor. Yoshifuru also drank
58 battle
while the army was on the march. So Watanuki always had to keep his own
flask filled with liquor too.
When Yoshifuru’s flask was empty, he called out, “Watanuki!”
Prepared for this contingency, the orderly rode up to Yoshifuru to hand
over his flask, but before he could do so, the always informal Yoshifuru
pulled his horse up just behind and leaned down to drink, or rather guzzle,
the liquor from the flask at Watanuki’s side, quenching his thirst.
He drank even as shells were flying around him. His adjutants laughed
at the comical figure he cut, but Yoshifuru was oblivious and just carried
on drinking. As Yoshifuru and his men moved north, the ranks of the
Russian Army grew, their resistance becoming more stubborn. This
tormented the main force of Nogi’s army and hampered their movement,
but Yoshifuru was able to use his cavalry troop’s firepower and speed to
press on, and emerge to the west of Mukden by the evening of March 4.
“I’m surrounded!” On March 7, Kuropatkin sent this bitter telegram to
St. Petersburg, but he had already been terribly shaken on the evening of
March 4 when Yoshifuru appeared west of Mukden at the head of Nogi’s
army.
That same evening, Nogi’s headquarters showed the first signs of
optimism regarding their advance. “We can crush the enemy if we push on
as far as the station in Mukden,” Nogi decided, and at nine o’clock at night
he gave orders from his position in Houmindun to all units under his
command for a final assault.
The decision was based on this mistaken intelligence report: “The enemy
is in disarray around Mukden. They appear to be preparing to withdraw, and
a number of trains already have taken troops and equipment away.” After
reevaluating his information at eleven o’clock, Nogi had no option but to
countermand the earlier order. The enemy was not so much withdrawing as
making preparations for a last stand. He also knew that Mukden was ringed
with formidable defenses.
The decisive conflict in the battle of Mukden may be said to have begun
on the evening of March 4 when the headquarters of Nogi’s army first became
optimistic about their chances of success. Facing Nogi was the Russian
Second Manchurian Army under General Kaulbars. That night, Kaulbars
made up his mind about how he was going to deploy the massive force at
his disposal—including fifty infantry battalions—and he issued orders to all
units under his command at noon the next day. His strategy was to concen-
trate the attack mainly on the enemy’s left wing, causing such appalling chaos
in Nogi’s army that at times it seemed on the verge of a total rout.
On the left wing of Nogi’s army was the First Division, which had been
near Dashiqiao until the evening of March 5. Nogi’s staff officers thought
 clouds above the hill 59
the enemy troops ahead of the First Division would offer only weak
resistance, so they barely paid any attention to this front at all. During the
morning of March 6, the First Division’s commander Iida Shunsuke was
also totally relaxed, leaving behind only a small force to guard Dashiqiao
as he began his advance north toward Pingluopu.
Nogi himself paid no attention at all to the enemy forces ahead of the
First Division and led his army’s combined firepower unit, the Nagata
Artillery Brigade, away in another direction as he advanced on Masanjiazi.
That same day, General Kaulbars launched a mass attack on this blind spot
in Nogi’s army, the weak rear guard of the First Division, which had been
left behind in Dashiqiao. Kaulbars stormed their position in a flash.
There had never been such terrible confusion among the men since the
outbreak of the war. It reached such an extreme that Ōshima Hisanao, who
was in charge of the Ninth Division, raced to the scene to help, and, when
he saw the scattered troops streaming toward him, he turned to his chief of
staff and muttered, “Are these really Japanese soldiers?” The quality of the
Japanese troops had sunk that low. Ōshima himself leaped down and grabbed
hold of a man as he fled, demanding to know what was going on.
“There’s no choice!” the deathly pale soldier kept repeating before he ran
away. Piecing together the reports, they realized that a huge enemy force
had attacked from the direction of Liujiawopeng, and every single soldier
ended up running for his life. No commanding officer was left to give orders
since all of them had died in action as they tried to mount a defense.
Ōshima only had a small cavalry escort with him, and the strongest unit
in his division, the brigade under Major General Ichinohe, had not yet arrived.
There was nothing he could do.
When he learned what had happened from an urgent report, Nogi was
astonished and responded by speedily dispatching the Nagata Artillery
Brigade and an infantry brigade to Dashiqiao. Firepower again saved the
desperate situation there. Arriving at the scene, the Nagata Artillery Brigade
set up a line of 150 field guns and mountain guns stretching to the right of
the division’s own artillery, and at a distance of just 2,000 meters they
released a volley of rapid fire, which at last succeeded in pushing the enemy
back. Scenes like these were visited on Nogi’s army for days on end.

* * *
No matter which way you look at it, the Russian Army should never have
lost the battle of Mukden. They held a significant advantage both in troop
strength and firepower. They were reinforced by large numbers of fresh
troops straight from European Russia, and they did not have the problem
60 battle
the Japanese faced, of an ageing army with its ranks swollen by older standby
reservists.
They lost due to their tactics. In fact, the tactical defeat was complete in
every respect. Yet from the rank of divisional commander down, not a single
person was responsible for the Russian Army’s shame. Their level of courage
often compared favorably with the Japanese. They followed their orders
obediently, defending to the death when told to defend, and braving showers
of bullets when told to attack. There was almost no sign of the insubordination
that tends to occur in an army with slack discipline, and no units took it into
their heads to use the situation on the ground as an excuse to retreat. The
withdrawal also was carried out according to orders. The Russian Army
merited recognition as the finest in the world in the orderly manner with
which these troops advanced and withdrew.
The Russian defeat may be traced to a single individual. The personality
and incompetence of Kuropatkin were the main causes. Throughout history,
such a phenomenon is rare indeed. The long- and short-term reasons for the
fall of a nation, army, or some other group are always complex, so such a
demise cannot be attributed simply to the shortcomings or mistakes of one
or two individuals in high places. Rather, such events are the result of
countless issues that must be weighed together.
In the battle of Mukden, Kuropatkin alone is at fault. So this battle fought
out on the Manchurian plains on a scale never seen before in world history
was a most unusual case.
Captain Tsunoda Koreshige, staff officer at Nogi’s headquarters, was
critical of his own side and had, of course, complained frequently about
General Headquarters’ excessively complex tactics. And yet, supported by
Field Marshal Ōyama’s peerlessly steady command, the plan of operations
devised by Kodama and Matsukawa—which one might even call an artistic
creation—was carried out without once wavering from the original objective
and without being deflected by the various unexpected interruptions along
the way. This plan made a fool of Kuropatkin from start to finish as if they
were playing a one-sided game of shōgi.
When Kuropatkin drew up his own plan of operations, he had been in
high spirits, but once the battle was underway, he fell gradually into the
enemy’s trap with every move the Japanese made. During the entire
operation, there was not a single time when he took the initiative and
launched a plan of his own. From beginning to end, he was tossed from one
side to the other, always at the mercy of the Japanese Army.
When the Army of the Yalu was used as a decoy to attack the eastern
front, Kuropatkin went to pieces and responded by sending a large force
there. When Nogi’s army appeared on the western front to encircle the
 clouds above the hill 61
Russians and draw them out, Kuropatkin reacted like someone running
around trying to put out a fire, and, in the process, he wore out his army to
no effect as he rushed his troops from east to west. The structural integrity
of the whole army was severely weakened by the way he pulled various
smaller units from his own army corps to form a new reserve force in one
instance and a relief force in the next. The cohesion in the chain of command
was so broken that even the Russian commanders wondered whose orders
they could really rely on.

* * *
The outcome of the battle of Mukden was very much determined by the
differences between Kuropatkin and Ōyama as commanders. While we’ve
touched on this theme already, here I would like to use Russian historical
records to review Kuropatkin’s tactics.
First, when the Army of the Yalu attacked the eastern front, Kuropatkin
immediately responded by sending his reserve force.
“A premature move.”
Afterward, instructors on strategy at the Russian Imperial Military
Academy always offered this critique. If, as commander in chief, he had
only waited a little longer and allowed the units already on the eastern front
to bear the brunt of the enemy attack, he would soon have realized the true
nature of the Army of the Yalu—that it was a relatively small force,
composed mainly of old veterans, and weak in firepower. The panicky
Kuropatkin did not have the nerve to weather the storm. This was how a
Russian Army report described the situation along one section of the eastern
front (the Wangfuling area) on February 27, just before Kuropatkin’s
reinforcements arrived:

Starting on the night of February 26, Japanese troops attacked our

stronghold on the high ground to the north of Wangfuling. This was held
by two companies of the 284th Regiment. We won that night’s battle and
drove the Japanese off. At 0700 hours the next morning, they attacked again.
The two Russian companies fought hard, the officers were all killed in action,
and only one acting second lieutenant survived. All but seventy-three of
our men were killed.

This was a near annihilation. The Russians fought to the death and, as this
small piece of evidence shows, they did not lose the battle because their
soldiers were weak. The attacking strength of the Army of the Yalu, short
on firepower and people, was already on the wane at this stage. This is clearly
described in Russian records. “After this, the Japanese Army became less
62 battle
active, and they only continued with bombardment through the day. Russian
gunfire was far superior.”
It was toward the end of the Army of the Yalu’s offensive—an end forced
upon them rather than planned—that the huge troop of reinforcements sent
by Kuropatkin arrived on the eastern front. The Army of the Yalu was in a
terrible position. The following day (February 28), Kuropatkin received some
important news: “The Japanese are advancing north along the Liao River.”
This was Nogi’s army on the western front.
According to Russian records, Kuropatkin did not consider this a very
serious threat at first. He imagined that the enemy was only the size of a
reconnaissance force. On March 1, he realized the gravity of the situation
and issued orders to transfer the troops he had dispatched to the eastern front
over to the west instead.
First, he moved the First Siberian Army Corps. His order read: “On March
2, march from your present position and to Baitatapu”—south of Mukden—
“on the same day.”
During the battle, this First Siberian Army Corps, which was a large force,
was compelled to march from west to east, and from east back to west, and
in the end it did not take part in the fighting. Their commander was a
lieutenant general, Aleksandr Gerngross, who had a reputation for dauntless
courage, but this was of no use now.
“Throughout the campaign this army corps was sacrificed by tactical
incompetence and endless vacillation” was the later appraisal of Sergei
Dobrovolsky, an instructor at the Imperial Military Academy.
* * *
It is doubtful that the Japanese Army was really superior to the Russians on
the various fronts in the battle of Mukden, and in many cases the reverse
was true. Numerous Japanese attacking units were only spared from total
destruction by Kuropatkin’s unnecessary troop movements. After the war,
“the miracle of March 7” was a common topic of conversation among the
soldiers of Nozu’s army, which had held a position in the center. The
question they all asked was: “Why did the Russian Army suddenly disappear
on March 7?”
This was especially pertinent for Nozu’s army, which had to contend with
the impressive Russian line of semipermanent defenses around Wanfangshan.
“Even with the crack troops of the Tenth Division (Himeji) there,” the
veterans of the battle said, “and even after hand-to-hand fighting lasting six
days and nights, we still could not break through. Huge numbers of men
were sacrificed.”
Along the Wanfangshan line was a position at Liujiangdun that had
been pounded by the Japanese heavy artillery, including the use of their
 clouds above the hill 63
28-centimeter howitzers. The Russian defenses were so robust that they did
not shatter, and their firepower showed no sign of weakening. The exchange
of gunfire continued for three days. Following the usual pattern, it was the
Japanese infantry’s turn to charge forward in successive waves, covered by
supporting fire from the artillery, but all they did was increase their own
losses without making any progress. At night on the fourth day, the whole
division seemed to have been thrown back on its heels when taking a break
from the fighting.
Headquarters in Yantai responded with cries of rage so fierce they
threatened to shatter the telephone line. “Why aren’t you attacking?”
When Uehara Yūsaku, the chief of staff of Nozu’s army replied that
nothing could be done until they reordered their battle line, the voice at the
other end suddenly changed. Kodama Gentarō himself was on the line.
“Nogi is doing all he can to push forward, outflank the enemy, and strike
at Mukden. He’s managed to get as far as the west of the city, but from what
it looks like today, he’s facing a growing number of enemy troops, and he’s
got a real struggle on his hands. The outcome of the whole battle depends
on whether or not we can get his army around behind Mukden. If Nozu can
make things easier for him by taking a step forward and landing one true
blow, Nogi will be able to advance that much as well. That’s why there’s
nothing we can do about the men Nozu’s army loses, no matter how many
there are. If Nogi’s crushed west of Mukden, it’s the end of this battle, and,
though Nozu’s army alone might survive, Japan will be destroyed.”
Because of what Kodama said over the telephone, the Tenth Division of
Nozu’s army set out at first light on March 5 to resume a fierce all-out assault
on the enemy’s line of strongholds. The fighting was so intense that it is
unbearable for me to describe each detail. The Tenth Infantry Regiment
(Himeji) and the Fortieth Infantry Regiment (Tottori) suffered such severe
casualties that they lost their cohesion as military units. In the course of a
single day’s fighting, eleven hundred men were lost in action, including the
messengers sent frequently between these regiments and their commander,
Major General Ōtani Kikuzō, who was in charge of the Eighth Brigade at
the front. When night fell, they had no choice but to withdraw.
On March 6, they took a break from the assault, and the next day the
enemy was silent. Inexplicable though it may seem, this was because of an
order from Kuropatkin.

* * *
The situation was no different for the Twentieth Infantry Brigade in the Tenth
Division, which was attacking the strongholds on Wanfangshan. This brigade
was formed around the Twentieth Infantry Regiment (Fukuchiyama) and
64 battle
the Thirty-ninth Infantry Regiment (Himeji). Attached were also a number
of technical troops: Tenth Cavalry Regiment (Himeji), Tenth Artillery
Regiment (Himeji), Tenth Engineer Battalion (Fukuchiyama), and Tenth
Logistics Battalion (Himeji), a battalion to transport gunpowder, and a unit
for building bridges.
The heavy artillery units had been raining down shells on the enemy
positions to provide cover for their assault. Yet, as a contemporary Japanese
record describes, “The enemy strongholds were semipermanent bases with
modern scientific fortifications, and even when our engineers tried their best
to destroy their auxiliary defenses it was still far from easy to clear a path
for the advance.” This reference to “modern science” was typical of the Meiji
period; such descriptions were prompted by the Japanese awe of modern
civilization in those days.
No matter how many infantry attacks they launched, they were repelled
every time. At last, Major General Imahashi Tomokatsu, commander of the
Twelfth Brigade, fell in action, and before dawn on March 5 they were hit
by a large Russian counterattack, with one regiment suffering such heavy
losses that only a sergeant and fifteen men survived. On this day alone, the
Tenth Division lost 2,362 men, and its fighting strength as a division was
greatly decreased, the soldiers so exhausted from days without sleep that
they could barely stand. If the Russians had launched just one more
counterattack, the division would probably have been totally annihilated.
Once again, the day was saved on this front by Kuropatkin. During the
night of March 7, the Russians abandoned their defenses on the high ground
and withdrew. It was absolutely baffling. Protected by those “semipermanent
bases with modern scientific fortifications” along the line of strongholds on
Wanfangshan, the Russian Army’s casualties had been less than half those
suffered by the Japanese. They withdrew even though they still had an active
fighting force.
Kuropatkin’s nerves and confused thinking were probably the cause. He
had been shaken when Nogi’s army attempted to achieve the impossible by
advancing around to the north. Kuropatkin’s state of mind was a victory for
the plan of operations that Ōyama and Kodama had devised for Nogi’s
advance, since the plan managed to suppress whatever creative powers
Kuropatkin may have even momentarily possessed. He was caught, trapped,
and dragged down by the feints, camouflage, and pitfalls that they had set
before him. Rarely had strategy and tactics resulted in what Ōyama and
Kodama had achieved during this battle, but rarely had a general allowed
himself to be made into such a fool by enemy strategy.
A master of tactical theory, Kuropatkin was always thinking about
aggressive moves, the secret of success in strategy. Before the battle of
 clouds above the hill 65
Mukden as well, he drew up various plans for attack on paper. Given
Kuropatkin’s vast troop strength, if he had put these plans into practice, the
result would probably have been devastating for the Japanese. But to the
good fortune of the Japanese, he was not a man of action. When the time
came for him to put his plans into operation, he switched to a defensive
strategy. The preemptive strikes and feinting maneuvers by the Japanese had
immediately distracted his attention.
Viewed this way, the inescapable conclusion is that Kuropatkin was
defeated by himself. He knew that the Japanese had fewer troops than his
own army. He surely knew the tactical methods of the Japanese Army from
his own experiences at the battles of Liaoyang, Shaho, Heigoutai, and
Mukden.
The Japanese launched fierce attacks. But their reserve force was small,
and so the troops deployed could not be thickly and powerfully dispersed.
If Kuropatkin had summoned his willpower and used a large force to launch
a concentrated attack at some point, he would have easily broken through
the thinly stretched Japanese lines. And if the Russians, having broken
through, had wheeled around to encircle and attack the rear guard, the
Japanese Army with its small reserve force would have crumbled on all
fronts. Kuropatkin had been in command since the start of the war, and so
he surely knew these chronic weaknesses in the Japanese Army.
Kuropatkin even boasted of his experience to General Grippenberg on
the latter’s arrival from European Russia. “I know what the Japanese Army
is all about.” He could indeed draw upon his rich experience of fighting the
Japanese Army. He had, however, experienced only the Japanese Army’s
strengths, and it was his nature to shudder in fear at the enemy’s strengths
rather than belittle its weaknesses. So in that sense his “experience” with
the Japanese did not serve him well.
In the world of military generals, the man with the most experience is
not always the one held in the highest esteem, and, besides, experience can
be both good and bad. Since numerous famous generals through the ages
have not necessarily been veterans of a hundred battles but, in fact, have
been near novices, Kuropatkin’s boast means nothing.
When the Japanese Army began its encircling strategy, he should have
reacted like a novice and exclaimed, “This is too stupid to be true!” He knew
about Japan’s population and resources, and so he should have been able to
figure out what troop strength the enemy could field in Manchuria. He would
have been able to see what an impossible task it was for them to try to
surround the Russians.
It is a principle of strategy that a smaller army cannot possibly surround
a larger force. Ōyama and Kodama had overlooked this principle and gone
66 battle
ahead anyway. If Kuropatkin had been a novice, he would have seen that
Ōyama was trying the impossible. But as a talented student of tactics who
had committed the principles of strategy to memory, he was swayed instead
by the outlook of an expert. “If Ōyama is trying to surround us, he must
have a huge reserve force hidden away,” he thought.
He used all the reconnaissance and intelligence networks at his disposal
to search behind the Japanese lines, but in the end he simply could not find
this huge reserve force. Even then, he remained a slave to principle. “We
can’t find it, but that doesn’t mean that Ōyama doesn’t have one,” he thought
as he shied away from launching his own grand offensive and assumed a
defensive stance instead.

* * *
Ōyama and Kodama felt that they were treading on thin ice in this whole
operation. They made all the troops at their disposal advance, thus violating
the common sense of strategy, which holds that an army must keep at least
some force in reserve. Judging from previous battles, they had a good idea
of how Kuropatkin would respond. “Knowing him, he won’t have the
presence of mind to try to pinpoint our weak spot. He’ll just be blinded by
what’s going on before his eyes and revert to a defensive action.”
Their plan of operations was a gamble, or perhaps more of a calculated
risk that had been devised after a study of Kuropatkin’s character, in
particular his psychological makeup. Yet a risk is still a risk. It was the height
of nonsense for a smaller army to try to surround a larger force. While the
operation was in progress, there were signs everywhere that they had failed.
In the last stages of the battle, for example, Nogi’s army had formed a
large column and was advancing to the west of Mukden with Oku’s army
following in line behind. At that point, Nogi’s left wing was being surrounded
by enemy troops and in great danger. At the start of the campaign, they had
not been equipped with machine guns, and if that had been the case at this
juncture, Nogi’s army would probably have crumbled from the left wing
onward. It was not strategy from headquarters that had saved them nor the
bravery of the soldiers, but rather the left wing’s five or six machine guns,
which kept firing until their barrels were red hot so that Kuropatkin’s large
mobile force (consisting of thirty infantry battalions) finally withdrew.
Here the Russians did not so much collapse before the fire from the
Japanese machine guns as become so alarmed by their rattling report that
they abandoned their general counterattack and pulled back. For both armies,
the power of machine guns was utterly terrifying, chilling men to the bone.
Ōyama and Kodama’s plan to encircle Mukden may have been a risk the
Japanese Army simply had to take, but nothing could have been more
 clouds above the hill 67
dangerous. For example, Oku’s army, advancing north behind Nogi, and
Nozu’s army had been linked together throughout the operation, but when
Oku reached the right bank of the Hun River, they became separated,
opening up a large area. Given the large number of mounted patrol troops
the Russians had at their disposal, they should have been able to spot this
gap. But their cavalry was far less skilled at reconnaissance than the Japanese.
Even if the Russian cavalry had found this gap and informed Kuropatkin,
it is doubtful that with his inflexibility regarding attacking maneuvers, he
would have seized on the information to launch an offensive and achieve
victory.
The weaknesses in Ōyama and Kodama’s risky plans also showed up in
Kuroki’s army, which was holding the center together with Nozu’s army.
Also under orders to give support to the Army of the Yalu’s feint on the
right wing, Kuroki’s army had to operate over a wide area as it stretched to
the right while covering the center. As a result, the single line of troops
became as thin as thread. If Kuropatkin had attacked, the outcome would
have been catastrophic. But Kuropatkin did not attack, since he was
preoccupied with Nogi’s army.

* * *
The whole campaign unfolded following the Japanese lead. Kuropatkin was
passive throughout, wandering first left then right in response to each enemy
move as if he had been a general hired by Japan for that purpose. The
Japanese began running out of shells, and the commanders of the heavy
artillery brigades and the artillery regiments in each division became nervous
about their dwindling supplies of ammunition during the bombardment. The
Russians, having greater supplies, consumed their shells with abandon.
While the Japanese guns, large and small, were more accurate, the Russian
soldiers were better shots with their rifles.
The Japanese people are naturally good with figures, while the Russian
soldiers’ arithmetic skills were generally low. Calculations, however, were
not required to shoot a rifle. The Japanese perhaps had a lower rate of
accuracy with their rifles because of their impetuous national character.
Quick-tempered people generally make poor shots.
In fighting maneuvers—including scout patrols—the Japanese infantry
and cavalry were vastly superior. The Russians made a poor showing,
especially the small units of a few men that were led by noncommissioned
officers. The Russians always relied on their senior officers, while the
Japanese noncommissioned officers and their men were able to judge a
situation for themselves. This may be because the literacy rate in Japan was
so much higher, or perhaps it was due to the structure of society. In Japan,
68 battle
the lower classes had actively participated in society since the Edo period,
so they had to use their wits to survive. The Russian lower classes, on the
other hand, still showed the effects of serfdom, which had prevailed in their
country since ancient times. In Russia, people could become, so to speak,
paralyzed when it came to fending for themselves, and that did not derive
from their natural dispositions but from an environment that saw a man as
merely a source of labor. Such men were not used to making decisions for
themselves even on the battlefield, and this defect pervaded the Russian Army
as a whole.
On one occasion, a cavalry private named Maruyama from Nogi’s
headquarters fell from his horse during battle and was taken prisoner. He
was sent to St. Petersburg, where he was subjected to interrogation by the
Russian Army. Maruyama revealed no military secrets, but when questioned
on the operation of Japanese Army headquarters he replied throughout in
the abstract style of an academic thesis on “the general’s overall situation
and his staff’s pursuit of their duties.” This amazed not just people in Russia
but military circles all over Europe. A paper on his testimony appeared in
a German weekly military journal under the title “A Japanese Soldier’s
Amazing Knowledge.”
The Japanese Army simply had no option but to try to make up for its
lack of firepower by using people as “human bullets” in hand-to-hand
combat. Once this became routine practice, the soldiers were equal to the
task. At the time of the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese were tempera-
mentally perhaps the best army in the world.

* * *
“Nogi’s army! Press further ahead.”
Again, for several days, telephone calls from General Headquarters in
Yantai tested the nerves of the staff at Nogi’s headquarters. Nogi’s army
was marching through hails of bullets as it kept on moving north. Yet from
the viewpoint of headquarters in Yantai, this was still not enough. We know
that previously, when the plan of operations had been put in motion,
Matsukawa Toshitane, who was in charge of tactics at Yantai headquarters,
had said sarcastically, “We’re not expecting much of Nogi’s army.” But
ultimately the whole outcome of the battle of Mukden depended on the
success of Nogi’s advance north. This was always Nogi’s fate.
In the siege of Port Arthur, he was not included in the original plan of
operations drawn up by the General Staff Office. At first, the idea had been
to bypass Port Arthur altogether and engage in a field campaign. In response
to a request from the navy, there had been no choice but to launch a land
bombardment on Port Arthur. The Third Army had been formed for this
 clouds above the hill 69
purpose, and they had to choose a general from the Chōshū faction since
there were none among the army commanders at the time. Nogi Maresuke,
who was serving in some obscure post, was selected.
Port Arthur became the fiercest battleground of the war, the outcome so
vital that it practically decided Japan’s destiny. This was again the case in
the battle of Mukden as Nogi received his orders to advance on his
outflanking maneuver to the north. When the operation was being drawn up
at headquarters in Yantai, the composition of his force was determined by
the view that “The job of Nogi’s army is just to stir up the enemy. It doesn’t
need much troop strength or firepower.”
Once the battle got underway, it became clear just how formidable the
Russian positions in the center really were. The shells from the Japanese
heavy guns just bounced off the concrete scarps and frozen ground. The task
of Nozu’s army was to concentrate only on breaking through the enemy
positions in the center. Kuroki’s army on Nozu’s right would attack the center
while also giving support to the Army of the Yalu’s maneuvers on the right
wing. Oku’s army on Nozu’s left was to attack the center while also giving
support to Nogi’s army’s maneuvers.
But the semipermanent fortifications in the center of the Russian Army
were like an iron wall. Even Nozu’s army with its heavy firepower grew
exhausted in attacking the center, while Oku’s and Kuroki’s armies, in their
auxiliary role, ran out of steam as they did the same. As foreseen by the
original Yantai plan, “Nogi’s army is to move forward. This will distract
Kuropatkin so that Nozu, Oku, and Kuroki can seize their chance to take
the center.”
The situation on the ground was rather different. The center was just not
shifting at all. Only Nogi’s army on its diversionary maneuver was advancing
ever further north. At this rate, Nogi might be cut off from the rest of the
army and lost for good.
Where fate smiled on the Japanese was in Kuropatkin’s weakness as
commander in chief. Perhaps mistaking Nogi for the main force of the
Japanese Army, he suddenly redeployed his troops to face him for a decisive
confrontation. For Nogi’s army, it was just too much to bear. If they lost,
they would have failed to make the fatal last hurdle and thus condemned
the whole Japanese Army to defeat in the battle of Mukden. The dramatic
task that fate had assigned to Nogi made him a more symbolic figure of the
Russo-Japanese War than either Ōyama or Kodama.

* * *
The advance north of Nogi’s army was becoming an increasingly harrowing
experience.
70 battle
“General Headquarters is to blame for this,” Tsunoda Koreshige, one of
Nogi’s staff officers kept thinking.
Nogi’s army now had the lead role. But hadn’t they been denied the troop
strength necessary for such a task? Nogi realized that if he was not careful
his whole army was in danger of being swept away to the north. Mukden
lay close by to their east, but they were unable to strike at the city itself.
We’ve told about how Kodama himself once took hold of the telephone
and berated them. “Why isn’t Nogi’s army advancing faster? Haven’t you
cut off the railway behind Mukden yet? What the hell are you doing?”
Nogi’s vice chief of staff Lieutenant Colonel Kawai, who took the call,
almost started to cry in frustration. He realized that Yantai just did not
understand the true horror of their situation. Headquarters simply gave them
orders to “Cut off the railway behind Mukden,” which might have worked
on paper, but in reality Nogi’s men were faced with a large Russian Army
that was rapidly growing even bigger. Even if they used their entire force,
they would still not have enough strength to break through to the back of
Mukden and cut off the railway.
Yet just because General Headquarters was so insistent, Nogi’s
headquarters made a decision: “Let’s give this job to Akiyama.”
Akiyama’s corps had both mobility and fighting strength, but only three
thousand men. It was an impossible task, of course, for three thousand men
to push their way through the enemy army of one hundred thousand that
was now facing them. But Nogi’s army at least had to make a show of it.
With their token gesture of following orders from General Headquarters,
even though they had no chance of success, they were setting an unhealthy
precedent not seen before in the Japanese Army.
“If I’m being ordered to go, I don’t have a choice,” Yoshifuru thought.
Akiyama’s corps made only slow headway on its fighting advance. If they
became separated from the main force behind and met heroic destruction in
action, Nogi’s whole army might crumble along with them. In any case, the
situation on the battlefield was not unfolding as headquarters at Yantai had
wished.
Yoshifuru somehow managed to reconcile the army’s order with the reality
on the ground. He did not make any reckless charges, but secured his
position as far as possible by carrying out defensive maneuvers along the
way as he steadily drew closer to the enemy.
 2
RETREAT

On the morning of March 6, the eighth day of battle, the Russians launched
a full-scale offensive against Nogi’s army. At around ten minutes before
eight in the morning, the Japanese suffered a bitter defeat at Dashiqiao, and
in the words of one of Nogi’s staff officers, “Sections of the reserve infantry
brigade streamed away like a great river that had burst its banks as they were
put to flight.” The Ninth Division (Kanazawa) somehow managed to recover
Dashiqiao, but it encountered a strong enemy force two days later in the
Bajiazu area and was completely trapped, unable either to advance or retreat.
One section of the Ninth Field Artillery Regiment (Kanazawa) was caught
by Russian artillery fire just as it was re-forming. All the officers below the
rank of battery commander fell, gun carriages flew off, guns were smashed,
and almost all the gunners were killed. By the time these units had reached
their designated positions, there was just one gun and a single corporal left
standing. After hauling the gun into place by himself, this corporal loaded,
aimed, and unleashed a furious round of fire. Throughout the division,
Japanese foot soldiers had been taking cover wherever they could on the
snow-covered plains, but some were even moved to tears on hearing the
report from this single gun. They all took heart, responding as one as they
launched a fierce charge that finally overran the enemy base at Bajiazu.
On March 9, the whole area ahead of Nogi’s First Division seemed to be
surging up with approaching Russian troops as they prepared for a
counterattack. When the Russians came, their assault was concentrated on
the First Division in Nogi’s center and the Ninth Division on the left wing.
The First Division suffered a complete rout. It was the first time, including
the First Sino-Japanese War, that the Japanese army had experienced such
a defeat, a fact that was not publicly disclosed for many years afterward.
72 retreat
Even the History of the Russo-Japanese War, compiled by the General Staff,
only alludes to this reverse in outline, and, of course, gives no descriptive
detail.
To quote the words of Tsunoda Koreshige, a staff officer in Nogi’s army
who observed the scene himself:

Almost all the infantry had discarded their rifles, they had no swords, and
some did not even have backpacks or caps. In the most extreme cases they
had no stockings or boots, and went completely barefoot. . . . I rushed
forward and yelled out orders for these retreating units to halt, but not a
single soldier responded. By chance I saw a special duty sergeant major of
the Third Infantry Regiment running past me. When I called out to him,
urging him to reorder his ranks, he complained of a head wound. But when
I loosened his bandage and took a look myself I saw that he had only a
slight scratch on the back of his head. I was so angry that I prodded him
between the shoulder blades with the flat of my sword, screaming at him—
just what kind of behavior did he think this was for an officer? He at last
came to his senses, apologizing profusely as he set about rounding up his
retreating men.

Involving the whole of a large military unit, the entire First Division, this
chaotic retreat was just unheard of. The weakest soldiers in the Japanese
Army were generally considered to be the Osaka garrison, which had fought
in the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, and the subsequently formed Fourth
Division (Osaka), followed by the First Division (Tokyo). In the Russo-
Japanese War, however, the Fourth Division acquitted itself well enough,
and the First Division won this inglorious reputation instead.
Whatever the various reasons behind this maneuver, Kuropatkin was using
a massive force of 72 infantry battalions armed with 120 guns to try to break
through Nogi’s army. In the course of this counteroffensive, even the
Japanese field hospital behind Nogi’s lines was burned down by Russian
artillery fire. There was a great commotion as staff officers from Nogi’s
headquarters ran through the flames to save the wounded soldiers trapped
inside, while staff officers of the various divisions scrambled around to stem
the tide of men racing away from the battlefield.

* * *
The brutal reality of this defeat suffered by Nogi’s First Division epitomizes
just how much attacking strength the Japanese military had lost in the
Russo-Japanese War.
 clouds above the hill 73
Let me explain this process in some detail. The confusion began with the
First Standby Reserve Infantry Brigade (Tokyo), which had been sent to the
front as reinforcements from General Headquarters. Under the command of
an already elderly major general, this brigade comprised the First Standby
Reserve Infantry Regiment (Tokyo) and the Fifteenth Standby Reserve
Infantry Regiment (Takasaki), and just as the term “standby reserve”
indicates, they were all conscripted veterans.
The Japanese Army had already run out of the reservists it needed to
replenish its troop strength, and units like the Fifteenth Standby Reserve
Infantry Brigade (Shibata), supporting the First Division, were composed
entirely of noncommissioned officers and men whose average age was
forty-five. They were unable to stand up to the full pressure of battle
maneuvers. The Second Infantry Brigade (Tokyo and Sakura), which was
operating jointly with this First Standby Reserve Infantry Brigade, may have
looked like a troop of regular servicemen on paper, but in reality it had
numerous conscripts among its ranks who were much weaker than Japanese
foot soldiers had been at the start of the war.
On top of that, on the eleventh day of battle, the soldiers were reaching
the limits of their endurance, and their clumsy movements were almost
pitiful. After two days of continuous fighting, the Second Infantry Brigade
had been reduced to a quarter of its original strength by the time night fell
on March 8. In the midst of all this, at half past ten in the morning an order
arrived from their division for a night attack.
The First Standby Reserve Infantry Brigade, which was also on this joint
operation, received the same order. The two brigades advanced together,
targeting the position at Wenguantun, but these reservists were so exhausted
that they lacked the drive for a night attack, and they ended up being
attacked themselves, sustaining heavy casualties until their division
headquarters called off the assault before it got any worse. They rested only
briefly before relaunching the offensive at first light, but the Russian forces
were simply too strong for them, and two regiments in the Second Infantry
Brigade suffered terrible damage with high officer casualties. The same was
true of the First Standby Reserve Infantry Brigade as well.
These brigades were under orders from Lieutenant General Iida Shunsuke,
commander of the First Division, and his chief of staff, Colonel Hoshino
Kingo. When they saw the situation at the front line, Iida and Hoshino felt
they had no choice but to send forward their reserve. This was the Fifteenth
Standby Reserve Infantry Brigade, composed of veterans whose average age
was forty-five. Tramping sluggishly into position, this troop of old reservists
advanced to within 300 meters of the Wenguantun lines. At times, gusts of
74 retreat
wind swept across the front, and dust clouds obscured the view ahead, making
it difficult to pick out friend from foe. Not only were they unfamiliar with
the local terrain, they had to face an enemy charge as well.
A premonition of the rout to follow seems to have started among this
troop of veterans. It spread rapidly to their fellow reservists in the First
Standby Reserve Infantry Brigade as men surged back together through the
clouds of dust and fled. The enemy followed in pursuit. Even the soldiers
of the relatively robust Second Infantry Brigade were caught up in the
confusion. Until then, they had somehow managed to sustain their attack,
but eventually they too turned and fled.
A reprimand from their divisional commander later prompted them to
halt their retreat, and at four o’clock in the afternoon they began advancing
on the enemy lines once more, but by five they had again been defeated and
fled. It was the same pattern all over again.
The steps taken by Colonel Hoshino and his staff officers prevented this
unheard-of confusion on the First Division’s front line—and twice on the
same day at that—from leading to the collapse of the entire army. During
the second retreat, Hoshino rushed out of the First Division headquarters
and yelled at the fleeing soldiers. They could see with their own eyes that
Russians were fast approaching in pursuit, however, and the situation was
so desperate that Hoshino ran over to the artillery battery and took command
of the gunners himself.
Before them lay an open plain. There was no natural cover at all. Japanese
foot soldiers were skilled at making full use of features in the terrain
whenever they advanced, but this was not so true of the Russians. They
approached nonchalantly forward in full view of the enemy, and in such
numbers that they swarmed across the land in front. They were partly
concealed only by clouds of yellow dust that swept over the plain and swirled
up in the air.
Colonel Hoshino was not the most capable chief of staff. When faced
with a large troop of Russian infantry advancing within 1,000 meters of his
division headquarters, however, it was no longer a matter of tactical acumen.
He had no option but to turn all his fury on the artillery and bark out orders
to the gunners. They all rushed to reset their sights.
After lowering the gun barrels to a horizontal elevation, they barely
waited for the order from Hoshino before unleashing a hail of shells on
the enemy before them, and they hurried to reload and fire a second round.
There was just a split second between the booming report and the sound of
exploding shells. They all found their targets. It was a gruesome scene as
dust mixed with the smoke from these firing and exploding shells, with
leaping flames, flying metal shards, and the ground splashed with blood.
 clouds above the hill 75
The staff officer Tsunoda, meanwhile, who had been assigned to the First
Division from Nogi’s headquarters, ran over to the machine gun position.
The machine gun in use by the Japanese Army was quite an elaborate affair,
mounted on a horse-drawn carriage. Fitted with a gun carriage and a
protective shield, the barrel had the same bore as a rifle.
“What are you doing with the machine gun?” Tsunoda yelled as he
scampered around, clutching the sword at his side, but the flustered gunners
did not know what to do. Deciding to take command himself, he drew his
sword and began dispatching orders. An army staff officer has no authority
to give out orders.
This action of Tsunoda’s would come under some scrutiny later, but at
the time it saved the First Division headquarters from total destruction. First,
he told the gunners to wait until the enemy had advanced to within 500
meters, and then he gave the order for continuous fire. At that time, the term
“continuous fire” was not yet used by machine gunners, and Tsunoda wrote
in his diary how he had just given the order to “mow them down.”
The Russian soldiers were indeed being mowed down as, for the first
time, they were all stopped in their tracks and took cover flat out on the
ground. If this had been the Japanese Army, the soldiers would probably
have just continued attacking. The Russians, however, took this as the limit
of their advance and withdrew.

* * *
The already wretched state of Nogi’s army as it advanced north deteriorated
with each passing day. The heroic dash it had once shown in combat was
no longer to be seen. One reason may have been the tactical failure of Nogi’s
headquarters. Yawning gaps had opened up between each division, some-
times up to 40 kilometers wide, which left them conspicuously isolated. The
cavalry used all their speed to race around the plain to try to plug these gaps,
but there was only so much they could do.
With Nogi’s army so few in number and operating across such a broad
front, the fighting units were all forced to advance in a scattered formation.
From General Headquarters also came the constant telephone calls
demanding to know, “What on earth is Nogi’s army doing?”
Rather than upbraiding Nogi’s men, headquarters should have dispatched
reinforcements, but having already deployed all the forces at their disposal,
they were in no position to allocate any more. This was the true danger in
the Japanese Army’s tactics in the battle of Mukden.
The grim state of Nogi’s army was not just confined to the First Division.
On the left wing, a section of the First Standby Reserve Infantry Brigade
was routed and fled, and even the bearer of the regimental colors ran away.
76 retreat
This was a young second lieutenant who, finding nowhere to hide, escaped
to Nogi’s headquarters. Brandishing his sword, the brigade commander called
out to his men to halt their flight. When even this had no effect he cut one
of them down in his rage, shouting, “You dare to disobey orders?”
A commanding officer had the power of life and death over his men. But
it was almost unheard of for anyone to cut down his own men as they ran
away, let alone was there any precedent of a brigade commander with the
rank of major general drawing his sword and taking such action. But
commanding officers in Nogi’s army were being driven to this crazy extreme.
The situation in Oku’s army, following on behind Nogi, was not so very
different. Lieutenant Yoshioka Tomoyoshi, who had once served as a senior
auxiliary officer in Nogi’s army at the siege of Port Arthur, was commander
of the Thirty-third Infantry Regiment (Nagoya) in Oku’s army. On March
7, after being completely surrounded by Russian troops, he and his entire
regiment were destroyed. On this occasion, the soldiers did not turn and flee.
They all died on the spot as they were, either marching forward or firing
their rifles.
While launching a night attack on Beiling on March 9, the Twenty-eighth
Infantry Regiment (Asahikawa) of Nogi’s army was also surrounded by a
whole enemy division. Its commander, Colonel Murakami Masamichi,
passed out after receiving a severe wound, and he and many of his men were
taken prisoner. This regiment had been fighting constantly for days on end
with barely any time for sleep, so the men were utterly exhausted. This was
the first time in the entire war that a large number of Japanese soldiers,
including their senior officer, had been taken prisoner in combat.
The situation was so desperate that the tactical failings of Nogi’s army
could no longer be blamed. Rather, the fighting strength of the Japanese
Army was being stretched to its limit.

* * *
During the second half of the battle of Mukden, while the Japanese troops
were being reduced to this desperate state, the Russian Army still had
strength in reserve. On March 6, they were fighting vigorously on practically
all fronts. Here I will summarize the situation of the Russians (mainly the
First Army) during the course of this day.
Rennenkampf’s corps managed to repel a Japanese assault on the position
they were holding across a wide area around Longwangmiao. The only
Russian unit on this front that buckled under the ferocity of an enemy attack
and retreated was under the command of Major General Prince Georgi
Tumanov, who was often prone to pulling back troops in combat anyway.
Concerned by this weak spot in the First Army, General Linevich dispatched
 clouds above the hill 77
his own chief of staff, Lieutenant General Vladimir Kharkevich, to the war
front, integrating all units in the area with Tumanov under his command.
This had the effect of not only closing the gap that had momentarily appeared,
but also allowed them to gain the ascendancy over the Japanese Army
advancing on Liujiangdun.
The Russian Third Army was also repelling every Japanese assault, while
the Second Army shifted into the offensive and inflicted a bitter defeat on
Nogi’s army at Dashiqiao. The previous night, the troop under Colonel
Kuznetsov, which was holding the left bank of the Hun River, had also
pushed back several fierce Japanese attacks, and on all other fronts as well
the Russian lines held firm.
The only element that gave way was the nerve of Commander in Chief
Kuropatkin in Mukden. After studying the various reports coming in, he
suspected that a strong enemy contingent was in the area of the Xinmin–
Mukden highway. This was Nogi’s army. Judging from the tremendous
assaults the Japanese troops had launched there, he decided that Nogi’s force
must have more than twice its actual strength.
Nevertheless, until sundown on March 7, Kuropatkin still had faith in the
defensive mettle of his own army, and the psychological pressure he felt
because of Nogi was relatively light. An urgent report he received that night,
however, unsettled him deeply. “A Japanese troop about six thousand strong
is advancing northwards 20 kilometers north of Mukden” was the unexpected
news. This referred to the detachment of three thousand men under Akiyama
Yoshufuru, who was striking north.
The reality on the ground, however, was that Yoshifuru was struggling
to make any headway at all against a strong Russian force. Even as he
deployed his men in an attacking formation, he was taking care to shore up
the defenses in his advance positions.
But that was not how the nervous Kuropatkin saw it. He was seriously
shaken.
“Our railway line will be cut,” he thought. This was indeed Yoshifuru’s
intention and also the strategy of Japanese headquarters in Yantai.
Faced with such an impressive line of Russian troops, all Yoshifuru could
really do was stop and look up at the wall of defenses barring his way.
“If they cut off the railway, our whole army might be trapped,” thought
Kuropatkin. Filled with trepidation about the intentions of Ōyama, Kodama,
and also Yoshifuru, he started to worry. “Knowing the Japanese Army, they
will probably make it happen too!”
But this was no more than an illusion. Kuropatkin was a man capable of
creating an illusion in his own mind and following along with what that
illusion told him to do. Given that the Russians were in the ascendancy at
78 retreat
the time, it is hard to believe that he gave orders to the First and Third Armies
to withdraw to the line of the Hun River that night. The greatest mystery of
the Russo-Japanese War was about to unfold.

* * *
Just how out of step with the situation on the ground Kuropatkin’s order to
withdraw really was can be seen from the reactions of General Linevich, in
charge of the First Army, and General Bilderling, in charge of the Third
Army. It was a minor retreat, only as far as the Hun River, but at the time
the Russians were pushing the Japanese back on all fronts.
“Why withdraw?” Bilderling demanded repeatedly.
The officer sent to deliver this order was unable to provide a satisfactory
explanation and only said, “There is a threat from the north.”
A man of calm personality, Bilderling even managed a humorous tone
of voice as he pleaded, “I really don’t understand General Kuropatkin’s
reasoning. And far be it from me to disobey orders, but could you please
just ask him to let me fight on here for at least one or two more days?” He
explained why. “A Japanese force of six thousand”—Yoshifuru—“may
indeed have appeared to the north. But to handle such a threat, General
Kuropatkin only has to dispatch the general reserve force at his disposal or
to use the Third Sharpshooters Brigade, which is now arriving from European
Russia.”
He used all the words he could muster. It was a most curious scene. “Please
persuade him. I am counting on you!”
The messenger returned to headquarters and conveyed Bilderling’s
request. But Kuropatkin was unmoved. He sent him back to urge the
commander of the Third Army to withdraw his troops. The explanation he
gave was: “While your proposal may appear to be reasonable at first glance,
it is not our best option. The threat from the north could place us in real
difficulty. The only way to deal with this is to pull back temporarily to the
Hun River and defend our position there. It’s best to defend first, wait for
our chance to launch another attack, and then smash the enemy.”
These decisions would be invoked as the reason for Kuropatkin’s
dismissal; since both General Linevich, in charge of the First Army, and
General Kaulbars, in charge of the Second Army, sent messages begging
him to reconsider, the extent of Kuropatkin’s misjudgment of the situation
was absolutely clear.
Second only to Kuropatkin in rank and his superior in terms of courage,
General Linevich in particular could sense that the Japanese Army was
reaching the limits of its attacking strength. By contrast, their own army had
fresh reinforcements arriving in waves from European Russia. This was the
 clouds above the hill 79
perfect time to push back the enemy. Linevich realized that Kuropatkin was
only using a figure of speech when he talked about a temporary withdrawal
to be followed by another attack. In Linevich’s view, retreating even a short
distance at this stage would cause an incalculable loss of morale.
He was so livid that in his rage he threw away his cap and yelled, “I
resign from Kuropatkin’s command and will chase the enemy myself all the
way to Korea!”

* * *
The battle of Mukden lasted for ten days. During this period, anyone who
tried to view the fighting objectively would have found it impossible to tell
who was actually winning. The Japanese continued to launch their reckless
attacks. The Russians defended resolutely. With only a few exceptions, they
carried out these defensive actions successfully on all fronts. Taking all these
successful operations together, the Russians might be seen as being ahead.
Judging by another standard and placing more emphasis on the degree of
bravery shown in combat, the Japanese might be said to have held the
advantage.
On March 8, however, the situation changed. Kuropatkin’s order to
withdraw to the Hun River transformed the Russian armies on all fronts.
They wavered. Yet even as they wavered they still behaved in an orderly
manner. They had been told that the reason for the order was “To reform
the front line and deliver a stronger punch against Nogi’s army,” not to give
up the fight altogether. However dissatisfied they were with this maneuver,
Russian officers at the front could at least interpret the withdrawal in a
positive light since, according to Kuropatkin’s plan, the ultimate aim was
to prepare for a fierce counteroffensive. So the retreat was carried out in an
orderly manner.
On that day, the Russian First Army withdrew without the least inter-
ference from the enemy, reaching its target positions on the right bank of
the Hun River during the evening and overnight. The Japanese were unable
to interfere due to a fierce barrage of fire delivered by the Russian artillery
on the front line, which covered their troops’ retreat. Nor did the Japanese
have enough attacking strength to pursue and destroy them.
The Russian Third Army also completed its withdrawal during the
morning of the same day. On this front as well, there was no Japanese pursuit.
Up to this point, Kuropatkin’s strategy may be called a success. If the
Russians constricted the front line and used their extra numbers against
Nogi’s army, as Kuropatkin had insisted, they would be able to totally destroy
a Japanese force that had already exhausted its capacity to attack.
80 retreat
But Kuropatkin was a man moved less by the facts than by his own mood
when considering military strategy. He was simply too sensitive to the threat
posed to his rear guard. “The railway is in danger. This is our army’s only
communication line in Manchuria, and if we take the threat lightly we won’t
be able to pursue a war here at all!”
He was just not the kind of general who would take it upon himself to
cut off his own supply line and risk everything on one decisive contest. The
enemy actually threatening this vital link in the Russian rear guard was
Akiyama’s corps, which was temporarily attached to Nogi’s army. If
Kuropatkin had known just how small this detachment really was, he surely
would not have instituted such a drastic operational change.
In order to defend the railway line, he extracted a large number of troops
from the First and Third Armies, and placed them under Major General
Mylov, the commander of the Eighth Army Corps. One outcome of this
maneuver was to significantly reduce the strength of the Russian armies at
the front line.

* * *
“To drive Nogi and Oku back, we must concentrate our troops to the west
of Mukden.”
Viewed from any angle, Kuropatkin’s tactics appear clumsy. He played
into Japanese hands, losing his head as he pulled troops back from the front
line and sent them to confront a “danger point” that existed only in his mind.
As a result, the Russian lines completely lost the robust strength that had
been such a feature of their defenses in the early stages of this contest.
At the start of the battle, the sheer scale and deployment of the Russian
armies had been truly impressive. To offer a comparison, here is a summary
of the relative troop strength on each front.
First of all, the Russian First Army under Linevich was facing Kuroki’s
army. Kuroki had only two-thirds the infantry that Linevich had at his
disposal, less than a third of the cavalry, and two-thirds the number of
artillery.
Second, the Russian Third Army under General Bilderling was facing
Nozu’s army. Nozu had only one-third the infantry and two-thirds the
number of artillery that Bilderling had under his command.
Third, the Russian Second Army under General Kaulbars was facing
Oku’s army. Oku had over one-third the infantry at Kaulbars’ disposal and
only a little over half the number of artillery.
It was like a series of sumo bouts between a giant and a child. The only
real difference was the way that the child skillfully used his tiny hands—
the Army of the Yalu on the right and Nogi’s army on the left—to grapple
 clouds above the hill 81
with the giant from all angles. Only on the Japanese side could the military
operation be described as being of a high order throughout the battle
of Mukden, while the Russians showed little of this at all. In the whole of
military history, it would be difficult to find anything comparable to the
stupidity of Kuropatkin.
Through a combination of Kuropatkin’s strategic withdrawal on March
8 as he pulled the Russians back to a second defensive line on the Hun River
and his redeployment of troops, the Japanese were spared sumo bouts on all
four fronts. Nogi’s army was the single exception.
The Army of the Yalu, for example, had been pinned down in the
Maqundan area, but following the Russian withdrawal during the night of
March 7, it was in a position to advance. Kuroki’s and Nozu’s armies as
well had been unable to move due to the defenses in front of them on the
river Shaho, but at first light on the morning of March 8, they shifted to an
attacking pursuit when they saw that the enemy had withdrawn overnight
like the receding tide.
The section of Oku’s army that was attacking the enemy position at
Liguanpu was still trying to advance, refusing to retreat even though it had
been surrounded by Russian troops and was on the brink of destruction itself.
But when the Russians suddenly halted this maneuver and withdrew, the
Third Division (Nagoya) of Oku’s army immediately shifted to the pursuit
on the morning of March 8 and started marching on Mukden.
Kuropatkin’s blunders over March 7 and 8, combined with superior
Japanese tactics and troop management, produced a decisive change in the
fortunes on the battlefield.

* * *
On March 8, all the Japanese armies launched forward in pursuit as if they
had been fitted with springs. During the morning of March 9, as the curtain
at last began to close on the battle, a bizarre meteorological phenomenon
covered the Manchurian plains, making the conflict more dramatic than ever.
The phrase “dust storm” appears in a number of battle reports and records.
Here are the recollections of Captain Kitahara Nobuaki, a surgeon of the
Imperial Guard Division in Kuroki’s army, as quoted in Uno Chiyo’s
Verbatim Accounts of the Russo-Japanese War: “I think it was about nine
o’clock in the morning”—to be accurate it was around eleven o’clock—

when a terrible wind struck up. Books tell of what happened next, how dark
it became with visibility practically obscured by the swirling wind and dust
storm, but we really could not see even six feet in front of us. It was just
like the dust storms on the Aoyama Parade Ground back in the old days.
82 retreat
This was a south wind as well, following on from behind us so that the
enemy could not see us at all either, and we were able to move both our
gun carriages and all the equipment right past their positions. The water
of the Hun River was frozen. As we walked across the ice we exchanged
remarks on how this was really not such a large river after all, but just a
few days later when it all melted it was quite extraordinary how it suddenly
became as wide as the Sumida River. I was amazed! At that time, though,
it was still frozen over. With this fierce southerly wind behind us, we
managed to move downriver right past the enemy’s positions without being
observed at all, and as a result we took these defenses with ease. For our
army it was just like a kamikaze, but for the Russians it was the cause of
their defeat. . .Had the ice on the river been melting and the weather fine
we would have been within clear view of the enemy, and there would have
been no way for us to get through.

Here this great dust storm is recorded as a kamikaze—“divine wind”—

intervening on behalf of the Japanese Army, and from a certain perspective
this was true. But the reservist infantry brigades in Nogi’s army at the front
line had difficulties, since the Russians occasionally took advantage of the
dust storm to launch their own fierce attacks. Because they could not see
their own commanding officers or even their comrades on either side, the
Japanese soldiers became isolated and fled in terror. Although Kitahara wrote
that “for the Russians it was the cause of their defeat,” this natural
smokescreen might also be said to have aided Kuropatkin’s withdrawal. At
the very least, the dust storm denied the Japanese artillery a golden
opportunity to attack a favorable target, and they were practically unable to
fire at all during these hours. The raging wind continued until sunset.
In the words of Tamon Jirō, an infantry lieutenant in Kuroki’s army:

A gale struck up just as our artillery began firing. It was a very strange wind,
blowing fiercely right from the start, and dust covered the landscape so
that we could not see more than a few inches in front of us. There had
been no snow for days on end, so the ground was also dry. . .No one could
possibly face up to this wind, and you could literally only hear a man’s voice
if he was standing right next to you. . .For the Russian Army, it could be
called a “divine wind.”

The Russian Army’s general withdrawal had begun before dawn on the day
this raging wind and dust storm clouded the sky. That morning, Infantry
Lieutenant Tamon Jirō witnessed the grand spectacle of the enemy pulling
back en masse. He and his comrades had been marching in pursuit all through
 clouds above the hill 83
the night and had not slept a wink. His unit was in the advance guard of
Kuroki’s army closest to the front line and so closest of all to the Russian
lines.
At six in the morning, they reached a village called Liujiazu and with the
coming of dawn they stopped for breakfast, the first rest they had had since
their night march began. The only soldiers moving were those men cooking
the meal, for despite the extreme cold everyone else just fell to the ground
in the fields, or slumped by the side of the road and slept the sleep of the
dead.
Shortly afterward, when Lieutenant Tamon climbed up a slope beyond
and looked out over the left bank of the Hun River, he witnessed a scene
that he would not forget for the rest of his life. “A vast army like a great
swarm!”
This was how he described his view of the Russian armies as they
withdrew. The retreating troops on the move covered the whole plain as far
as the horizon, with one vast column heading east and another heading west.
It was really the strangest sight, almost like a giant whirlpool, and impossible
to tell which was the head and which the tail of the enemy army.
The Japanese should, of course, have pursued and attacked. But the
soldiers were just exhausted, and, having made it this far, they had reached
the limits of their fighting strength. The advance guard was small, and the
artillery had not yet arrived. They simply did not have enough men.
At the time, Tamon Jirō had the impression that the idea of a pursuit had
not even crossed their minds. He was gripped rather by a sort of animal fear,
terrified by what might lie in store for the Japanese should this vast enemy
army turn around and attack.
The commander of the advance guard also witnessed this scene. He too
mentioned nothing about a pursuit. “At most it’s about 4 kilometers to the
Hun River,” he instructed his men. “Now is not the time for a reckless attack.
We’ll think about moving forward again once the main force has arrived.”
The advance guard stayed put in the village for five hours, and the
soldiers took this chance to recover from their fatigue while waiting for the
rest of the army. The Japanese Army remained silent during these hours.
The long-awaited artillery arrived at ten o’clock in the morning, but even
though they were on site they did not fire so much as a single shot. If they
fired and provoked the enemy, that vast army beyond might roll up the ground
between them and counterattack. If that should happen, the advance guard
would be totally destroyed in that level terrain with little natural cover.
Not until eleven did this unit finally begin its pursuit. But as soon as they
started moving forward, the raging wind struck up, plunging the world into
84 retreat
darkness and enveloping both armies. Curiously, the scene was set for the
final stage of the battle with both armies concealed from view.

* * *
On March 9, the day when the earth was in the grip of this howling storm,
Kuropatkin took his lunch as usual at noon sharp in Russian headquarters.
Outside, the wind pressed hard against the window, and pieces of grit struck
bricks and glass, as if they had come under attack from volleys of rifle fire.
From every crack, grains of sand seeped into the building, and in an instant
the table was covered in a fine layer of dust. Even the faces of Kuropatkin’s
staff seated around him were covered in fine yellow powder.
The commander in chief moved his knife and fork in a restless manner.
They had to finish quickly before the sand ruined the meal, and he leaned
over the table with the top half of his body to shield his plate.
“This accursed place!” That was the only way he could describe it. The
scheming advisors close to the tsar’s ear had always told him that Manchuria
was a land of milk and honey in the East. They spoke of the great fortune
that timber from the forests around the Yalu River and ports on the southern
shores of Korea would bring to Russia.
Yet at the turn of the century, when Russia had embarked on a full-scale
occupation of Manchuria, Kuropatkin, together with the progressive Sergei
Witte, had warned that a precipitous military campaign would not be to their
advantage. At the time, he thought little of Japan’s military strength and
believed that the Russians would brush them aside with a single blow in any
contest that might come to pass. But he was terribly concerned that sending
a large force to the Far East might weaken Russia’s troop strength in Europe
relative to the other Great Powers. In Russian political circles, he was on
the side of those who gave importance to Europe, rather than Asia. His
destiny was to be called on to fight as a military man on a battleground in
the Far East, just what, as a political tactician, he had wanted to avoid.
The fighting had not always gone according to plan. He tried to shift the
blame onto this eerie Manchurian landscape. “It’s all this yellow sand too!”
he raged to himself.
They had placed much faith on the effects of the bitter Manchurian
winter, but this had not really turned out to be such an advantage after all.
By exploiting their strength in the freezing conditions of the Russian winter,
they had once even claimed victory against Napoleon. Kuropatkin had
anticipated that the Japanese, as natives of a warm climate, would be unable
to bear the cruel Manchurian winter. Yet the Japanese soldiers seemed
unconcerned as they kept on attacking day and night over plains and hills
 clouds above the hill 85
wearing coats so thin they would make even the Russians shiver. Did these
monkeys just not feel the cold?
On March 9, the day of the howling sandstorm, Kuropatkin was overcome
by a sour mood that approached war-weariness. Two days before, on March
7, he had already given the order to withdraw a short distance to the Hun
River. There had not been the remotest sign of any trouble in carrying out
this operation, but even so he suggested, “Why not make a full withdrawal
to Tieling?” His own neurotic mood was the only conceivable explanation
for taking such a drastic step.

* * *
It was after finishing his lunch that Kuropatkin turned to Lieutenant General
Sakharov and said, “I think it would be better if we pulled back as far as
Tieling. I would like your opinion.”
Tieling was a provincial capital and historic commercial center 70
kilometers to the north of Mukden. Its major landmark was an octagonal
thirteen-story white pagoda said to have been built during the Tang dynasty.
Since building the railway, the Russians had been using the city as an army
base. In a move that said much about the mentality of their army, they had
also turned it into a semipermanent base to give support to a troop withdrawal
in the event of their losing the anticipated encounter at Mukden.
Tieling was set in steep mountainous terrain, dominated by hills and
remote valleys. Any army retreating north in this direction would have to
pass along some narrow paths, and a pursuing force would also need to take
these routes. The Russians’ tactical approach can be clearly discerned in the
strong positions they built along the way that were meant to stop a pursuing
army in its tracks and allow their main force to escape to the north. These
defenses were built just to check the enemy temporarily, but nevertheless
they were robust structures built on a grand scale. Construction had begun
in May of the previous year, and the first phase of building was completed
late in June. Work resumed on September 7, and the second phase was
finished by early November. These fortifications were easily large enough
to shelter two full armies within their walls. Any attack on these positions
would obviously require a force of a hundred thousand men.
“Withdraw to Tieling?” Even Lieutenant General Sakharov, though calm
and faithful as a hound, found it hard to follow this sudden change in
Kuropatkin’s mood. Just yesterday had he not moved the entire Russian
Army from one front to another to hold off the enemy at the Hun River?
Strong defensive positions had been prepared along the river in advance.
The plan to engage the Japanese in a decisive battle there was proof enough
86 retreat
that they still intended to fight it out, but to pull back to Tieling 70 kilometers
to the north was just to abandon Mukden and run away.
“My reasons for this are. . .” Kuropatkin began.
One was that the wastage of troops and supplies had reached a critical
level. Yet this was normal in the context of any battle, and the Japanese,
who had suffered similarly heavy losses, were surely fast approaching the
limits of their attacking strength, relying on willpower alone to maintain
their pursuit.
Kuropatkin was a perfectionist, and because of his tendency to panic, he
had to have enough troops and supplies in his own army to calm his nerves,
no matter how great the enemy’s losses might be.
A second reason he gave was that, having given so much attention to
stopping Nogi’s army, which was advancing on Mukden from the north and
west, the Russian defenses were critically weakened to the south of the city,
and he was beginning to fear that the Japanese might break through at any
moment. Yet it was Kuropatkin’s own change of tactics that had created this
threat, and, as an experienced strategist, he must have been aware of the
implications of this action. As soon as the troops had been redeployed, he
promptly lost his composure again.
“This looks dangerous,” he worried. He really was an astonishing general.

* * *
Kuropatkin used these two reasons to justify a further troop withdrawal and
tried to embellish his explanation the way that bureaucrats always do.
“Withdrawing north will increase the distance between us and the
Japanese. At that point we can reorder the army”—it had been thrown into
confusion by his own frequent changes of plan—“and wait for fresh
reinforcements from European Russia. We can use all the knowledge and
experience we have gathered on the Japanese Army to plan a new attack.”
Within the confines of his own headquarters, Kuropatkin had the total
authority of a dictator. Lieutenant General Sakharov and the other staff
officers under him were also present, but they mainly played the roles of
aides-de-camp, and at times were reduced to being nothing more than
messengers. In accordance with Russian custom, Sakharov dared not protest,
and he simply fell in with Kuropatkin’s mood and latest plan. We cannot
imagine how he must have felt about this. But he was so closely identified
with Kuropatkin that there is no need to imagine at all. As long as he stuck
by the commander in chief, who after all was the most powerful man in the
Russian Army, his own military future was assured. Like the other army
bureaucrats, he never dreamed that the nation might be destroyed in the
process.
 clouds above the hill 87
Sakharov immediately drew up plans for the withdrawal to Tieling. At
quarter past seven in the evening, the order was dispatched to the three army
commanders at the front. By that time, the sandstorm had stopped.

Each army should withdraw toward Tieling and occupy the positions
prepared in the area.
The Third Army should strike camp near the Hun River at sunset and
withdraw along the Mukden–Tieling highway without entering Mukden.
The Second Army should hold off the enemy until the Third Army has
left camp and then withdraw along the highway to Tieling. At the same
time, the Second Army should protect the Third Army from attacks by Nogi’s
army from the west.
The First Army should use the army corps in the positions around Fuling
to support the withdrawal of the Third Army rear guard from its position
on the Hun River. Subsequently, the entire First Army should withdraw along
the roads from Yingpan, Fushun, and Fuling, going as far as Tieling to
protect itself from enemy attack. All units should then withdraw, covering
their retreat along the routes from Yingpan, Fushun, and Fuling to Tieling.

The orders gave instructions about which roads each army should take in
order to limit any potential confusion.
Even then, Kuropatkin felt uneasy about the threat posed to the Russian
rear guard by Nogi’s army. This had prompted him to change his original
battle plan—a plan that the Japanese would have found awe-inspiring—and
continued to preoccupy him to the very last.
Two hours after these orders had been dispatched to the front, Kuropatkin
sent his treasured mixed force, the General Reserve Corps under Major
General Mylov, together with Major General Grekov’s cavalry detachment,
to add to the troops (mainly the Second Army) already charged with pushing
back Nogi’s army.
Because of this, Nogi’s army and Akiyama’s corps would have to endure
many desperate struggles in the closing stages of the battle of Mukden.

* * *
Kuropatkin’s intention was to use his carefully laid plans to carry out an
orderly Russian withdrawal. “The Japanese Army must be tiring too,” he
surmised.
Indeed, not only were the Japanese more exhausted than Kuropatkin ever
imagined, but the shells they had stored up for this battle had practically run
out. Back in Yantai, Ōyama and Kodama did not have the slightest idea
that Kuropatkin had decided that day to escape from Mukden to Tieling
88 retreat
70 kilometers to the north. Every front was stuck fast like glue, and although
they had placed so much faith in their meticulous plans to beat the Russian
Army, in reality they were making no headway at all. In that sense, it was
just like sashikiri, “stalemate,” in a game of shōgi. Even though the Japanese
had taken up an attacking formation there was a growing risk that their forces
might crumble altogether.
On the left wing, Nogi’s army looked hopelessly weak as it continued
with its grand outflanking maneuver toward Mukden. Faced with superior
enemy numbers the advance guard was being repeatedly checked and pressed
back. The original plan drawn up with such confidence by General
Headquarters—to push Nogi’s Third Army far to the north and attack
Mukden from behind—was on the brink of collapse.
“What are we going to do about General Nogi?” Comments full of bile
were being muttered every day at headquarters. Even some young staff
officers there, recalling the bungling that had gone on during the siege of
Port Arthur, started saying, “How much longer will the Third Army’s staff
carry on with such a useless operation?”
None of the staff at headquarters could ever have dreamed that Nogi
Maresuke would later be remembered as the venerated icon of the Russo-
Japanese War, so honored that he would even be given credit for their victory.
During the evening of March 9, Manchuria Chief of Staff Kodama
Gentarō caught hold of Matsukawa Toshitane and demanded, “The way
things are going now, can we really stick with the original plan?”
The aim had been for Nogi’s army to strike at Mukden from the west,
but under current conditions this was becoming a fading hope. Kodama
thought it might be better to use the Fourth Army under Nozu in the center
to burst forward and join Nogi’s army, so that they could drive north of
Mukden together and threaten to cut off Kuropatkin’s line of retreat.
“You too?” There was an unusual flush of color in Matsukawa’s sallow
face as he said this, for he had been thinking the same himself. Although
he was a man with great confidence in his own abilities, he considered
Kodama far superior in intuitive thinking. He was delighted to discover that
Kodama endorsed his own views.
“This might work,” Matsukawa thought to himself as he led Kodama over
to the map spread out on the table and briefly summed up the troop
deployment that the new plan would require. When these two men talked,
a long explanation was never necessary.

* * *
The attacking formation of the Japanese Army was significantly altered as
a result. It was half past three in the afternoon on March 10 when Nozu
 clouds above the hill 89
Michitsura, commander of the Fourth Army, received a telephone call with
the order to advance north of Mukden immediately. He promptly conveyed
the new instructions to all his divisions.
An hour later, Kuroki Tamemoto, commander of the First Army, also
received his new orders.
“The overall situation is this,” Matsukawa said on his phone call to Major
General Fujii Shigeta, chief of staff of the First Army. “For several days
now, Nogi’s army has been trying to break through, but it’s been pushed
back each time and is now in a very difficult spot. So headquarters is
launching a major new maneuver, pushing Nozu’s army forward to the north
of Mukden.”
“Ah, so you’re using them in place of Nogi’s army?” Fujii asked. A
talented armchair tactician, Fujii had a flippant side, and his tone of voice
seemed to almost mock Matsukawa.
“No, the two armies will operate together.”
“Together? That’s all right.”
“Major General Fujii, I am not asking you for your opinion! Now do I
have your attention?”
“All right, I’m listening,” Fujii said.
“Nozu’s army jumps forward, right? This will leave a space behind.
Nozu’s right wing will be particularly vulnerable to attack, so for the time
being I want Kuroki’s army to cover Nozu’s right wing as it moves toward
Mukden and at the same time guard against any threat from the north.”
“I understand,” said Fujii, “but all the divisions here are now carrying
out previous orders to pursue the enemy, so it will take a lot of time to turn
them round and shift them out to the side.” He hung up the telephone.
According to Fujii, it would take “a lot of time” to convey these orders.
In fact, by the time he had drafted the orders and received permission from
General Kuroki to send them to the front, it was half past five in the morning
on March 10. Even more time passed before they reached the various
divisions on the move. The Twelfth Division (Kokura) was attacking a
Russian position far away on the right bank of the Hun River, and the new
order reached them after one o’clock in the afternoon. Having just taken an
enemy position on the high ground of Xiaogao-jiawan, that division had
advanced as far as the riverbank.
The Imperial Guard Division received the order relatively quickly, but
in order to wheel around in the direction indicated, they first had to attack
and take an enemy position on the high ground at Xindun-dongnan. When
they reached the top, they saw a large Russian column retreating north along
the Mukden–Tieling highway. Realizing that the enemy was withdrawing,
they immediately drew up their field guns and unleashed a fierce barrage of
90 retreat
fire. This caused great confusion in the Russian ranks as horses reared up,
gun carriages went flying, and soldiers fled in all directions.

* * *
Under orders to advance north of Mukden, Nozu’s army undertook a pursuit
that turned out to be a tremendous operation. These troops boasted of
possessing the greatest firepower of any of the Japanese armies and also had
the strongest strike force. Unlike Nogi’s men, they had not been ordered to
move from the outset since their role was limited to pressing the enemy in
the center. They were thus not nearly as exhausted.
These fresher troops of Nozu’s army kicked up clouds of dust as they
rushed to the side of Nogi’s army, which was being pressed back by a strong
Russian force. The Sixth Division of Nozu’s army advanced the closest
to Nogi’s lines. With its headquarters in Kumamoto and garrisons in
Kumamoto, Kurume, Kagoshima, and other parts of southern Kyushu, the
Sixth had a reputation as the strongest division in the whole Japanese Army.
Under its commander, Lieutenant General Ōkubo Haruno, and the chief of
staff, Colonel Kojima Hachijirō, the division had undergone numerous
changes since the start of the war because a number of regimental
commanders had been killed or wounded in quick succession.
After having attacked Shahepu and Hanchengpu for several days, the Sixth
Division finally managed to take the Russian positions there and turned to
the pursuit on March 7. During the night of March 9, they went without any
sleep in crossing the Hun River under cover of darkness, and at daybreak
the following day they attacked the enemy positions on the right bank.
When they advanced to the high ground north of Maojiadun that morning,
the soldiers in the advance guard of the Sixth Division gasped in astonishment
at the spectacle that greeted them when they reached the top. Spread about
before them was the city of Mukden. To the northeast and north of the city,
they could see deep green mounds rising out of a broad plain of yellow earth.
These were the pine woods of Dongling, the burial place of the founder of
the Manchu dynasty, and Beiling, the burial place of the most celebrated
Manchu emperor of China. It was a beautiful scene, befitting its name, the
plain of Zhili—the plain ruled directly by the emperor. For the residents of
this region, it was extremely galling that their own land would be used as
the stage for this life-and-death struggle between two foreign nations with
no real connection to them.
This was the scene the men of the Sixth Division could see from the top
of a hill scattered with Russian dead. Soon their commander Ōkubo Haruno
arrived. He looked over the land below through his binoculars. To the north
a railway line ran through the middle of the plain, and far to the west he
 clouds above the hill 91
could see clearly the clouds of smoke and dust where the Russians and Nogi’s
army were locked in combat. It really did look as if the Japanese were losing
this contest, and it was only a matter of time before they crumbled altogether.
“Looks like Nogi’s having a hard time,” muttered Ōkubo, and since he
was a taciturn character, this sounded somewhat funny coming from him.
More likely than not, his own division would be left to save Nogi from his
plight.
There was another curious feature in the scene before Ōkubo: the Russian
Army’s movements were split into two sections. A large army was engaged
in a ferocious battle against Nogi to the west, but at the same time a large
column was moving north along the railway line in an orderly retreat. With
a single glance he could make out that the enemy troops fighting Nogi were
actually covering their main army’s withdrawal.
In the end, the Sixth Division was the first to make it into Mukden.
Although they amounted to just a single division, these men dared to
challenge the main force of the Russian Army, one half turning left and
striking at the head of the enemy column retreating north, while the other
half stormed forward and made for the railway line.
They carried on with these maneuvers over the course of the next two
days, and by the evening of March 11 they had finally taken Mukden. As a
result, more than ten thousand Russian soldiers had their escape route cut
off and surrendered to the Sixth Division.

* * *
The outcome of the battle of Mukden was settled during the night of
March 10.
That night, the army corps in the Russian rear guard began to withdraw,
but because the Japanese were doing all they could to outflank them, this
was not conducted in quite the orderly fashion that had marked the advance
guard’s retreat only shortly before.
“Clouds of dust thrown up by horses’ hooves are spread over 40
kilometers, and the whole plain is covered with Russian troops,” a Japanese
officer remarked, and whether it was the Tieling highway, the Tieling
railway, or some other parallel route, the scenes of chaos on the roads, packed
with Russian men, horses, and guns, were beyond description.
The Japanese Army responded by firing a barrage of tracer shells with
all the guns they had. There was no real need to take aim or calculate the
distance. They would all find their target so long as they were shot in the
general direction of the plain. Countless shells blasted the enemy’s gun
carriages, sending men and horses flying through the air. The Russian Army
92 retreat
was thrown into total confusion as the roads were blocked by destroyed
wagons packed with ammunition and supplies, together with medical and
cooking vehicles. At last, the soldiers’ discipline broke down, resulting in
a defeat unprecedented in Russian military history, as men fled for their lives,
entire units surrendered, and enemy fire instantly reduced the troops rushing
around in the confusion to piles of corpses. On this one night alone, more
than twenty thousand Russian soldiers surrendered. Although they may
have been unaware of this, their fighting techniques had not brought about
this defeat, but rather it was Kuropatkin who had sacrificed them to this fate.
The Japanese Army continued its pursuit, forcing Kuropatkin once again
to change his decision to regroup in Tieling. At around midnight on March
16, the Second Division (Sendai) entered Tieling itself, while Umezawa’s
brigade even got as far as the station at Tieling. On March 19, part of the
Tenth Division took Kaiyuancheng, and, three days later, Akiyama’s corps
entered Changtucheng, while Nogi’s army, after advancing north, took
control of Faku-mencheng.
Kuropatkin had no choice but to retreat with the main force of his army
as far north as Gongzhuling, but since the Japanese had no fresh reserves
to call on and were fast running out of shells, they were unable to pursue
and destroy the Russians completely.
“If only we had about two more mixed brigades with a main force of
cavalry like Akiyama’s corps, we might have been able to chase and even
catch Kuropatkin himself.” This comment was frequently heard among the
staff officers at headquarters who had directed this battle, but what forced
the Japanese to halt their pursuit around Tieling was not the state of the army
itself but the limits of endurance of their entire nation.
The army had suffered severe losses in this battle, amounting to more
than fifty thousand men. The damage inflicted on the enemy reached its
height during the Russians’ general withdrawal. Including more than thirty
thousand prisoners, the enemy losses amounted to 160,000–170,000 men,
more than three times the casualties suffered by the Japanese.
Kuropatkin’s supposedly positive tactic of withdrawing to the Tieling line
with a view to reordering the army might have made more sense when
fighting an army in Europe. But because the Japanese kept up their fierce
pursuit with such tenacity in spite of their own exhaustion and casualties,
the Russians suffered huge losses on a scale never seen before in military
history. Losing 160,000–170,000 men meant that even if the Russians sent
two thousand men east each day on the Trans-Siberian Railway, it would
still take a hundred days to replace them all. If the Russian Army in
Manchuria wanted to fight again another day, it would just have to sit tight
and hold its position there for at least that length of time.
 clouds above the hill 93
* * *
Did the Japanese Army really win the battle at Mukden? What measures
should be used to decide who has really “won” a battle anyway?
We’ve told about how, on February 20, before embarking on the battle
that was to become the largest the world had ever seen, Field Marshal Ōyama
Iwao summoned the heads of each army to his headquarters in Yantai. He
proceeded to outline his agenda and instructions. He emphasized a strong
belief when he said, “This coming battle will be the Sekigahara of the Russo-
Japanese War. I expect it to be the most decisive victory in the whole
campaign.”
By this, he meant that he wished to settle the Russo-Japanese War with
this single contest. The Japanese Army at this time used none of the
exaggerated figures of speech—“crush the enemy,” “fierce assault,” or
“ferocious attack”—that subsequently came into use as military terms.
Ōyama, like a painter suggesting an infinite range of expression with a single
line, endowed this brief statement with an almost indescribably portentous
meaning, pointing to the very fate of the Japanese state.
He went on to reflect bitterly on their various encounters with the main
Russian Army since the battles at Jinzhou and Nanshan, when they had ended
up achieving nothing more than taking the enemy positions. “Our strategic
target is not the enemy’s strongholds but the enemy army in the field,” he
told his generals.
Until then, the Japanese Army’s experience of combat against the Russians
had been one long struggle to capture enemy positions, only to find that they
had already escaped and were lying in wait at new positions further north.
The Japanese had certainly been the victors on these occasions. But in
strategic terms such a result did not count as a “victory” as such. Given their
limited resources, the longer they continued repeating this game of chase,
the more they ran a real risk of exhausting their fighting strength and
eventually succumbing to a heavy defeat.
This was pointed out starkly in Ōyama’s instructions, which stressed that
they had to fight the enemy army. He did not use any excessive terms on
this occasion such as “decimating” or “crushing” the enemy, and yet the
simple truth was that they could never win the Russo-Japanese War unless
they smashed Kuropatkin’s army to pieces. In the end, they never achieved
this objective. The Russians may have suffered heavy losses, but the main
army still retained its fighting strength as once again it escaped first back
to Tieling and then further north.
Ōyama had also gone on to stipulate, “Do not engage in a full-frontal
assault on the enemy’s strong positions. Keep moving forward and attack
the enemy from the rear.”
94 retreat
This instruction was for Nogi’s army. Yet Nogi’s troops, though they had
managed to threaten the enemy rear guard, came to a standstill along the
way and never reached far enough behind the Russian lines to prevent the
escape of the main Russian force. In other words, the Japanese narrowly
missed a glorious chance to catch a shooting star.
When, on his triumphal return to Tokyo, Nogi Maresuke had an audience
with the emperor, he submitted a report on his own role in the war. This
contained the honest admission that he had failed to fulfill his strategic
objective. “Due to our weak attacking strength at the battle near Mukden, I
was unable to carry out my orders to cut off the line of retreat.”

* * *
One way to measure whether victory has been achieved requires looking at
whether or not the army has attained its strategic objective. If this was the
yardstick, the Japanese had not lost this battle, but it is difficult to say they
had won. This is because they did not achieve the strategic target set by
Ōyama, since the chance for a decisive showdown disappeared in the
sandstorm on March 9. During the pursuit in the following days, the Japanese
Army as a whole was unable to muster much energy due to their “weak
attacking strength,” as General Nogi later pointed out in his report to the
emperor.
Another possible measure for deciding victory might include whether or
not you have managed to foil the enemy’s plan. The Japanese had totally
thwarted Kuropatkin’s combat operations, so in this sense the battle of
Mukden was a great success. But even this particular yardstick is not entirely
satisfactory since they had failed to prevent him from carrying on with his
avowed plan to wage a decisive battle at Harbin.
Kuropatkin had lost successive engagements since the battles of Jinzhou
and Nanshan, and was being driven ever further north. These may be seen
as defeats, but from his own perspective they could also be interpreted as
just the traditional Russian approach of making tactical withdrawals so as
to exhaust the enemy before claiming a final victory, in this case, a decisive
battle at Harbin.
Ōyama and Kodama indeed feared this strategy of his. For this reason,
they approached the battle of Mukden with the firm intention of crushing
the enemy there and then. They were unable to foil his plans entirely as they
let the main force of the Russian Army slip away. In this sense, the Japanese
Army was simply chasing after Kuropatkin and can hardly be said to have
won.
We know that the Russians would have required a hundred days to repair
the heavy losses they had suffered at the battle of Mukden. The Japanese
 clouds above the hill 95
losses were light by comparison, but their capacity to repair the damage was
low, so if, for example, they had been forced to fight again in a hundred
days’ time, their troop strength would have been weaker than at Mukden.
There is one more measure for defining victory, namely, “He who
manages to tread on the enemy’s grass is the winner.” We’ve written before
about how this had been the custom during the era of Warring States, and
according to this yardstick, the battle of Mukden was a total victory for the
Japanese Army.
In a confrontation between two different civilizations in the modern era,
however, the single greatest element in deciding the outcome is surely the
capacity to maintain supplies, and not simply a case of saying that Oda
Nobunaga was the winner against Takeda Katsuyori just because his army
marched into the enemy territory of Kōshū.
Whether or not the Japanese had really won the battle of Mukden at all
was also debated at length among experts in Europe.

* * *
The men who were most dissatisfied with the outcome of the battle of
Mukden and sensed the greatest danger ahead were Ōyama Iwao, commander
in chief, and Kodama Gentarō, Manchuria chief of staff. They alone were
not elated by the empty glory of “victory.”
On the day the battle ended, with the Japanese in the ascendancy, Kodama
gave Matsukawa Toshitane a sideways glance and muttered, “This is it!”
Kodama next told Matsukawa that he was returning to Tokyo, where he
would persuade the oligarchs to make arrangements for peace negotiations.
What he feared was that the political leaders themselves might have become
so intoxicated with this “great victory” that they would be slow in paving
the way for peace. If this was the case, he would just have to stiffen their
resolve by reminding them of the perilous state of the Japanese Army.
Whatever the military definition of the outcome, newspapers around the
world reported that the battle of Mukden had ended in a great Japanese
victory. Regardless of the actual state of the war on the ground, international
opinion, which had not played such a major role in previous wars,
unhesitatingly awarded the decision to the Japanese Army.
Public opinion in Russia as well admitted that their army had been
defeated. There was no open freedom of speech, and the government had
managed to conceal its previous reverses. But people there were gradually
becoming aware of the situation in Manchuria from the information brought
in by compatriots living abroad who had read articles in foreign newspapers
on the Russian Army’s travails.
96 retreat
“The empire is in crisis,” rejoiced revolutionary activists, as the
government was driven into a corner. As the news of the defeat spread, social
unease within Russia deepened. The very structure of Russia brought about
these developments. Even the progressive Witte had said something along
the lines of “Russia can only be controlled by a great army.”
So, if the strength and glory of the army wavered, the results were as
predictable as a law of physics—rebellion would break out at home. For the
Russian home minister (even more so than the war minister), nothing could
be more worrisome than the fact that the largest army in the world continued
to lose the campaign in the Far East.
Before the battle of Mukden, the Russian government had issued a stern
warning to Kuropatkin: “Due to the situation at home and abroad, it is
imperative for the Russian Army to win a great victory in the very near
future.” This meant that the crisis at home, with a revolutionary mood
becoming impossible to contain, was an even greater weight on their
shoulders than any foreign policy aimed at achieving favorable conditions
for a peace settlement.
Following the battle of Mukden, War Minister Sakharov declared, “We
have lost,” and he stripped Kuropatkin of overall command, demoted him
to command of the First Army, and promoted General Linevich to the post
of commander in chief. This change in personnel is the clearest evidence of
all that the Russians had admitted defeat. But at the same time, and
disconcertingly for Japan, it was also proof that the Russians had not lost
the will to fight. The future decisive battle had been entrusted to Linevich,
a man who, in stark contrast to Kuropatkin, was a courageous general with
a keen eye for attack.

* * *
A few more thoughts on “winning.”
The Japanese Army may not have done quite enough to claim a full victory
at the battle of Mukden, but if we look at the state of the Russian Army, the
agony of defeat was impossible to hide, and the soldiers’ hearts were heavy,
with a deep sense of loss.
If defeat is defined as the time when individual soldiers feel so
disheartened that they both lose the will to keep fighting and refuse to obey
army discipline (this may be the harshest definition), the Russian Army had
clearly been beaten. As they began the withdrawal from Mukden, the bulk
of the Russian armies had marched north in accordance with Kuropatkin’s
orders. Trains were used for evacuating high command personnel and the
wounded, and for transporting equipment.
 clouds above the hill 97
Discipline became totally ragged among the columns on the march.
Soldiers jumped aboard the approaching steam engines and carriages,
clinging to the couplings and decks like leeches. They also pushed their way
inside the carriages, ignoring orders from senior officers, and some of them
took to running gambling dens as well.
When an army loses its discipline, its officers also lose their authority.
This was seen in countless incidents. On one occasion, a soldier was trying
to push his way into an army headquarters carriage when he was reprimanded
by a major general. A major general would normally hold the post of a
brigade commander, a rank far above the clouds from the viewpoint of
a private, but the soldier just put on a menacing look and challenged him.
“Just because you’re an officer? We’re all equal in defeat, you know!”
In another incident, a noncommissioned officer threw down his rifle by
the side of the road and jumped aboard a passing train. When he was
upbraided by a superior officer for losing his weapon, he retorted, “My rifle?
It was stolen!”
At first, the withdrawal was supposed to be only as far as Tieling, but
by the time the soldiers reached the city, they had completely lost their
military form and were not a fighting unit but a crowd of stragglers in retreat.
Soldiers roamed in disarray through the streets of Tieling, and in one instance
there was gunfire between comrades as some of them tried to rob a railway
carriage of the Russo-Chinese Bank. Others attacked military warehouses
and stole supplies, and at the railway station men were even boiling water
to sell to other units.
Holding a defensive line at Tieling in accordance with Kuropatkin’s
original orders became impossible because the Russian Army commanders
had increasing difficulty controlling their own units, let alone getting them
to fight. Every day there were deserters. Half of some battalions went
unaccounted for over the course of the withdrawal.
When General Linevich, the newly appointed commander in chief, set up
his headquarters in Gongzhuling, he ordered criminal investigations, and
clear offenders were arrested and shot in droves. An army that loses its
discipline ceases to function as an army, and in that sense the bulk of the
Russian Army ceased to exist within a fortnight of the battle of Mukden.

* * *
As they drove back the Russian Army, the Japanese troops took up their
positions for a full-scale advance north. They had lost the exact equivalent
of three divisions during the course of the battle of Mukden, but even so the
taste of victory sent an electric shock of energy through their ranks, shoring
up their discipline and raising morale higher than ever before.
98 retreat
The phrase “advance north” was frequently heard at General Headquarters
and all the army headquarters. The entire Japanese Army took up positions
in readiness. Yet they did not advance. They were just unable to move.
At the onset of the battle, General Ōyama had given the order: “We have
a reserve supply of 120,000 to 130,000 shells, but do not waste so much as
a single shell!”
The Japanese had used up so much of their supply that they could not
mount an effective pursuit operation. They had previously used up 120,000
shells at the battle of Liaoyang, but at Mukden the various artillery units
had fired as many as 350,000, a sum that included both their immediate
stockpiles and the reserve supply referred to by Ōyama.
“We’ve done quite well,” a young staff officer remarked to Matsukawa
Toshitane, but he just kept an ill-tempered silence. The Japanese had let the
main force of the Russian Army escape, and they had been unable to catch
Kuropatkin. If only they had ten thousand more shells at their disposal, to
use Matsukawa’s own phrase, not a single Russian soldier would have made
it home from Manchuria alive.
There was also some truth in what the young staff officer said. Military
logic held that you needed three times as many men as the enemy to attack
an adversary dug into a defensive position. The Japanese, however, had
boldly tried to surround a superior Russian force despite their lack of
numbers and firepower. It was simply a matter of not having a large enough
cloth to wrap around the parcel that had allowed the enemy to escape. Even
so, the young staff officer suggested, Mukden might still be called an historic
success, but Matsukawa just kept his sour expression and did not even reply.
One morning after the guns had fallen silent, Kodama Gentarō woke up
before dawn as usual and went outside to stand and wait for the sun to rise.
There, he found a field gun. It was a Russian gun, inscribed with the imperial
eagle crest, crouching on the ground like some lurking beast. As Kodama
ran his hand across the muzzle, the eastern sky turned white, and the gun
became a deep shade of blue. Soon the barrel was gleaming in the light as
the sky in the east turned red. At that moment, this diminutive man decided
to return to Tokyo. He had to go back.
Before the battle, when he had originally made the decision to fight it
out, Kodama had shared his assessment with the men around him. “The odds
of our winning against the Russians would normally be sixty–forty against
us. If we do well it might be fifty–fifty, and if the operation goes brilliantly,
sixty–forty in our favor.” This best-case scenario had been achieved. The
Japanese forces had made up for their lack of numbers by proving their
operational superiority in the field and had scrambled to a sixty–forty victory.
 clouds above the hill 99
If they did not seize this chance to expedite peace negotiations, he could not
guarantee that they would continue to enjoy the success they had managed
so far.
“What on earth are they doing in Tokyo?” he wondered. Kodama could
not bear just to sit and wait.

* * *
“I have to go back, to explain to everyone in Tokyo how critical the war
situation really is, and even if I have to use a whip, I will drive them into
opening peace talks.”
Compulsive by nature, Kodama resolved to slip away from the battlefield
as early as the next day—without even telling his comrades—and vanish
from the scene. After breakfast he knocked on the office door of Field
Marshal Ōyama.
“Please come in.” Ōyama’s tone was always respectful, even to his
orderlies. Kodama entered the office.
To his comrades, Kodama used to refer to Ōyama by nicknames like
“Toad,” but at General Headquarters of the Japanese Manchurian Army, the
commander in chief was a godlike figure, and even when the two men were
alone together Kodama was polite to a fault. He immediately got to the point.
Each time Kodama paused, Ōyama nodded and said, “I see.”
Both men were wearing the newly issued khaki uniforms. This more
practical combat gear had replaced the old black uniforms with rib patterning
that they had been wearing since the start of the war. But the black stood
out against the yellow color of the Manchurian plains and provided easy
targets for the Russian guns. Their new jackets had a tight collar and six
buttons, but no shoulder insignia. An officer’s rank was now marked by the
stripes and gold braid on both sleeves. For their trousers they wore riding
breeches, with tight-fitting riding boots.
This is how the British military observer Lieutenant General Hamilton
once described Field Marshal Ōyama:

The Marquis impressed me rather as a très grand seigneur of the Satsuma

clan, with many widespread connections to political power, than as one
who would even for a moment pretend to be an exceptionally studious,
scientific, professional soldier. . .The Marquis is perhaps a shade above the
average Japanese in height, and not handsome according to the European
standard (which is quite different from the Japanese standard), his large
round face and small features being somewhat pitted with smallpox.
100 retreat
These pockmarks made Ōyama’s face look like an outsize pumice stone. In
the last years of the shogunate, he had run off to Kyoto under the name
Ōyama Yasuke. His companions used to tease him about how the geisha
ignored him even at drinking parties. But Yasuke, who was something of a
wag, just retorted that money was all that women were really after. On one
occasion, he even turned up at a banquet in dead earnest with his face covered
in gold coins, which he had stuck on using a paste made from boiled rice.
There was a moment’s pause as the geisha present gulped, and then all at
once they rushed to his side, vying with each other to serve him drinks.
Ōyama acquired a reputation among Satsuma officers as a bit of a comic,
and during the Meiji period he went on to be considered one of the top three
funniest men from their domain. In first place was Saigō Takamori and, in
second, his younger brother Saigō Tsugumichi. Ōyama was deeply
influenced by Takamori, for not only were they cousins, but in the last years
of the shogunate Ōyama had served as the most capable secretary under
Takamori’s command.
Satsuma had many gifted generals. The Chōshū domain, on the other hand,
had produced numerous tactical geniuses. Kodama was a prime example.
But he never showed off his strategic skills in social circles, unlike his Chōshū
compatriot Yamagata. This perhaps explains his jovial and broad-minded
manner, which so impressed Hamilton. “General Kodama does not speak
any foreign languages, but among all the Japanese that I have met he is a
gentleman with the best appreciation of international society.” Hamilton
considered the Japanese to be a bit somber and serious on the whole, and
Kodama alone was the exception.

* * *
Lieutenant General Hamilton was wrong to call Ōyama a “très grand
seigneur.”
According to a Satsuma tradition dating back to the era of Warring States,
there was one particular quality that was always looked for in a leader. No
matter how clever the man really was, he was expected to have a sort of
conjurer’s ability to play the fool. It was a custom peculiar to Satsuma, as
this particular artifice was found nowhere else among the old domains.
Ōyama’s cousin Saigō Takamori was known affectionately to his Satsuma
compatriots as Udo-sa. The term meant a large man or even a giant. Its
derivation is unclear, but udo is thought to come from the phrase udo no
taiboku, meaning “a fellow big and gawky like a great tree.” The source of
the suffix sa is more obvious as a diminutive form of the honorific title san,
“Mr.”
 clouds above the hill 101
To be a leader in Satsuma, a man had to become an Udo-sa, that is, a
large but useless fellow on the outside. He could not, however, be at all
awkwardly made inside.
When he worked as an accounts clerk in a regional domain office as a
young man, Saigō Takamori had demonstrated an unusual skill with an
abacus, which most samurai did not possess. There is some evidence to
suggest that he was better in arithmetic than any young warriors of his own
age, although he never went out of his way to show it. Ōyama Iwao was
sent up to Yokohama on this cousin’s orders to purchase weapons as events
boiled over in the final years of the shogunate, and because of this, he knew
more than anyone how Saigō always kept a small abacus in his pocket.
The greatest qualification for an Udo-sa was to have the skill to select
the most capable men and give them full license to pursue their tasks, while
reserving for oneself only the responsibility for their actions.
Like Saigō Takamori, his younger brother Tsugumichi possessed the same
qualities of an Udo-sa. Back when Takamori was busily engaged in activities
in Kyoto, Tsugumichi had already shown enough talent to serve together
with Ōyama as Takamori’s strategist. When Tsugumichi served as a senior
official in the Meiji government, he always devoted himself to drawing out
the abilities of men placed in his care, thus becoming an Udo-sa himself.
As we’ve stressed a number of times, the Japanese Navy that fought in
the Russo-Japanese War was developed under the guiding hand of Yamamoto
Gombei. Although he was also from Satsuma, Yamamoto could never
become an Udo-sa himself, but he was able to make the most of his creative
genius because Saigō Tsugumichi was in overall command. Since his days
as a colonel, Tsugumichi had entrusted Yamamoto with his own seal and
given him complete freedom of action. So you could say that Saigo
Tsugumichi, in his role as an Udo-sa, built the Meiji navy.
Tōgō Heihachirō, who grew up in the same neighborhood as the Saigō
brothers and Ōyama, was also an Udo-sa. Tōgō, proving his amazing
instincts, managed to discover a young junior officer called Akiyama
Saneyuki and allowed him complete freedom in developing tactics. Even
more amazing was the fact that people could never quite work out whether
Tōgō was really a genius or a fool.
Ōyama, on the other hand, was a distinguished artillery expert, for in his
younger days he had developed what became known as the “Yasuke gun,”
and he had trained in French-style gunnery before going on to become an
Udo-sa himself.
Even before the campaign began, Ōyama had spoken to some of his men
about what Kodama later came to call his plan to “make peace after a
102 retreat
Mukden-style victory.” But seated in his office and actually hearing
Kodama’s request for leave, Ōyama only replied with, “Kodama-san, please
see to it.”

* * *
It was highly irregular for a serving chief of staff to leave the war zone and
rush back to Tokyo, so naturally Kodama kept it a secret.
He told people that he was leaving General Headquarters to confer with
the navy, but he did not reveal exactly where he was heading and did not
even mention a particular place. At that time, part of Tōgō’s fleet was in the
port at Dalian, which the Japanese had recently occupied, but even the staff
officers at headquarters did not know where the bulk of the fleet was based.
It was, in fact, at Masan Bay in the south of Korea and around Asō Bay in
Tsushima, lying in wait for the Baltic Fleet, which was on its way east. If
these hiding places had been leaked, the effect on the Japanese would have
been fatal, so not even the staff at the field army’s headquarters on the
Manchurian plains had been informed.
“He’s probably going to Dalian,” someone suggested, and everyone just
assumed this was true without thinking too much about it. Nor was there
any real need to think. The army and navy were inextricably linked in
strategic matters, but at that moment the link was not so strong for the field
army in Manchuria. Their concentration was entirely focused on doing
everything possible to keep attacking the Russian Army on the Manchurian
plains.
Kodama revealed the truth only to Matsukawa Toshitane who, upon
hearing the news, asked in astonishment, “Why go and do that?” He looked
most dissatisfied. “Why do you, chief of staff of the Japanese Manchurian
Army, have to go all the way to Tokyo on a strictly political matter?”
The proper role of a military man in the field did not involve going to
browbeat the government into making peace. Wasn’t that a job for the
politicians? The army hadn’t even destroyed the enemy yet. The Russian
Army right in front of them was reordering its front line around Gongzhuling,
so wasn’t it the height of absurdity, Matsukawa asked, for the chief of staff
to take his eye off the enemy and leave the war zone?
Scornfully, Kodama lifted his chin. “Listen, Matsukawa. You’re a fine
soldier, but you’re just a soldier!”
The word he used for “soldier”—heitai—was a quite dated expression.
In the early Meiji years, this word was used to refer to all men serving in
the government’s new army, including officers, noncommissioned officers,
and privates. Later on, the more imposing term “military man”–gunjin—
came into use instead, and “soldier” became obsolete. Or rather its use was
 clouds above the hill 103
confined to rank-and-file soldiers. Kodama was teasing Matsukawa here
when he deliberately used “soldier” in its old sense.
“I’m fine just being a soldier,” Matsukawa replied, glowering, “but are
you saying that you’re not just a soldier yourself?”
“That’s right, I’m not!”
Kodama, like Ōyama, was a “soldier” who had experienced the hails of
bullets during the turbulent last years of the shogunate and had emerged at
last on the shaky platform of the newly formed Japanese state. He knew
exactly how fragile those foundations were. That fragile country had finally
now embarked on the grand adventure of war. Ōyama and Kodama both
feared that Japan might collapse if they continued with the adventure any
longer, but by contrast the men of Major General Matsukawa Toshitane’s
generation, who had become pure military bureaucrats, had little real sense
of this.
That is what Kodama meant.

* * *
On the eve of his departure, even Kodama felt he could not keep up his
pretense any longer and changed his explanation. “I am going to Tokyo to
report to the emperor on the battle of Mukden.” He left from the port at
Dalian on March 22 aboard the steamship Sanuki Maru. Accompanying him
were two staff officers, Major Tanaka Kunishige and Captain Higashi. Even
they thought his return was just a courtesy visit to report to the emperor.
During the passage, Kodama spent most of his time in bed. All he did
was hum tunes to himself or get up to have a smoke. Practically a chain
smoker, he used to jam cigarettes into the cheap mouthpiece he always had
with him and puff away. He never cleaned the mouthpiece, and so it made
a whistling sound every time he inhaled.
One day after dinner, Major Tanaka found this whistle so unbearable that
he said, “Shall I clean your cigarette holder?”
At this, Kodama let out with a shout, telling him to mind his own business.
Among the crew was a man who was reading a jōruri book. One day,
Kodama borrowed the book, which he found so absorbing that he spent the
whole day reading.
During a casual conversation with Tanaka on board the ship, Kodama
remarked, “Nogi is a great poet.” Kodama took out his pocket notebook to
show Tanaka a verse by Nogi that he had copied down in pencil.

We have crossed so many mountains and rivers in all directions.

With the passing seasons, we have seen the moon and flowers on the
battlefields.
104 retreat
More than one year spent fighting, our men and horses have grown
exhausted and old.
But our determination to continue fighting remains so firm that we don’t
think of home.

“Yes, I see,” said Tanaka, trying to look impressed although he did not really
understand the sense of the Chinese. Kodama suggested that he compare
Nogi’s work with one of his own verses. Stealing a glance at the notebook,
Tanaka could see Kodama’s verse scribbled down on the following page.

Many thousands of bodies completely cover the mountains and rivers.

After so much chaos, village urchins sell meadow flowers.
Spring passes, fall comes, but still nothing to show for all this effort.
Two years on the sandy battlefield, home utterly forgotten.

“I wrote this last fall,” Kodama said as he put the notebook back in his pocket.
“But not only has spring turned to fall, winter too has now gone by, spring
is here again, and still we have nothing to show for it, Tanaka! Do you
understand?”
This may have been his rather oblique way of trying to open Tanaka
Kunishige’s eyes to the secret purpose of their trip back to Japan.
What Kodama did not mention was how the Japanese newspapers were
celebrating their run of success, and how the public was so elated with the
“great victory” at Mukden that, unaware of the country’s dwindling
resources, people were declaring with abandon, “We should cross the Urals
and strike the Russian capital!” What disgusted him still more was the fact
that even politicians were chiming in with support of this popular mood.

* * *
During his voyage back to Japan, Kodama was preoccupied by the fear that
“In three months, the Russians will again have a powerful military force in
Manchuria.”
He calculated that the enemy would have three times the strength of the
Japanese Army, which would have little chance of winning, no matter how
skillful their tactics or how valiant their soldiers might be. Their own fighting
strength had been steadily deteriorating since its peak in the early stages of
the war. Each fighting unit had lost many regular officers trained at the
Military Academy, and this was the principal reason why the quality of
leadership had declined drastically.
In order to combat a Russian Army anticipated as being three times the
size of their own, Japan would need to create six new divisions and prepare
 clouds above the hill 105
a war chest of one billion yen. The state of the country’s resources made
this a wild dream. When it came to hard facts and figures, no military men
probably understood better than Kodama and Ōyama just how limited
Japan’s strength really was.
“The Baltic Fleet seems to be on its way to the Far East,” Tanaka
Kunishige asked on one occasion during the passage, “but I wonder how
our fleet will cope?” He was assuming, as many had assumed as a commonly
accepted truth, that perhaps half of Tōgō’s fleet might be sunk. Part of the
Baltic Fleet would survive. These Russian ships would then be based at
Vladivostok and would no doubt lurk in the Sea of Japan, Korea Strait, and
Yellow Sea, harrying the supply route to the Japanese Army in Manchuria.
The surviving remnants of Tōgō’s fleet might have to play out a long-drawn-
out game of blindman’s bluff as they sought out and hounded the Russian
ships at large on their hit-and-run attacks.
For a long time Kodama did not answer.
Before the war, a newspaper reporter had asked him if he would actually
open hostilities against “mighty Russia,” as it was known. Kodama had
simply snorted and dismissed him with the words “So we just let Russia
take over the Korean Peninsula? Well, what’s wrong with that?”
He did not really mean it, of course. If Korea fell to Russia, it would
mean that Tsushima, which had been a frequent target of Russia’s ambition
since the last years of the shogunate, would soon come under Russian
control, and that Hakata Bay or the port of Nagasaki would end up as a
Russian concession.
What made Kodama shudder, and at the same time was his sole motive
for embarking on this impossible war, was the fear that, as Komura Jutarō
put it, “The driving force of the Russian nation is to plunder territory.”
Kodama had disguised his real views on the outbreak of war with his
comment on letting Russia take Korea; neither did he answer Tanaka
Kunishige’s question directly. “The navy will keep up with the Russian
warships, even if they have to swim,” he said. “All the army has to do is to
keep hoping.”
During the journey, his companions suffered from seasickness, but
Kodama was untroubled, and he heartily ate three meals a day.
“You have really found your sea legs,” Tanaka told him.
Kodama came up with a somewhat implausible explanation for this,
saying it was due to his having been born prematurely, when his mother was
just seven months pregnant.
On March 26, the Sanuki Maru reached the port of Ujina in Hiroshima
Prefecture. Kodama promptly caught a train and headed for Tokyo. The train
reached Shimbashi Station in Tokyo on the morning of March 28. Kodama’s
106 retreat
return had been kept a closely guarded secret, so there was just one man
waiting on the platform to meet him. This was the vice chief of the General
Staff Office, Major General Nagaoka Gaishi.
Nagaoka’s whiskers had grown even longer than before and were sticking
out on either side of his face. As Kodama alighted from the deck of the train
Nagaoka gave him a salute.
Without returning his salute, Kodama just stared at him and shouted,
“Nagaoka!”
For the rest of his days, Nagaoka remembered this roar whenever anyone
mentioned the name of Kodama.
“Are you stupid just standing there and saluting?” Kodama yelled at him.
“When you set a fire burning, you have to put it out. Only a fool just stands
and gazes at the flames, right?”
Kodama was so incensed that he promptly stormed off toward the
stationmaster’s office. Nagaoka followed after him. Fortunately, there was
not a soul about on the platform, and no one noticed the curious scene that
revolved around Kodama’s arrival, which was a state secret.
Kodama kept on walking straight to the General Staff Office, where he
met Yamagata Aritomo, chief of the General Staff, and got straight to the
point. Army Minister Terauchi Masatake was also present. From the very
start, Yamagata’s approach to the war against Russia had not been so much
circumspect as almost timid, and Terauchi, of course, had no opinion he
could offer to counter Kodama’s argument. The field army’s successive
victories in Manchuria had been so very striking that they had neglected to
“wave the umpire’s fan” (as Ōyama put it), declaring a winner and calling
on the cabinet to open peace negotiations. In other words, they had missed
their chance to seize the opportunity to end the hostilities.
To press his case, Kodama visited the genrō Itō Hirobumi and Prime
Minister Katsura, and he also conferred with Navy Minister Yamamoto
Gombei. While he was at it, he convened a confidential meeting with senior
army officials. With Yamagata Aritomo, Terauchi Masatake, and Nagaoka
Gaishi all in attendance, Kodama’s scheme was approved by the Japanese
military. The conclusion they reached was that “Russia must not see through
our design,” so their basic plan was for the field army to make a token display
of launching an offensive.
First, “The Manchurian Army should fulfill the political objective of
occupying Harbin,” although in reality it was quite incapable of doing so
right away. A full year would be needed to replenish the losses incurred and
enable the army to fight a decisive battle at Harbin. But, unless the Japanese
mobilized the whole nation and at least made a show of it, the Russians
would probably not come to the negotiating table at all.
 clouds above the hill 107
Second, “The Northern Korea Army should advance with all speed as far
as possible and make sure that not a single Russian soldier remains in the
peninsula.”
Third, “Occupy Sakhalin Island with immediate effect.”
By transferring part of the First Army to the east, the Japanese would
attempt to unsettle the Russians with the threat of an assault on Vladivostok.
For the enemy, losing Vladivostok would mean surrendering the lair that
was intended as the refuge for the approaching Baltic Fleet.

* * *
During his stay in Tokyo, Kodama went back and forth talking to senior
members of the government. He had just one message for them: “Do
something about the war.” They had to use politics to clean up, since Japan’s
capacity to fight a land campaign was all but spent.
This was also precisely the view of Field Marshal Ōyama in command
of the Manchurian Army at Yantai. During his audience with the emperor
before he took to the field for this campaign, Ōyama had made the guarded
promise, “I will drive the Russian Army out of Manchuria without fail. What
comes after that, however, is not for me to gauge with any certainty.”
This was around the same time that Ōyama, before leaving for the front,
had also told Navy Minister Yamamoto, “I am counting on you to act as
umpire and wave the fan.” He thus reminded Yamamoto to keep an eye on
the war situation and not overlook any favorable political opportunity to open
peace talks.
When the Chief of the General Staff Yamagata Aritomo heard Kodama’s
report, he also completely agreed with him. Yamagata sent a long letter to
Prime Minister Katsura Tarō. It was hard to believe that the chief of the staff
on the winning side had written a letter so filled with agonized deliberations.
“Whether we sit back and defend or push forward and attack, there is no
resolution in sight and little hope of restoring peace,” Yamagata wrote, calling
on Katsura to think long and hard on how peace was to be achieved. He
added, “The enemy is not yet short of officers, but since the start of the war
we have lost a great number of our own officers, and they will not be easy
to replace.”
Yamagata went on to explain that in order to pursue the war beyond
Mukden the Japanese would require a colossal war chest and vast numbers
of troops. As a concrete example, he described the need for “plans to
construct a double track railway over a distance of about 400 kilometers
from Mukden to Harbin in order to improve the transport of military
supplies.” He expressed doubts about Japan’s ability to find the resources
necessary to build this railway. But as far as he was concerned, they simply
108 retreat
must have this railway for defense or attack if they were to continue fighting
the war.
Yamagata concluded with the thought, “This railway is absolutely vital,
even though it will place an even greater burden on our people. The members
of the cabinet must summon all their wisdom in this matter.”
As the man with ultimate responsibility for military command, Yamagata
could not openly write to the cabinet, “I want you to make peace,” but this
was implicit in his words “The members of the cabinet must summon all
their wisdom.”
In passing, I might add that on Komura Jutarō’s return from studying
engineering in America, his former student Masumoto Uhei grilled him on
the wisdom of Japan paying practically the entire cost of the war with
government securities borrowed from abroad. Komura replied, “If this state
had enough money and soldiers, and we were sufficiently independent, we
would not be at war in the first place. Because we do not have these things
we are fighting madly now.”
The woman who owned the bar was listening to them, and she looked
serious when she said, “It’s the same in our establishment too! Because we
are so poor we have to work all night without getting enough sleep. I wouldn’t
be working like this if I had enough money to get by!”

* * *
To change the subject and return to one we’ve touched on before, the British
have long gathered information on conditions in various countries, as if the
entire country were an intelligence organization, and they have also shown
a great talent for analyzing these conditions on the ground. The professionals
of this network operated in the Foreign Office, but the British Navy covertly
spent large sums on its own information bureau as well and so had a grasp
of foreign affairs superior to that of any foreign navy.
There was also the Times, a newspaper that was even acclaimed as the
“voice of the world.” During its coverage of the Russo-Japanese War, the
special correspondent of the Times was instructed to charter an 1,100-ton
steamer called the Haimun when Tōgō’s fleet blockaded Port Arthur and to
fit radio equipment on board. A wireless relay station was set up in Weihaiwei
so that messages received from the Haimun as it lurked in waters around
the harbor and the Yellow Sea could be forwarded directly to London.
Because of the goodwill earned by Britain from its alliance with Japan, this
Times journalist was the only foreign correspondent the Japanese Navy
permitted to sail freely around the war zone.
Britain might essentially be described as an island empire that developed
on the strength of its intelligence network. Traditionally, its diplomatic
 clouds above the hill 109
approach toward Europe was based on the principle of maintaining a “balance
of power.” Britain was afraid of any one country becoming too dominant
and took prompt action whenever such a danger arose by supporting both
openly and in private those weaker nations that might feel threatened as a
result. The same was the case in Asia, where Britain feared Russia becoming
the dominant power. This persuaded Britain to back such a weak little
country in the Far East as Japan and pull off the unlikely diplomatic stunt
of concluding the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. It was Britain’s intelligence
network that made this diplomatic policy possible in the first place.
The columns of the Times were so packed with information that hardly
any country was able to protect its state secrets. Tōgō’s six battleships, for
example, were the treasures of the Japanese fleet, but on May 15 the previous
year, two of these, Hatsuse and Yashima, had been sunk by mines while out
on operations blockading Port Arthur. At a single stroke, Tōgō was deprived
of a third of his main vessels. This terrible tragedy was kept top secret by
the Japanese Navy both at home and abroad, but the eyes of the Times alone
could not be deceived. The newspaper duly reported the incident, and, once
this news item appeared in the Times, the whole world soon knew too.
When Kodama made his top-secret return to Tokyo, he did not make any
announcement to the Japanese public on just how difficult it would be to
pursue the war beyond the battle of Mukden. Instead, he went around
persuading only a select few important people. Yet shortly before this battle
had even started, the Times had carried an article that predicted the outcome
and told the world what Kodama was saying behind closed doors in Tokyo.
After some analysis on the prospects for the impending contest, this article
stated, “Japan does not have the effective troop strength to crush the enemy.
It may concentrate all its forces on Mukden and deal a severe blow to the
Russian Army, but it is still doubtful whether or not Japan would be capable
of sending a large force further north.”
This article, which had given heart to the Russians and disappointed the
British public, showed how the Russo-Japanese War was being conducted
before the eyes of the world. For this reason, the hush-hush discussions
between Kodama and Yamagata in Tokyo seem rather amusing.

* * *
Japan was nevertheless continuing to do everything in its power
diplomatically. For the first time in the long history of this Far East island
nation, such concerted efforts were being made in the diplomatic world, both
onstage and behind the scenes. There has never been an example since of
quite such a great endeavor.
110 retreat
Besides the official diplomatic channels pursued by the Foreign Ministry
under Komura Jutarō, Japanese agents acting behind the scenes were also
dispatched abroad by Itō Hirobumi. Kaneko Kentarō was sent to the United
States, and Suematsu Kenchō to Britain.
Kaneko spent almost the entire war in Washington, D.C. When Itō
presented him with this important mission, he had refused at first and begged
to be excused, explaining that it was totally impossible to fight against Russia.
Eventually, he relented after Itō explained that while he actually agreed with
him—and was painfully aware a hundred times over of the enormity of this
challenge—he still felt moved to make the request. In trying to persuade
Kaneko, Itō declared that if he should receive the call he would pick up a
rifle and go to fight himself.
Kaneko was also Roosevelt’s former classmate at Harvard University,
and they had remained good friends ever since. By getting Kaneko to renew
his contact with Roosevelt, Itō was trying to encourage the United States to
pave the way for future peace negotiations. Kaneko Kentarō’s mission and
activities in the United States turned out to be a great success.
The same cannot be said of Suematsu Kenchō, who went to Britain.
Suematsu is known as the author of a history of the revolution in the Chōshū
domain during the last years of the shogunate. He had acquired a broad
education in the manner of men brought up in the Meiji period, holding
doctorates in both literature and law. His varied career defies easy
classification, as he is also known for being the first to introduce classical
Japanese literature to the outside world with his English translation of The
Tale of Genji. He also wrote numerous fine articles in his time as a journalist
before entering government service. He won the trust of Itō Hirobumi,
becoming his son-in-law, and was a member of the House of Representatives.
He later held appointments as minister for communications and home affairs,
but as a diplomat, he had one great failing and that was his unprepossessing
appearance.
The British public and ruling class felt that this small man spoke with
too many flourishes. He put on airs, going around promoting Japan as “The
Rising Sun.” The British, unfortunately, did not really warm to this idea. He
also published a collection of his speeches. His prose style had the artless
optimism of a man brought up in the Meiji period, but English readers had
no interest in whether or not Japan’s past was as glorious as he claimed, or
how much hope it promised for the future. They sneered at his naïveté and
practically shunned him.
Unlike Kaneko in the United States, Suematsu did not have to appeal to
the British government as such. In Britain, the government took great pride
 clouds above the hill 111
in its own record of good faith, and having signed a treaty or an accord with
another country, it was always a model of loyalty in discharging the duties
of an ally. But the government was also dependent on public opinion, which
meant the views of the ruling class of ladies and gentlemen—in other words,
the readers of the Times. The Japanese government felt as if the Times was
beginning to adopt a slightly cooler tone than before.
British interests and feelings were complex. The more victories Japan
continued to win, the less the public felt capable of expressing the simple
joy of a supportive ally, and shades of doubt had begun to appear in the
columns of the Times. To begin with, Britain had not become an ally simply
out of love for Japan. At the onset of the twentieth century, every power
embraced the cause of imperialism, and the family of nations was just like
the Japanese domains during the era of Warring States, when power and
deceit counted for everything.
Britain had selected Japan as an ally for no other reason than to deter
Russian encroachment. With Russia bent on limitless expansion in East Asia,
Britain feared that its own trade interests were in danger of attack. The fate
of Japan was no concern of Britain, for this new ally was valued simply as
someone who could carry a boulder and jump in front of the runaway Russian
train. To everyone’s surprise, Japan did not self-destruct but gallantly even
set about stopping that train altogether.
As Japan’s ally, the British government should have been delighted at
this, but the feeling within British society as a whole was not that simple.
Central government figures with their deep powers of reasoning were one
thing, but the public’s interests and feelings would have been satisfied for
the most part if the Japanese carrying the boulder had derailed the Russian
train and been smashed to pieces in the process. The British pictured the
vast expanse of China, beyond the wreckage on both sides, as a mouth-
watering prospect stretching out like a joint of juicy meat waiting to satisfy
their insatiable appetites.
Russia and Japan, however, were not simply there to paint a landscape
picture for the British. After Japan’s successive victories, a new image
emerged, predicting the danger of what the kaiser termed the “yellow peril.”
At the very onset of the twentieth century, whispers in British society were
tinged with a sense of foreboding about the unfamiliar presence of Japan, a
power whose presence might complicate the Asian political scene for the
Europeans there. This was not expressed directly in the Times, but articles
did appear to the effect that “Japan is losing its strength,” insinuating that
it might not be such a suitable country for British investors after all.
Suematsu Kenchō may have possessed broad knowledge stretching from
The Tale of Genji to Roman law, but the way he raced around in high society
112 retreat
wearing his pride in “The Rising Sun” on his sleeve made him nothing but
a figure of fun to the British.

* * *
France, the third party to reflect upon the outcome of the battle of Mukden,
felt the most discomfort. There was already a Franco-Russian Alliance,
signed in secret by the French government without informing the public.
This arrangement was deeply unpopular among the French intelligentsia,
which detested the oppressive nature of the tsarist regime. As we mentioned
in the passages on Akashi Genjirō, progressive French intellectuals had
launched a campaign calling for a “boycott of Russian government bonds.”
The French government had been forced to admit that, in diplomatic terms,
the alliance with Russia might have been a failure. Not only had the alliance
courted unpopularity among the people, but the Russians had become
involved in the Far East and transported their European army there on the
Trans-Siberian Railway, going against France’s own interests. The deadly
enemy of the Republic of France was the German Empire, and France had
been counting on the vast troop strength of the Russian Army to keep
Germany in check.
Even more disconcerting and absurd for France was the fact that not only
had the Russian barracks in Europe become empty of troops, but this
supposedly strongest army in the world had gone to suffer defeat after defeat
in the Far East, culminating in the disaster at Mukden. This reversal had
damaged not only Russia, but by implication it also significantly reduced
the strategic military strength of France.
“The only way out of our predicament is to get Japan and Russia to make
peace,” the French Foreign Ministry decided. They had received a message
from Witte hinting as much. Witte sensed that the best way to broach a peace
settlement with Japan would be to get the French government to put out
feelers. He and French foreign minister Théophile Delcassé were in perfect
agreement on this point.
Fifteen days after the battle of Mukden, Delcassé invited Motono Ichirō,
the Japanese minister stationed in France, over for talks. His proposal may
be called the first flare raised on the issue of peace between Japan and Russia.
“What do you think?” Delcassé asked him. “My understanding of the
Russians’ intentions is that they would be prepared to make peace as long
as Japan does not demand any humiliating terms”—territorial gains and a
war indemnity.
This was indeed Witte’s view.
Motono Ichirō was struck speechless on hearing this, reminded once again
of just how lightly Japan was held in Europe. After all, it was the usual
 clouds above the hill 113
practice there for the losing side to pay a war indemnity and in some cases
cede territory to the victor. According to the reasoning of both Witte and
Delcassé, this custom did not apply to Japan since it was an Asian nation.
“If Russia sincerely desires peace,” Motono replied, “Japan would have
no objection. But I must wait for instructions from my government with
regard to these terms.”
Motono met Delcassé one more time, carrying the instructions he had
since received from Komura in his pocket. Of course, the response Motono
gave him was that “All the peace terms are to be decided during direct talks
held between Japan and Russia, and Japan will not be bound by any
conditions from Russia in advance.”
A disappointed Delcassé said he would not be able to mediate any further.

* * *
“The Russo-Japanese War was the work of the kaiser.” Sergei Witte wrote
something to this effect in his memoirs, and there was indeed an element of
truth in it. A man of mediocre talents, the Emperor of Germany Wilhelm II
was extremely vain, a showman who simply loved to cut a figure on his
national stage.
Having dismissed the renowned Chancellor Bismarck, the kaiser chose
for prime ministers men who would never cross him, and he selected all his
advisors himself, both civil and military officials. The Reichstag may have
existed in form, but the German political system gave the emperor free rein
and so was terribly primitive in comparison to the governments of Britain
and France. While he did not have quite the unlimited powers of the tsar in
Russia, where no such assembly existed, the kaiser did all he could to
manipulate domestic interest groups in Germany and flaunted his imperial
authority wherever possible. His scheming nature was also apparent in the
field of diplomacy. He was hopelessly incapable of restraining his ambitions
and constantly astonishing the other powers as he toyed with them and
indulged in unnecessary deceptions.
Since he believed that military might was the only requirement for
conducting diplomacy, the kaiser wanted Germany, which already had a
powerful army, to have a navy that could contend with Britain’s. The
national character of the German people was well suited to making this dream
come true. Once their minds were turned to the business of military
administration, the Germans could make use of their incomparable love of
machinery. Temperamentally, they could become engrossed in the logical
world of warfare and armies, regardless of what the national objective really
was. The country also produced good-quality steel, enabling rapid advances
in heavy industry. In particular, the munitions factory developed by Alfred
114 retreat
Krupp, who was known as the “Cannon King,” was more than capable of
realizing the kaiser’s dreams and desire for more power. Wilhelm thought
the best way to reduce the power of Germany’s archrival France was to
remove the bulk of the Russian army far away to Asia.
He frequently worked on Tsar Nicholas II until, finally, at a dramatic
conference on an island in the middle of the sea, he drove his mentally feeble
cousin into raptures by whispering in his ear, “You go and conquer the Pacific
Ocean!”
According to Witte, the kaiser had been the instigation behind the tsar’s
grand adventure in the Far East. In the psychological outlook of these two
emperors, there was indeed little difference as they played at being little
generals in their sandboxes. But in attributing sole responsibility for Russia’s
grand adventure to the kaiser, Witte was overstating the case. Countless
elements in the political makeup and conditions of the Russian Empire must
also be taken into account, although in the course of this long tale we have
already touched on these quite enough already.
And so to the kaiser.
Wilhelm almost leaped with astonishment when he received intelligence
from Paris suggesting that French foreign minister Delcassé had been in
secret correspondence with Witte and had invited the Japanese minister
Motono Ichirō for confidential talks.

* * *
The image that floated across Kaiser Wilhelm II’s mind was, of course, a
fantasy.
But it was a fantasy that could be said to epitomize the nature of the Great
Powers in this age: “France and Britain are trying to divide up China.”
China did not take sides in the Russo-Japanese War and was rather the
victim, serving as the stage on which this war was actually fought. At the
start of the war, both Russia and Japan had served notice to the government
in Beijing that they would be borrowing Chinese territory for their military
campaigns. In fact, Russia had already obtained rights to build the railway
in Manchuria, and, since the war would be fought in this railway region,
neither Russia nor Japan really needed permission from the Chinese
government. They requested permission simply as a matter of courtesy.
The war zone would be confined to the Russian sphere of influence in
Manchuria, meaning that the arena had been settled already. But the
Mongolian part of Manchuria lay outside the limits of this area and so
according to international law, neither army could operate there. But, in fact,
this only meant that neither side dug trenches there. The cavalry on both
sides sometimes passed through Mongolian enclaves en route to engaging
 clouds above the hill 115
with the enemy, and the Chinese government had no choice but to put up
with this.
In Kaiser Wilhelm II’s eyes, China was not so much a nation-state as an
abandoned continent, a land where the Great Powers frequently encroached
and where Germany, as a recently formed empire, could hope to gain more
territory, in addition to the recently acquired Jiaozhou Bay. Chancellor
Bismarck, who had steered Germany through the previous age, did not have
such an appetite for colonies, but Wilhelm II wanted more land to reflect
the might of the Great German Empire.
The kaiser did not place so much value in Japan’s existence, considering
it only to warn of the “yellow peril.” This was his simple racial theory based
on the premise that the white race should be masters of the world. He could
overlook the fact that the battle of Mukden had ended in a Japanese victory
but was quick to envision that Britain and France would intervene as
mediators, and exploit the prevailing confusion to appropriate the war-torn
territory of Manchuria for themselves.
Wilhelm immediately wired instructions to Baron Speck von Sternberg,
the German ambassador to the United States, proposing joint action together
with President Roosevelt. His plan was to block this conspiracy by colluding
with America, and if all went well, Germany too could fall in with this gang
of Great Powers and claim a share of the spoils—even though it had been
on Russia’s side during the Russo-Japanese War.
The report that Wilhelm conveyed through his ambassador read, “You
might not have heard about the shady plots afoot in Paris. A conference of
Great Powers is to be convened there, with Japan, Russia (why was the
vanquished nation included?), Britain, and France conspiring to partition
China between them. I just thought I should let you know.”
In the United States, meanwhile, the public’s attitude toward the war was
largely based on popular sentiment. Since the interests of the United States
in Asia revolved around their recent acquisition of the Philippines, they had
no real interest in dividing up China and developing colonies there. Instead,
the Americans promoted an “Open Door” policy. This policy held that China
as an independent state must offer equal commercial access to all nations,
and no single country could enjoy privileges that were unavailable to others.
As a result, public opinion in the United States resembled something of a
handicap race, with the underdog the beneficiary of the crowd’s sympathy.
The Russians had already sensed this mood, and so shortly after war broke
out, Count Arthur Cassini, their ambassador in Washington, had received
orders to appeal to the American people. His method of cultivating public
opinion was very Russian in style; he went around buying up mainstream
American newspapers one after another. For example, the World newspaper,
116 retreat
which came under Russian ownership, undertook a clearly anti-Japanese
campaign. Calling the Japanese “little yellow monkeys,” the paper empha-
sized how contemptible they were, how puny their country’s resources, and
even carried editorials describing them as enemies of Christianity. This was
much like the ancient proclamations issued when the Crusades were
launched.
Kaneko landed in San Francisco around the time that President Roosevelt
made his declaration of neutrality. Since Kaneko had been none too confident
of the behind-the-scenes dealings from the start, his heart sank when he read
this declaration shortly after his arrival and thought, “I have no hope of
accomplishing this mission now.”
Kaneko had brought as much in secret funds as Japan could provide, but
he did not have enough to buy up national newspapers like the Russians.
The most effective propaganda tools he had were just two books, both of
them written in English. These were Bushido by Nitobe Inazō, and Heroic
Japan by F. Warrington Eastlake. But when he tried to picture somehow
sowing the seeds of pro-Japanese sentiment throughout America with just
these two books, he was not filled with hope but instead felt daunted by the
enormity of his task.
From San Francisco, Kaneko traveled to Chicago, which had long been
a strongly anti-Japanese city, and found that all the newspapers there
supported Russia. During the journey east, he received some encouragement
from anonymous citizens, but much of the information he encountered
was disappointing until he reached Washington on March 25. When he met
President Roosevelt the following day, the situation was suddenly
transformed.
“Whatever the newspapers say, the Americans are pro-Japanese, you
know!” Roosevelt explained, telling him also that he would do what he could
to help. He went on to compare the relative strength of the two armies and
declared, “Japan will win!”
The data on armaments and training that Roosevelt showed him all looked
so incredibly precise that Kaneko, who was no expert on military matters,
was struck dumb with astonishment. He was left mightily impressed with
the White House’s capacity to assemble intelligence.

* * *
Public opinion in the United States gradually took a turn for the better.
Numerous veteran soldiers, for example, voiced a simple desire to join up
with the Japanese Army; so many, in fact, that the Russian ambassador
Count Cassini protested to the secretary of state, “Can’t the United States
government control the impulsive behavior of these soldiers?” Cassini’s
 clouds above the hill 117
protest was also reflected in Roosevelt’s declaration of neutrality, which was
designed to put a brake on such high-minded public support for Japan.
As time passed, those newspapers with Russian leanings found they were
no longer able to carry exclusively pro-Russian articles, and the press
campaign against Japan showed signs of cooling down.
Kaneko was not a combative individual, but he was forced to stand up
and speak out against this campaign in the media, and he defended Japan’s
cause energetically, seizing every opportunity to make speeches and appear
in society circles. The president also silently supported this lone orator.
Roosevelt went out of his way to be available whenever Kaneko wished to
see him, and when they met he provided all kinds of advice for Japan.
Roosevelt was even described as “Japan’s attorney,” but in his outlook he
had none of the naïveté of the high-spirited American veterans, nor was he
the storybook knight in shining armor.
Naturally enough, Roosevelt approached the Russo-Japanese War
primarily in terms of American interests. Guiding his thinking was the fear
that “If Russia becomes the dominant force in Asia, it will upset the balance
of power in the region. It is up to Japan to stop this from happening.” His
outlook was, in this sense, identical to Britain’s when it formed the Anglo-
Japanese Alliance. Japan was just being “used.”
But if people in Japan complained about this—and some did even though
this view of the Russo-Japanese War persisted at that time and for years to
come—that amounted to nothing more than the hysterical cries of the weak.
It was the view of people who thought of themselves as victims and had no
real sense of their own country’s foreign policy. Every nation had its own
international strategy, which involved sometimes being used by other
countries but sometimes using other countries as well.
In his own global strategy, Roosevelt hoped that Japan would win, but
at the same time he did not wish this to be too convincing a triumph. If that
happened, Japan would simply take Russia’s place, extending its power in
Asia just as Russia threatened to do. Backing Japan in order to contain Russia
would have lost all meaning. Japan must win a marginal victory.
Even if Japan won a great victory, claiming a large indemnity must not
be allowed. This was why Roosevelt felt obliged to take charge of the peace
negotiations between Russia and Japan. He sought the role of mediator to
curtail any excessive Japanese demands.
His own mind was naturally focused on the interests of the United
States. During the Russo-Japanese War, he had already given thought
to strengthening the United States Navy. “We must expand our Pacific
Fleet,” he declared, announcing an agenda he would go on to pursue with
vigor. In formulating such ideas, he was clearly thinking far ahead, creating
118 retreat
a strategy for a large-scale conflict at sea, with Japan as a potential adversary.
Roosevelt’s resourceful activities in the Russo-Japanese War did not, as the
Japanese imagined, derive from selfless ideals, nor was he an American
incarnation of Banzuin Chōbei, who resisted the strong to help the weak.

* * *
In international circles, Japan and the Japanese were habitually overlooked,
viewed as sinister or simply disliked. When Japan revealed its plan to claim
a war indemnity, for example, one American newspaper condemned this out
of hand with the words “Japan is making human blood a tool of trade.”
Throughout this war, Japan had adhered faithfully to international law to
an unheard-of degree, paying due consideration to China as the theater of
war, not violating Chinese citizens’ land or property rights, and making every
effort to look after Russian prisoners of war. This was a strategy aimed at
achieving revision of the Ansei Treaties, those unequal treaties with the
Western powers sealed by Ii Naosuke in the last years of the shogunate.
There was a moral explanation behind Japanese behavior as well, which may
be traced back to the ethical code of Edo period society. This code lingered
on in the new Meiji state.
Japan endeavored to respect international conventions, and one part of
this approach was to consider the possibility of a war indemnity. In Europe,
it was thought only natural for the victor to make the losing side cover the
cost of fighting a war. Moreover, since the middle of the nineteenth century,
European countries had used some small incident in China or other Asian
states as a pretext for either resorting to war or threatening the use of
military force. This was what happened when Britain seized Hong Kong,
France colonized Vietnam, Russia took Liaodong, and Germany snatched
Jiaozhou Bay. In Japan as well, when the Chōshū domain fought against a
combined squadron of four Great Powers during the last years of the
shogunate and when Satsuma fought against the British Navy, the shogunate
government was forced to pay compensation. After the shogunate collapsed,
the new Meiji state paid off the remaining dues.
When Japan achieved victory over Russia and tried to claim a war
indemnity, however, it was attacked by an American newspaper taking that
extreme view: “Japan is making human blood a tool of trade and destroying
the laws of humanity to obtain territory and money.” By human blood, this
newspaper probably meant the Aryan blood of the Russians. Westerners
seemed to have difficulty recognizing the blood of the Chinese and other
Asians as “human.”
 clouds above the hill 119
Lieutenant General Ian Hamilton, the British military observer assigned
to the Japanese camp, was very sympathetic to the Japanese Army. Even he
never wrote of his sorrow on seeing any fallen Japanese soldiers but described
the beautiful appearance of a young Russian soldier’s corpse with heartfelt
pain, looking upon the death of a fellow Aryan as if he had been his own
relative.
Given these circumstances, President Roosevelt’s attitude was remarkably
fair-minded. Just before the battle of Tsushima on May 13, he wrote a letter
to Sir George Trevelyan. “I like the Russian people, but I abhor the Russian
system of government. . .The Japanese I am inclined to welcome as a
valuable factor in the civilization of the future.”
He was probably the first head of state among the Great Powers to put
into writing his desire to admit the Japanese, as Asians, into the special
international club of civilized nations, which had hitherto been confined to
whites.

* * *
While the United States’ approach to world politics may have been reflected
in Roosevelt’s diplomatic outlook, the United States government had never
before taken the lead in any European diplomatic issue. Roosevelt’s offer
to mediate in the Russo-Japanese War might be described as the first time
in history that the United States took the initiative in international diplomacy.
Nevertheless, Roosevelt exercised much restraint in his actions, and later,
when the issue of a venue for the peace conference arose, he thought twice
about holding it in the United States. He said to Kaneko Kentarō, “America
is now receiving suspicious looks from all the European countries for
showing too much interest in making peace between Russia and Japan. This
is not desirable for us, so if possible, it is to be hoped that the conference
will be held somewhere in Europe.”
In the end, the conference was held at Portsmouth, which was in
accordance with Kaneko’s wishes, and, by coincidence, with Russian wishes
as well. Even though he spoke without reserve to Kaneko, Roosevelt always
made an outward show of strict neutrality.
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, as we know, tried to drag the United States
into serving as an instrument of his own devious schemes. He sent frequent
letters to Roosevelt and made the German ambassador in Washington chase
after him. “The kaiser has become a monomaniac,” Roosevelt wrote after
the battle of Mukden to Secretary of State William Taft, who was abroad at
the time.
According to Roosevelt, the kaiser believed that neighboring France was
trying to profit from this war by using behind-the-scenes diplomatic channels
120 retreat
to convene a peace conference among the Great Powers, with a view to
ending the fighting. France would exploit the prevailing confusion to partition
China and at the same time keep Germany out of the picture. It was a fantasy.
Roosevelt became convinced that the kaiser was imagining things because
the United States’ own intelligence network operated efficiently enough by
this stage to tell him that France had no such plan. According to Roosevelt’s
letter, the kaiser’s delusions did not stop there.
“He sincerely believes that the English are planning to attack him and
smash his fleet, and perhaps join with France in a war to annihilate Germany.”
These quotes are all from the letter he sent to the secretary of state on
April 24. The “action” that the kaiser’s fantasy had prompted him to take
was naturally picked up by the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s intelligence
service. They were suspicious that Wilhelm himself might meddle in the
peace talks and snatch away territory due to be handed over to Japan,
leading even Komura Jutarō to remark, “With the kaiser, this would not be
hard to believe!” After all, following the First Sino-Japanese War several
years before, Germany, Russia, and France had intervened in the negotiations
between China and Japan, demanding that “Japan must return the Liaodong
Peninsula to China.” They went on to divide up the returned territory and
surrounding area among themselves. It was not hard for the Foreign Ministry
to suspect that the kaiser might try the same again.

* * *
Just in case, Foreign Minister Komura Jutarō sent instructions to Kaneko
Kentarō. “The kaiser appears to have sent a letter to President Roosevelt.
Germany may want a share of the spoils, and the kaiser now seems to be
inviting the United States to join him because he cannot achieve this alone.
You are to contact the president right away and verify the truth of the matter.”
Takahira Kogorō, the Japanese minister to the United States, had also heard
of this letter.
Kaneko immediately requested a meeting with Roosevelt, and as always
this was granted immediately. “I hear you have received a confidential letter
from the kaiser,” Kaneko inquired, getting straight to the point.
Roosevelt did not want to reveal this since he was also honor bound to
Wilhelm, and feigning ignorance he replied that no such letter had arrived.
Kaneko persisted and refused to back down. “In the past, Germany caused
Japan great injury, and we are afraid that the same may happen again. It is
a matter of national security, so please show me this letter.”
Roosevelt refused, saying that he could only state that the kaiser was really
not such a bad person at all, contrary to the impression Kaneko seemed to
have formed. Looking crestfallen, Kaneko asked him one more time. At last,
 clouds above the hill 121
Roosevelt relented and showed him the confidential letter from the kaiser.
Kaneko saw that the kaiser was harboring fantasies about the French, but
as far as other ambitions were concerned he wrote only, “I do not want an
inch of territory for myself.”
When he finished reading this letter, Kaneko heaved a sigh of relief and
apologized to Roosevelt. “I did not show you the trust of a friend,” he said.
He had not believed the president when he insisted that the kaiser had no
evil intentions and had even made Roosevelt prove it by coaxing him into
sharing a confidential letter Kaneko really had no right to see.
No telegram in the course of the war caused so much relief among the
oligarchs, prime minister, and foreign minister in Japan as the message
Kaneko immediately dispatched to Tokyo, reporting, “The kaiser has no plans
to interfere.” No episode epitomized more just how weak Japan’s diplomacy
was in the international arena. The fantasy in the mind of what Roosevelt
called the “monomaniac” Wilhelm had also deluded the Japanese
government.
Even Yamagata had fretted, “With a man like the kaiser you just never
know what he will be up to next. He might suddenly make a military alliance
with Russia and launch a joint attack on Japan with a view to dividing up
Manchuria between them.”
More than the fear of just a partition, the very survival of Japan would
be placed in danger if in these straitened circumstances its army was forced
to fight not only the Russians but also the Germans on the Manchurian plains.
Just how much Kaneko Kentarō’s words of relief delighted the authorities
in Tokyo is clear from the fact that Katsura himself took this telegram with
him to an audience at the palace and showed it personally to Emperor Meiji.

* * *
President Roosevelt frequently urged Count Cassini, the Russian ambassador
in Washington, to open peace talks as well.
“The love I bear for the Russian people never changes. I believe it is my
duty as a member of the international community to protect our civilization.
Peace talks would be in Russia’s interests and also the world’s interests.
How about it?” This was the gist of the message he conveyed either
through Secretary of State Taft or directly himself. But Cassini would not
be drawn in.
Roosevelt frequently spoke of “Cassini’s character,” for the Russian
ambassador was a man of haughty and obstinate temperament. It was always
hard to judge from his face or words what he was really thinking. His smile
did not mean what a smile was supposed to mean and instead expressed
loathing or distaste. While all countries took almost as a principle that the
122 retreat
essence of diplomacy was sincerity, not tricks, Russian diplomacy was an
exception, full of deceit and lacking sincerity or honesty.
This may appear to contradict the view of Russians as incomparably
sincere and honest, but when the Russians carried the burden of representing
their state, this positive side of their national temperament did not shine
through. The evil of an autocratic state was the cause. What servants of the
Russian government feared most of all, whether civilian or military officials,
was the absolute ruler—the tsar—and also his close advisors (including the
tsarina). As a result, they tended to confine themselves to the scene at court,
worrying only about not offending the ruler. It was rare to find a senior
official who might think, “This is the best way forward for the Russian state,
no matter what others might say.” Here we can see the evil of autocracy,
the reason for losing the war, and the reason why Nicholas II and his family
were sacrificed to the revolution.
Count Cassini was not an evil man on a personal level. Yet when
performing his official duties, he wore the complex Russian-style mask.
Among the various comments he made to Roosevelt’s close advisors, he
once made what, for him, was an exceptionally frank admission. “Personally,
I favor making peace now after Mukden. However, the tsar will never
allow it.”
Such was the terrifying nature of an autocracy.
There have been countless tyrants in world history, but only two or three
among them have left distinguished political legacies. The rest are all
examples of how an autocracy can bring about a country’s destruction. Yet
in spite of their own pernicious influence, despots have habitually tried to
legitimize their regimes by holding up as sacred their heroic predecessors.
Even Nicholas II, a man of less than average capabilities, announced on his
accession, “I want everyone to know that I will devote all my strength to
maintain, for the good of the whole nation, the principle of absolute autocracy
as firmly and as strongly as did my late lamented father.”
The whole of great Russia was being led by a single fool. But had this
fool been a heroic genius, the evil of autocracy would no doubt have become
even worse.

* * *
Few politicians of that time saw through the political nature of the Russian
Empire as clearly as President Roosevelt.
“My goodwill extends as far as the senior officials in St. Petersburg but
does not include the tsar,” he revealed to Takahira Kogorō, the Japanese
minister to the United States. He went on to explain. “On his arrival in St.
Petersburg, the new United States ambassador had an audience with the tsar.
 clouds above the hill 123
He conveyed to him my opinion that it would be in Russia’s interests to
make peace with Japan. The ambassador did everything he could to persuade
him to make use of the United States, as the United States would always
work in Russia’s interests, but the tsar, being such an indecisive fellow, gave
no answer and just kept silent. Unfortunately, the tsarina was sitting next to
him at the time.”
Tsarina Alexandra was a woman prone to fits of hysteria who in years to
come would be manipulated by the enigmatic monk Rasputin and play a
major role in driving the Russian court into the flames of revolution. But
she had her own strategy for fighting Japan, based on what she heard from
court officials and the emotional appeals from her lady-in-waiting Anna
Vyrubova. At any rate, she was opposed to making peace and thought the
war should go on. Her influence over the weak-willed tsar strengthened his
own resolve to persist with the conflict.
One of the reasons why the tsar remained silent was his consideration for
the tsarina sitting by his side. Unlike the emperor of Japan, he had the power
to stop the war immediately if he so wished. If only he had responded to
the ambassador’s proposal by saying, for example, “I will leave matters to
you,” the United States could have moved toward mediating a peace. The
fate of all Russia depended on the words from the mouth of this tyrannical
ruler.
Government officials anxious about the empire’s future were all in
agreement that continuing the war would be counter to their interests. This
calls to mind Major General Roman Kondratenko, the most popular general
among the Russian soldiers during the siege of Port Arthur, who had put up
such a stout defense that the Japanese later erected a monument in his
memory on the spot where he died. Even this courageous general was
convinced throughout that “This war is of no use to Russia,” and he once
tried to voice his opinion to the tsar through his senior officer, General
Stoessel.
When Witte later learned of this, he wrote in his memoirs, “Kondratenko,
our hero at Port Arthur, was brave enough to send a letter to Stoessel
imploring him to describe the situation frankly and appeal to the tsar to save
Russia from a great tragedy by making peace with Japan.”
Reasonable people with the interests of the Russian Empire at heart were
largely in accord with Kondratenko’s thinking, and yet in his audience with
the United States ambassador, the tsar, out of consideration for the tsarina
sitting beside him, in the end—to use Roosevelt’s expression—just kept
silent.
There were several reasons why the tsarina argued for carrying on with
the war, principal among them being the fact that Russia’s grand Baltic Fleet
124 retreat
was approaching the Far East. Against a Japan puffed up with all these
victories, this great fleet, she believed, would strike a hammer blow.
* * *
Roosevelt knew almost a little too much about just how stricken Japan’s
resources had become in the aftermath of the battle of Mukden. The United
States legation in Tokyo had collected dossiers about the general tone of
coverage in the press there, and after reading these, Roosevelt understood
that the Japanese public was also beginning to get conceited.
In Japan, the newspapers did not necessarily convey wisdom or appeal
to the conscience of readers. Rather, they represented fashion, and they
continued to whip up the public with their wild reports of victories in
Manchuria. Likewise, the mood of the people drove the newspapers to
embrace the pitiable illusion that Japan was invincible. Even if there was
the occasional discussion about the international scene as it applied to the
Japanese people or to Japan’s strength, this was expressed without any real
reflection about Japan’s actual situation. The mood that the newspapers
created during this period would subsequently drag Japan into the Pacific
War. The newspapers had also learned how they could manipulate their
readers and how the Japanese people could be easily whipped up by their
press reports. The newspapers managed to do this without noticing the
fundamental change that they themselves had undergone in the process.
After the war, Roosevelt spoke of “The Japanese newspapers’ shift to the
right,” and even before the battle of Mukden he had warned about this in a
letter he wrote on February 6 to George Meyer, the United States ambassador
to Italy. “I like the Japanese, but of course I hold myself in readiness to see
them get puffed up with pride if they are victorious and turn against us, or
the Germans, or anyone else.”
Whatever the period, Japanese newspapers have always lacked a
dispassionate view of diplomatic affairs. This may also reflect the Japanese
temperament, which, when combined with the newspapers’ passion for
biased reporting, would later drive Japan inexorably toward danger.
Roosevelt may have been the first foreign head of state to hold Japan in
high regard, but he had enough political acumen to also see through the
essence of the modern Japanese state, even though it had been in existence
for little more than thirty years. The goodwill he had always shown Japan
went beyond his duties as president of the United States, but at the same
time he feared, as he expressed in his letter to Meyer, that after the war Japan
might one day threaten the United States. In arguing for the expansion of
United States sea power, he even said, “Our navy grows stronger by the
year, and this greater naval strength will head off the danger of a useless
conflict against Japan or some other state.”
 clouds above the hill 125
In a May 15 letter to Senator Henry Lodge, he wrote,

I told the Russians that it would be in their interests to hold peace talks
after the fall of Port Arthur, but they ignored my warning and suffered the
bitter experience of defeat at the battle of Mukden. Russia appears to be
regretting this now.
In the past Japan has been pressing me to mediate a peace. Now,
however, the victory at Mukden has made the people too excited, and when
I have advised them to negotiate a peace after this battle, they have made
the mistake of ignoring me in turn. My feeling is that the Japanese military
has demanded an indemnity and some territory, but unable to bear the
prospect of making such concessions the Russians are hoping that the fleet
now on its way under Admiral Rozhestvensky can deliver a blow against
the Japanese Navy.

Roosevelt probably had never imagined that the role of mediation would be
quite as complex as he felt it to be at that moment. In his role as a third
party, he must have been utterly frustrated by both the superficial side of
the Japanese character and the nature of the Romanov court, that shadowy
group in charge of the Russian Empire.

* * *
Among Japanese diplomats as well, there were frequent examples of
negligence.
The most serious was a mistake made by Takahira Kogorō, Japan’s
minister in Washington. He was the man burdened with implementing the
so-called “Komura diplomatic approach” in preparing for negotiations with
the Russians. This approach had been inspired by Kodama Gentarō when
he left behind the gun smoke of battle on the front line at Mukden and
returned to Tokyo to urge Japan’s political and military leaders to “Wave
the flag of peace.”
Although a talented linguist and very knowledgeable about the United
States, Takahira did not have the skills in statecraft to make a brilliant
diplomat. All diplomats, including even low-ranking officials engaged in
the most trivial tasks, must always be ready to draw upon as much political
skill and vision as the prime minister of Japan. Takahira was competent
enough as a messenger, but no matter how long he stayed in Washington
he would never be a match for Roosevelt.
On receiving his instructions from Foreign Minister Komura Jutarō,
Takahira for no apparent reason got the idea that “Japan wants to avoid a
naval battle.” He did not know enough about the respective navies of Russia
126 retreat
and Japan to really judge. Diplomats at this time were expected to have some
basic knowledge of naval matters, but in the past Takahira and his Japanese
colleagues had never really found this essential. This was perhaps why he
took it into his head that the Japanese Navy was bound to lose if the Baltic
Fleet made it to the Far East, and why he interpreted the telegram from
Komura to mean that “Japan wants to avoid a naval battle.”
Not only did he make this assumption, but he said as much to Secretary
of State William Taft. What he actually said was along the lines of “The
Japanese government is becoming extremely nervous. I have not received
any details myself, but my guess is that they want to conclude a peace before
the Baltic Fleet arrives.”
Even if Taft was not a Russian spy, this was not the kind of thing that a
diplomat should say to a senior state official of another country. What
Takahira had told him was completely wrong, not the view of the Japanese
government at all. Why he was moved to say this, no one knows, although
perhaps a certain trait in the Japanese character makes Japanese adopt an
overly familiar, fawning manner. This is like trying to win someone over
by acting kittenish, smiling obsequiously and readily admitting the ignorance
and inadequacies of one’s own group. He may have intended his remarks
as a rather dry expression of modesty, but he was, in fact, trying out this
peculiar kind of charm. It was not a pretty moment for the Japanese state,
since neither Kodama, Komura, nor Navy Minister Yamamoto Gombei had
ever even considered rushing into a peace settlement out of fear of the
approaching Baltic Fleet.
Taft was amazed. At the time, Roosevelt was traveling out of Washington.
Taft immediately sent a letter to him at his hotel. When the president read
it, he thought, “What a surprise. Is the Japanese Navy really so weak after
all?” Until then, he had given the Japanese fleet high marks for its fighting
capability, but he changed his mind after Takahira’s remark.

* * *
Roosevelt indeed had a high opinion of the Japanese Navy. When the war
began, he had commissioned Lieutenant General Adna Chaffee, the United
States Army chief of staff, and also the Naval War College near New York
to draw up surveys on the two sides’ armies and navies in an effort to gauge
their military strength. As a result, he received such detailed reports that he
knew more about Japan from a military perspective than, for example,
Kaneko Kentarō or Takahira Kogorō.
When he first met Kaneko, Roosevelt had said, “The Japanese Navy will
win.” Just like Kaneko, Roosevelt had been trained in law and was also a
former attorney, but his breadth of knowledge on naval matters was
 clouds above the hill 127
extraordinary. When Kaneko showed his amazement, Roosevelt laughed,
chiding him for forgetting that he had once served as assistant secretary to
the United States Navy.
He even went as far as to venture a tactical appraisal of the forthcoming
confrontation with the Baltic Fleet. “Far be it for me to propose to the
Japanese Navy a plan of operation, but perhaps you’d like to listen?” he
began. “It’s no good challenging them head on. Japan has so few battleships
that you can’t afford to lose even a single one without good reason. The
objective must be simply to keep Rozhestvensky’s fleet in check as it heads
for the Far East. There is no point to a frontal attack. You see, the Japanese
ships must be divided into two fleets, which can attack from either side and
catch Rozhestvensky’s fleet between them. By staying with these broadside
attacks they should be able to sink half their ships.”
Tōgō and Akiyama, of course, did not take up this proposal, and they
kept to themselves the plan they had devised that was to transform naval
history. But Roosevelt’s idea was by no means the suggestion of a complete
novice. It was just that he was thinking along the traditional lines: “With
the navy there is no strategy as such, just an exchange of blows between
battleships.”
Roosevelt’s high opinion of the Japanese fleet changed somewhat after
that slip of the tongue by Takahira Kogorō. Even more serious, Takahira’s
words to Taft were also disclosed to the Russians, reinforcing the resolve
in St. Petersburg not to respond to calls for peace.
Roosevelt’s view of the impending naval battle was transformed. He even
went as far as to say, “The Japanese Navy’s discipline and morale are superior
to the Russians. But in the navy it’s the ships that count. Tōgō’s fleet is
much weaker than the Baltic Fleet with its forty vessels. Even if half of these
are sunk, the Russians have such numerical superiority that the outcome
would still probably be in their favor.”
Between Takahira’s comment and the Russians’ hard-line policy, the
likelihood of the peace talks that Roosevelt had been working so hard to
promote looked more remote than ever. As the president told Secretary of
State Taft, “There is little chance of mediation now. It may be to Japan’s
disadvantage, but all we can do is wait for the outcome of the battle at sea
before we go into arbitration.”
Russia had not even once acknowledged the series of defeats it had
suffered in the land campaign up to Mukden, and, as a result, the fate of
both sides was to be gambled on the impending naval battle. In a war seen
by history as the last and largest conflict in an age when wars still had an
element of drama, events seemed to be moving inexorably toward the largest
and most dramatic development of all.
 3
TO THE EAST

As the grand fleet under Admiral Rozhestvensky continued its voyage

east, Politovsky, chief engineer on board the flagship Suvorov, wrote with
trepidation that they were on “a course never before attempted by any
battleship since the world began.” Although they were sailing at an average
speed of 8 knots, they took twenty whole days to cross the Indian Ocean.
Whenever they took on coal, the entire fleet would come to a standstill, and
there were also frequent mishaps, such as when a towrope snapped or a ship’s
engine broke down and needed repairs. Yet blessed by blue skies throughout
this twenty-day passage, they were encouraged to believe that divine favor
was on their side.
The Russians grew heartily sick of this vast empty space on the earth’s
surface. There was no sign of land, and all they could see was the dazzling
sun, the blue sky, and not waves but mere folds on the expanse of ocean
stretching endlessly before them. The only land they did catch sight of along
the way was the small Chagos archipelago. As they passed by, the Russian
crews anxiously recalled the story then in circulation about the Japanese
cruisers that might be lurking there, but this turned out to be no more than
a rumor. The only break in this dull seascape was the shoals of flying fish
that would suddenly appear, leaping above the waves.
According to legend, there had always been sailors who jumped overboard
and drowned on this passage across the Indian Ocean. This voyage was no
different. One day, the steamship Kiev lost a crew member, and, in a
desperate effort to save him, a signal was sent to the flagship requesting that
the fleet be stopped. When he heard that the sailor had apparently jumped
of his own accord, Admiral Rozhestvensky refused and just sent a signal in
reply, “Let a man take his own life if he wants.”
 clouds above the hill 129
The Baltic Fleet followed a course determined not by the Russian Naval
Ministry nor their allies the French, but by Rozhestvensky himself. While
the fleet had lain at anchor in Nosy Be on Madagascar, he had received
advice from the French Naval Ministry on the three best possible routes.
The first would take them through the Lombok Strait and the Celebes
Sea. The second would take them through the Timor Sea and the Torres
Strait. The third would take them around the south of Australia and through
the Coral Sea. Although circuitous and laborious, these routes all had the
merit of allowing the Russians to evade the scrutiny of the Japanese Navy,
which would no doubt be looking out for signs of their fleet.
Captain de Freycinefs had gone out of his way to advise Rozhestvensky
to choose one of these options, but, in fact, his counsel also reflected French
self-interest. None of the routes passed through any French colonies, so they
would be spared the burden of providing the Russian ships with coaling ports
and avoid the risk of being drawn into an international dispute. In the end,
Admiral Rozhestvensky decided to choose his own course.

* * *
On April 5, at the end of their twenty-day passage across the Indian Ocean,
the Russians caught their first glimpse of land on the port bow, just as the
sun rose behind a faint shadow to the east. All the crew members on the
ships were so excited to see this for themselves that they wrestled with each
other as they raced over to the port side to look.
This was most probably Great Nicobar Island. Soon some land also
appeared to starboard. It was the northern tip of Sumatra. So the Baltic Fleet
was on course to sail right through the Strait of Malacca.
“This is no joke!” French foreign minister Delcassé exclaimed when he
received a telegram with this news.
“There’s nothing we can do about it. The Russians themselves have chosen
to do this!” said Paléologue, who was in charge of the French secret service’s
intelligence on Russia.
Flanked on either side by Sumatra and British Malaya, the Strait of
Malacca was a narrow channel 400 miles long. As the Baltic Fleet pushed
its way through the strait, its ships would sail right past the British settlements
on the Malay Peninsula, practically inviting the British to inspect them and
thus totally undermining any plan to keep their route a secret. At the tip of
the Malay Peninsula was Singapore, Britain’s main base in Southeast Asia.
“All around the world people will be amazed at such audacity!” Politovsky
wrote defiantly to his new bride as the Russians made their way through the
Strait of Malacca. For navigators everywhere, this stretch of sea was like
the Ginza district in Tokyo. The Baltic Fleet would naturally cross paths
130 to the east
with steamships from various nations, and its whereabouts would be
broadcast in newspapers around the world.
The disquieting possibility that Japanese torpedo boats might be lying in
wait somewhere in these narrow straits gave rise to a rumor: “The Dutch
have quietly allowed the Japanese Navy to use an island in the East Indies
as a secret base of operations.” Even the staff officers on board the Suvorov
were shaken enough to half believe this. There was clearly no way that any
of this could be true since Holland was unlikely to risk incurring Russia’s
enmity by giving Japan an advantage that in no way served Holland’s own
interests. But the very existence of many such stories shows how little the
Russian Navy knew about the rest of the world.
Discussion among the staff officers revolved around the question: “What
will become of the fleet if we are attacked by torpedo boats during the night
here in this narrow strait? We can only defend ourselves using the guns at
the bow and the stern of each ship.” This made sense. If they used their
ships’ port and starboard guns, the shells would fall on the coasts on either
side of the straits, causing a repeat of the international incident that had
occurred in the North Sea, when the Russians had killed some British
soldiers by mistake. For as long as they were negotiating these narrow waters,
both officers and sailors remained in a state of high tension. Even
Rozhestvensky made the fleet sail in battle formation as a precaution against
the threat of a sudden torpedo attack.
One day, the Suvorov received a signal from the cruiser Almaz with the
message: “Ten vessels possibly destroyers sighted.” On every Russian ship,
pandemonium broke out, but no confirmation of the sighting followed. In
the end, their imagined scenarios came to nothing. The Russian ships
emerged at the end of the Strait of Malacca unscathed.

* * *
Around midday on April 8, the Baltic Fleet reached the last great turning
point on its voyage to the east as it sailed through the Strait of Singapore in
broad daylight, an admirable show of bravado. This was a major thoroughfare
for navigators around the world. Since Britain was Japan’s ally, and the
British Navy kept a base there in the colony of Singapore, such a large force
could not sail past this coastline without being observed.
Even photographs were taken that captured the shape of the Russian fleet
for posterity. The fleet sailed in two columns, each ship leaving a trail of
white waves in its wake. Black smoke rose behind into the sky as the
occasional destroyer raced about between the larger vessels. This majestic
scene made all witnesses gasp in awe, for never in the history of Singapore
had such a grand fleet passed through the strait.
 clouds above the hill 131
“No disrespect to the Japanese fleet, but Japan cannot possibly stand up
to such a large force,” a Times military correspondent had warned just the
day before. He went on to advise Japan to build gun batteries on the coast
of Borneo and bombard the Baltic Fleet to reduce the Russians’ strength,
an argument out of character for the Times. The island of Borneo was divided
between British and Dutch rule, and even if Japan considered building such
an installation, it would never be able to get permission for anything that
would compromise the neutrality of these powers.
Having sailed through Singapore on April 8, the Baltic Fleet was already
fast approaching the western tip of Borneo. Even if Japan somehow received
permission from Britain or Holland (in itself a pipe dream), there was simply
not enough time to build gun batteries there anyway. The very appearance
of the article in the Times perhaps reflected the view that Tōgō’s fleet would
definitely lose, and the correspondent might have wished to issue a warning:
“Think of trying to avoid a direct confrontation somehow and conserve your
navy’s strength.”
The British Admiralty must have been behind this warning. They too were
perhaps starting to be concerned that Japan’s victory was no sure thing.
This was also true of the United States Department of the Navy, which
had been optimistic about the prospects for a Japanese victory. As the full
strength of the Baltic Fleet became apparent, pessimism set in, and President
Roosevelt’s outlook shifted as well.
The naval experts favorably disposed to Japan advised Tōgō to take his
fleet off to some faraway haven and wait there. Adding a touch of comedy
(or perhaps it was just natural), those in the wardroom of the Suvorov
generally believed that Tōgō was actually lurking somewhere off the coast
of Borneo.
Rozhestvensky shared his staff’s fears. During the passage through the
Strait of Malacca the previous night, he had guarded against the danger of
Japanese mines by ordering all his ships to use searchlights to illuminate
the waters around them. Around noon the following day, as they sailed
through the Strait of Singapore, the staff officers, who had not slept the
previous night, discussed the situation among themselves. “Why wasn’t the
Japanese Navy waiting for us in the Strait of Malacca?” Their practically
unanimous conclusion was that the enemy would be lurking instead around
the Natuna Islands off the northwest coast of Borneo.
They believed these suspicions so thoroughly that during one incident
they transformed their speculation into an incontrovertible fact. As the fleet
sailed through the Strait of Singapore, a single steam launch puffing black
smoke was seen approaching at full speed from the land. A Russian flag
fluttered from the stern, while at the prow stood a large man and next to
132 to the east
him an assistant who was constantly waving flags with both hands in an
effort to send a signal to the fleet. All they could make out was that he was
calling on them to halt.
Emerging from the admiral’s cabin on the Suvorov, Rozhestvensky peered
at the launch through his binoculars and dismissively declared, “What a fool!”
As he looked on, muttering about what kind of idiot would try to stop the
fleet, the message from the flag signals became clearer. “The Russian consul
is on board and would like an interview with the admiral.” Rozhestvensky
disregarded this request, but he did send a signal to the destroyer Bedovy
with orders to draw up alongside the launch.
As the Bedovy approached, the large man on board shouted out that his
name was Vasily Rudanovsky, the Russian consul in Singapore, and that he
had some important information. The captain of the Bedovy leaned over the
side of the ship and listened to the message, which contained news grave
enough to make him feel faint. The Bedovy next raced away from the launch,
kicking up white waves behind as it chased after the battleships of the First
Division like a flustered little dog.
The destroyer caught up with the battleships, slowed down, and, followed
close behind the vessel in front, while the captain of the Bedovy yelled
through his megaphone, “On March 5, the major part of the Japanese fleet,
comprising twenty-two warships, under the command of Admiral Tōgō,
passed in sight of Singapore. It is now at Labuan, on the northwest coast of
Borneo. The cruisers and destroyers are in hiding at Natuna.”
Looking back, this still is something of a mystery. No such fleet of twenty-
two ships had ever put into port in Singapore, so why would the consul,
who monitored intelligence as part of his job, have gone out of his way to
come and tell this to the Baltic Fleet? Either he believed the public gossip
in Singapore, or some Japanese agent had arranged for him to hear this in
an effort to unsettle the Russians.
The consul cut a ridiculous enough figure, but the action taken by the
captain of the Bedovy was also highly irresponsible as he raced around,
shouting out an unconfirmed report instead of informing the admiral of the
fleet directly.
* * *
The captain of the Bedovy shouted through his megaphone some further
news, not quite so urgent, that he had received from the Russian consul.
“The battle of Mukden ended in a defeat for our army.” He also bellowed
across the churning waves, “General Kuropatkin has been demoted and
replaced as commander in chief by General Linevich.”
This was encroaching on the basic prerogative of the commander in chief
to inform his men about any news on the general war situation. The admiral
 clouds above the hill 133
should be the first in the fleet to know, and it was up to him to decide whether
or not the men should be told, and, if so, what and how such information
should be conveyed. The commander of a destroyer should not be circulating
such news.
Rozhestvensky agreed with this view, but instead of upbraiding the
captain of the Bedovy, he had to prepare for a potential Japanese attack off
the Borneo coast. He immediately ordered the whole fleet to take up action
stations.
A great commotion ensued on all the ships. Flammable objects like tables
and chairs were quickly broken up and taken off to the hold. Some like
Engineer Politovsky on the Suvorov put cotton wool in their ears to protect
their eardrums in the event of a gunfight. That night, not one man in the
fleet could sleep. But after a patrol boat returned from a sortie the next after-
noon, they realized that the Russian consul’s report was a total fabrication.
The fleet reverted to its former expressionless state and, as before, the
ships continued sailing on their northeasterly course. The heat on board was
unbearable, and for both officers and men the demands of the night watch
shattered their nerves and stamina. They had spent more than twenty days
at sea since leaving Nosy Be without once calling in at port. They were also
running out of supplies of fresh vegetables and meat. As Politovsky wrote,
“Even on the admiral’s table there is no longer any vodka, fresh meat, or
coffee.”
The sailors grew weary in the tropical heat, and the staff officer Semenov
even heard some men say, “The sooner I get hit by one of Tōgō’s guns and
die, the better.”
Everyone longed to set foot on dry land. On April 11, a flotilla of Russian
patrol boats sailing ahead of the fleet came across a British steamer. As the
ship drew near, they caught sight of signal flags the British had kindly hoisted
to inform them, “We have sighted several Japanese destroyers. There’s a
good chance that there will be a torpedo attack tonight.” Nothing played on
the nerves of the Russian fleet more than this kind of disinformation.
The following day, April 20, passed by without incident, and the day after
that the whole fleet came to a halt near Cam Ranh Bay and began to take
on coal. Soon the sun set, but still the fleet did not enter the bay. They did
not have accurate charts of the area, and so smaller boats had to survey these
waters first.
The Baltic Fleet had left its homeland in the fall. The Russians finally
made it into Cam Ranh Bay six months after they had sailed out of Liepaja
port on October 15.

* * *
134 to the east
Situated on the east coast of Vietnam (then French Indochina), Cam Ranh
Bay was shaped just like Port Arthur, with both an inner and outer bay, and
deep enough to give shelter to large ships. Hardly a real port, it was more
accurately just a natural cove. The French Navy did use the bay as a base,
but few port facilities had been constructed there. The surrounding landscape
made for a desolate scene. Although tropical, the place had little in the way
of greenery to cover the protruding ash-colored rocks, and along the coast
was a ragged gray beach parched by the fierce sun. Scrawny bushes here
and there on the low ground were the only signs of life.
Hardly any people lived there. The only residents were a few French
occupants of the local telegraph office, and some fifty Vietnamese living in
small huts they had built for themselves.
On April 14, the Baltic Fleet moved from the outer to the inner bay. Since
no French battleships or any other steam vessels were there at the time, the
fleet felt somewhat uneasy, as if they had moved into an empty mansion.
But a variety of factors combined to keep the Russian fleet tied down there
in that bay. They had of course to take on provisions and coal, but they also
had to wait for the Third Pacific Squadron under Rear Admiral Nebogatov,
which was on its way to join them.
“That fleet of worn-out old ships Nebogatov is bringing will be completely
useless,” Rozhestvensky had always believed since his time in Nosy Be.
Nothing had happened to change his opinion. If he were to try to sail through
Japanese waters at full speed, Nebogatov’s battleships, just heaps of scrap
iron after all, would only hold his fleet back.
On the fourth day after the Baltic Fleet first arrived on this coast, a single
French warship entered Cam Ranh Bay. A cruiser flying an admiral’s ensign,
it exchanged a gun salute with the Suvorov.
On board was Rear Admiral Marie de Fauque de Jonquières, the second
in command of the French Indochina Squadron. Coming aboard the Suvorov,
he paid his respects to Rozhestvensky, who in turn later repaid the courtesy
by visiting him on the French cruiser. Fauque de Jonquières made no
reference to the war itself, but with a friendly and genteel manner, he
discussed some general topics while always keeping a smile on his face.
On a further morning visit five days later, however, he brought up a matter
not at all pleasing to Rozhestvensky. “We want you to leave.”
As a neutral power, France felt embarrassed about lending a naval base
to the Russian fleet. Britain had voiced a strong protest about the fleet’s
presence in Cam Ranh Bay, and at the same time Motono Ichirō, the Japanese
resident minister in Paris, was making vigorous complaints on his country’s
behalf to the French Foreign Ministry.
“This is not my personal wish, but as you see I have my country’s
orders,” Fauque de Jonquières said with a smile.
 clouds above the hill 135
* * *
“The Russian fleet is now lying at anchor in Cam Ranh Bay in French
Indochina.”
The news had indeed dismayed the French Foreign Ministry in Paris.
Foreign Minister Delcassé had feared all along that France might be dragged
into an international dispute by just this sort of development and all on behalf
of a Russian state that he believed no longer warranted any sympathy.
Paléologue, the diplomat and prolific writer serving in the French secret
service, brought Delcassé this news. According to the diary he published,
this interview took place on April 19.
Delcassé felt close to panic. “You say the Russians were at Cam Ranh
yesterday? Anyhow, where’s Cam Ranh? I’ve never heard of it, but I should
be very surprised to hear that there are any French officials there.”
Paléologue told him that there were no French authorities there, but the
news about Russian ships in French waters was spreading fast. Unlike much
of the French intelligentsia, Paléologue had a deep understanding and love
for Russia and felt not even the slightest bit of goodwill toward Japan. He
sympathized with Delcassé’s discomfort, but he was also sympathetic to
Rozhestvensky’s plight.
“Admiral Rozhestvensky intends to rendezvous with the battleships that
Admiral Nebogatov is bringing him. It will take a fortnight before these
arrive. Obviously, you have the right to forbid Admiral Rozhestvensky to
put in anywhere else on the coast of Indochina. You are even entitled to
have him followed by French cruisers until he has gone north. But if he goes
off to meet the enemy without getting all his supplies and joining up with
his reinforcements, Russia will hold us exclusively responsible for the
catastrophe to come.”
“Yes, I know that!” Delcassé was clearly irritated. There was only one
solution. By a stroke of good fortune, Admiral Fauque de Jonquières, the
second in command of the Indochina Squadron, was in Saigon. Although a
military man, he had all the ingenuity and tact of a diplomat so the whole
matter could be entrusted to him. “Use all your discretion to make the Russian
fleet leave within twenty-four hours,” read his instructions from France. “You
are to return to Saigon without worrying about where the Russian fleet is
going next.” The Foreign Ministry did not have the authority to issue this
directive and had requested the Naval Ministry, which was happy to oblige,
to send it on Delcassé’s behalf.
On April 22, the Baltic Fleet sailed from Cam Ranh Bay and headed out
to sea. The Russian ships just drifted off the coast, a state of affairs that
lasted quite a while. They drifted along for an incredible twenty-five days
without ever really venturing very far afield. On the twenty-sixth day, they
136 to the east
stole into Van Phong Bay, just 50 nautical miles north of Cam Ranh Bay.
This was also French territory.
When Maurice Rouvier, the president of the council of ministers, heard
a report about this development during a cabinet meeting in Paris, he angrily
thumped the table with his fist. “The cheek of that fleet,” he thundered, “using
our coast as a strategic base as if it were Russian territory!” He demanded
that a protest be sent immediately to St. Petersburg, but Delcassé never really
followed up on this.

* * *
The coastline that the crews of the Baltic Fleet gazed at for days on end was
part of the largest peninsula in Asia. The Russian staff officers referred to
it vaguely as “Indochina,” but apart from the fact that Cam Ranh Bay and
Saigon both belonged to France, even they knew nothing about the geography
or politics of this extensive territory with its long coastline. All they knew
was that the local inhabitants with their extremely supple bodies were of the
Mongoloid race.
Even the name of this country had not been certain since ancient times.
The term Yuenan (Vietnam) was the name for a region. In ancient China,
the heartland of the Han people was around the Yellow River, and all regions
to the south beyond the Yangzi River were considered distant and barbaric.
Probably during the spring and autumn period, Han culture became
established in the lands beyond the Yangzi known as the Henan region. In
those days, Henan was known vaguely as “Yue,” using a character meaning
“distant” because it lay far out of sight from the cultural centers of northern
China. The Han Chinese around the Yellow River long considered the
inhabitants of this region a foreign race. There was so much complex ethnic
diversity that the region was also known as Baiyue, meaning “hundred Yue
tribes in the far south.” The peninsula of Vietnam was even further to the
south (nan) beyond these lands of Yue, and so it was called Yuenan. So
another race gave this land the name Vietnam; it was not coined by the
inhabitants themselves.
Among the other various names for this land were Dayue, Annam, Danan,
Nanjin, Daquyue, and Cochin. The great misfortune inflicted on this region
during the modern era perhaps came about because no great empire had
ever emerged to unite the peninsula, while the gentle inhabitants remained
attached to their family system, contenting themselves with a life of rice
cultivation.
About 120 years before the Russo-Japanese War, French missionaries first
developed a political interest in this land. They went on to gain privileged
status when Nguyen Phuc Anh, an ambitious local hero, succeeded in uniting
 clouds above the hill 137
Vietnam with French support. This event bears a close resemblance to an
occurrence in Japan. During the last years of the shogunate, the French gave
their full backing to the Tokugawa government. In particular, they won over
the councilor Oguri Kōzukenosuke when they suggested the concept for a
new state: “Use military force to subjugate the three hundred daimyo under
the house of Tokugawa, establish an autocracy, and make the shogun
president. We will provide the necessary funds, weapons, and army.” Oguri
became a firm adherent, and up to that point it even looked as if this French
idea might work. Ultimately collapsing in the face of opposition led by
Oguri’s rival Katsu Kaishū, the scheme was discarded by the shogun
Yoshinobu, thus sparing Japan the tragedy that later befell Vietnam.
In the hundred years following the rise of Nguyen Phuc Anh, French
influence had gone on to penetrate the whole of Vietnam, and twenty-two
years before the Baltic Fleet put into port, the region had become a
protectorate, with the area of Cochin China a direct colony. So this extensive
stretch of land was French territory.
The Russians wanted to emulate the Great Powers of Western Europe.
Though they came to this enterprise late, they wanted to follow the example
of the French in Vietnam by taking Manchuria and Korea, all of which led
to the Russo-Japanese War. The grand fleet that lay at anchor in Van Phong
Bay offered them their last hope of victory.
* * *
“Lying at anchor.” It would be more accurate to describe the state of the
Baltic Fleet as simply drifting. “Leave Cam Ranh Bay within twenty-four
hours,” the French had ordered the Russians on April 21. We’ve already
recounted how Rear Admiral Fauque de Jonquières, acting on behalf of the
French government, had used all his charm and elegant turns of phrase, which
won him much praise in Parisian social circles.
Rozhestvensky showed no outward sign of displeasure, despite the
explosive temper he displayed toward his own subordinates. Within the fleet
he might have been a tyrannical figure, but at the palace in St. Petersburg
he was a courtier with a reputation for polished, French-style manners. This
was how he had first won favor with the tsar and tsarina in his role as a
military aide-de-camp.
“As a naval man myself, I sympathize with the position you are in,” he
told Fauque de Jonquières, and the following day the Baltic Fleet headed
out to sea.
Forming two columns, the Russian ships loitered for a while right on the
edge of French waters, either at a standstill or cruising at low speed. Next
they made some headway north and stole into Van Phong Bay until they
were forced out of there as well, and had to put out to sea once more. They
138 to the east
were really just drifting aimlessly and repeating the same maneuvers over
and over again as they alternately ground to a standstill or chugged along
gently at idling speed. Bereft of any real sense of purpose, the entire fleet
was simply treading water. For the crews manning these battleships, no
operation at sea could be quite so tedious and depressing.
“What the hell is the admiral doing?” they railed against Rozhestvensky.
When they were told about the callous treatment they had received at the
hands of their French allies, the more aggressive among them said, “Ever
since our defeat at Mukden the French have become very harsh with us, as
if they have withdrawn their support altogether. They have even refused us
access to a remote, unknown bay like this. We should really be directing
our hatred toward France, not Japan.”
Among the more introspective characters, morale sank. “The whole world
hates us. How can we ever win the war when even our best friends the French
treat us like this?”
The still more disgruntled characters put all this mismanagement down
to the failings of the Russian Empire, and they went on to criticize the
incompetence of Rozhestvensky and other officers of his rank. Most of the
men leaned toward this third view.
Among the countless factors that fomented the revolutionary mood in
Russia, the citizens’ mistrust of government officials has been cited as one
of the most obvious. Such despair over official incompetence was at the root
of the Russian Empire’s inescapable malaise. In the army, the incompetence
of the officers was a great source of discontent, and, for the soldiers who
entrusted their lives to their officers, the level of dissatisfaction was even
greater than among the citizens of St. Petersburg and Moscow. A soldier’s
obedience in wartime depends entirely on the ability of his commanding
officers. In the case of the Baltic Fleet, the respect accorded the officer ranks
weakened visibly from around the time they were expelled from Cam Ranh
Bay and began drifting out at sea. The sailors’ support for their officers sank
so conspicuously that there were the inevitable, frequent outbreaks of
insubordinate behavior.

* * *
Rozhestvensky’s fleet ended up spending more than twenty days adrift in
the tropical heat off Van Phong Bay. It was the first time a grand fleet had
ever simply floated around the sea for such a long time. More than 10,000
tons of coal were wasted, and the French refused to provide their own
supplies.
Rozhestvensky sent a cruiser to Saigon, and messages were exchanged
frequently between the Baltic Fleet and St. Petersburg. The upshot of his
 clouds above the hill 139
first telegram to Russia was “We are currently in an awkward situation afloat
at sea. We cannot possibly keep on waiting for Rear Admiral Nebogatov’s
squadron and can gain no strategic advantage by waiting anyway.”
He was practically begging for permission to press ahead to Vladivostok
alone. On each occasion, the only response he received from St. Petersburg
was “Wait!” Rozhestvensky found this instruction so distasteful that
whenever such a message arrived he completely lost his appetite. He hardly
touched any of the food on his plate.
He could not understand what was going on in the tsar’s mind. Why did
they have to wait at all for a ridiculous collection of worn-out ships that
would only hinder the mobility of his own fleet? All his staff officers agreed
with him; even a novice could see his point. When ships sail together in
formation, the pace of the whole fleet is set by the speed of the slowest vessel.
The entire Baltic Fleet would amount to no more than a collection of worn-
out ships, and so Nebogatov’s contribution would not just be unnecessary,
it would have an immensely negative impact on them as well.
In St. Petersburg, the Naval Ministry took a completely different view.
Their emphasis was solely on gunpower. “It doesn’t matter how old they
are. Battleships are battleships, and their giant guns will no doubt have a
major effect.” The strongest supporter of this view was Tsarina Alexandra,
who had no knowledge of naval affairs, and so the tsar had no intention of
recalling Nebogatov’s squadron. In yet another clear example of the evils
of autocracy, the fate of all Russia rested on the will of the tsar alone.
Indeed, it would appear that neither the court in St. Petersburg nor the
Naval Ministry had the slightest knowledge of naval strategy. Their mindset
was stuck in the age of sail, when it was believed that the outcome of a naval
battle was settled simply by whichever side had more ships in an exchange
of blows between battleships.
This was why they had scraped together all the creaky old ships that
Rozhestvensky had left behind when he formed his grand fleet and sent them
off to provide him with reinforcements. The five vessels that made up the
main strength of this Third Pacific Squadron under the command of Rear
Admiral Nebogatov were Imperator Nicholas I (9,594 tons); General
Admiral Apraksin (4,126 tons); Admiral Senyavin (4,960 tons); Admiral
Ushakov (4,126 tons); and Vladimir Monomakh (5,593 tons).
The infamous Bloody Sunday massacre, when Imperial Guards murdered
protesting Russian citizens, occurred on January 22, while this squadron was
being fitted out in preparation for its long voyage. There was turmoil among
the workers at the naval arsenal and also strikes at the shipyards, and a spate
of other incidents also boded ill for the departure of the fleet. On board the
Senyavin—a ship with a displacement of only 4,960 tons but once qualified
140 to the east
as a battleship—the sailors went on a near-riot to complain about their food,
and when an ensign on duty yelled at them to stop, one man leaped forward
and knifed him in the side. The ensign was mortally wounded.

* * *
Rear Admiral Nebogatov, the man placed in command of this decrepit old
squadron, had a snowy white beard that covered half his face and made him
look far older than his fifty-five years. With his wealth of practical experience
and shrewd awareness of the workings of a navy, he was considered in some
circles to be a better sailor than Rozhestvensky, the man whose talents were
highly regarded at court. If the primary quality of an admiral was charisma,
Nebogatov was eminently suitable, for he was revered by all his men as
their very own “boss.”
Nebogatov’s Third Pacific Squadron set sail from the port of Liepaja on
February 15. There was none of the fanfare that had marked the earlier
departure of Rozhestvensky’s grand fleet, due partly to the worsening war
situation in Manchuria and also to the suddenly heightened social tensions
at home. There was a strong gale and high seas that day, and, among those
who gathered to watch, the sight of this forlorn little squadron braving the
waves left a pathetic and ominous impression.
Unlike the main force of the Baltic Fleet, which had sailed around the
Cape of Good Hope, Nebogatov took a course through the Mediterranean
Sea. The reason was simple. As his squadron consisted only of middle-sized
ships, they could navigate the Suez Canal. They continued through the Red
Sea and cut straight across the Indian Ocean without taking time out to call
at Nosy Be or any other port along the way.
Rear Admiral Nebogatov was among the more dependable of the admirals
serving in the Russian Navy. His long experience had given him the firm
conviction that there was no such thing as a born sailor. The most important
issue was not a man’s bravery or cowardice but how well trained he was.
During the course of this voyage, he put his men through an endless regime
of drills.
In his view, a sailor was a man who could stand up to the toughest of
training regimes, but what undermined this fighting spirit was the officers’
failure to understand the mentality of the men in their charge, as well as
certain defects inherent in military service. From the outset Nebogatov made
his officers adhere to his way of thinking as thoroughly as possible. The
confidence instilled by Nebogatov’s personality and methods increased
gradually with each passing day of the voyage, reducing the insubordinate
mood among the sailors. Eighty-four days would pass before he finally joined
 clouds above the hill 141
up with Rozhestvensky, but the level of discipline in the squadron was so
high that there were very few notable incidents.
Yet his one grave concern was “In a battle zone how effective can this
creaking old squadron really be?” He felt despair when thinking of this but
never revealed his opinion even to his staff, saying only, “After the training
comes the fight. God only knows what the outcome will be!”
Rear Admiral Nebogatov’s task was made harder because he did not even
know where Rozhestvensky’s fleet was. Up until Nosy Be, he knew its
location, but after that he had no idea. As we’ve revealed already, when
Rear Admiral Dubasov, staff officer of Russian Imperial Headquarters
visited French foreign minister Delcassé on January 18 and their conversa-
tion turned to the Baltic Fleet, Dubasov astounded officials in both the French
Foreign Ministry and Naval Ministry by asking them, “Ah! Dear old Zinovy
Petrovich! How is he, I wonder? And where might his fleet be now?”
The management of Russia’s bureaucracy was poor, and once the fleet
had left, hardly any effort was made to provide it with guidance or intelli-
gence during the long voyage. The same thing happened with Nebogatov.
During the voyage, his squadron received coal supplies from a German firm,
and along the way he requested advice on navigation from resident French
naval officials, but practically none of the Russian overseas legations
provided him with any reliable information. Although Russia was the most
bureaucratic state in the world, its bureaucratic machinery was decaying
and useless.
Nebogatov’s voyage might best be described as a quiet passage. He
stirred up no international incidents en route, and on no occasion did he have
to raise his voice and shout at his men. His orders were simply to join up
with Rozhestvensky, but no one would tell him where this fleet actually was.
On May 1, his squadron entered the Strait of Malacca and reached Singapore
three days later, at dawn on May 4.
Later that same day at one o’clock in the afternoon, a steamboat was
sighted approaching the squadron. On board was a large man in white
clothes who kept waving his arms. They could have just disregarded him,
but Nebogatov sensed that something was afoot. He told the sailor operating
the signals on his flagship to run up a black ball on the foremast ordering
all ships to turn off their engines. The squadron came to a halt.
The approaching steamboat kept zigzagging as if unnerved, finally
drawing alongside the flagship Nicholas I. The large man came on board
and gave a military salute, touching his fingers to the wide brim of his cork
helmet. He had a burn mark on his chin and a scar around his right eyebrow.
“Some drunken sailor?” thought Nebogatov’s staff, for the man’s legs
were trembling so violently that he could barely stand. Later, they discovered
142 to the east
that this had been due to heat exhaustion, but with his mouth gaping open
and large tears rolling down his cheeks as he touched the brim of his sunhat,
the man’s bizarre appearance made him look drunk. In those days, there
were numerous alcoholics among the expatriate residents in the colonies.
But he was not drunk at all. This castaway—incredibly—was a sailor of
the Imperial Russian Navy.

* * *
The Russian sailors’ morale was failing. This seemed generally true, but a
closer look at all the fighting units on the front line reveals countless
exceptions. One such example was this sailor, Vasily Babushkin, who came
from a village in the Vyatka region. At the start of the war, he had been in
Port Arthur, attached to the Port Arthur Squadron as a boiler stoker on board
the Bayan (7,726 tons), an armored cruiser under the command of Captain
Robert Wiren.
Built only recently in France, the Bayan, along with the Novik under
Commander von Essen, had fought the most courageously of all the Russian
ships involved in the siege of Port Arthur. A Japanese officer who took part
in this operation remembered vividly: “When our fleet blockaded the harbor
mouth, the Bayan kept on challenging us like a ferocious dog.” In the end,
the ship took a hit from the land after Nogi’s army gained control of 203-
Meter Hill and began bombarding the port below.
At the time, the Bayan and all the other Russian warships in the port were
practically empty. The crew of each vessel had taken the guns ashore, set
them up in batteries, and were using them to man the defenses.
Babushkin had been among them, but he had returned to the ship with
the officers of the Bayan just when it was struck and caught fire. They were
trying to put out the flames when the ship was hit by a shell from one of
the Japanese Army’s 28-centimeter howitzers. This went straight through
the upper deck and the ship soon sank to the seabed.
Babushkin and the others made good their escape on lifeboats, but later,
when he was back on land and manning a gun battery in the third fort, an
enemy shell exploded right next to him. He sustained wounds from the flying
fragments in eighteen places all over his body, so he was carried to the
hospital in the city and taken prisoner when Stoessel surrendered shortly
afterward.
An army surgeon in Nogi’s army examined him and decided, “This one
is an invalid. He’ll never serve again.”
So instead of sending him to an internment camp, the surgeon put him
on the list of casualties to be sent back to Russia. Wounded men like this
were repatriated on neutral foreign vessels. When Babushkin reached
 clouds above the hill 143
Singapore on board such a ship, he reported to the Russian consul
Rudanovsky, who told him, “Rear Admiral Nebogatov’s squadron will be
passing through the Strait of Singapore in a few days’ time.”
Since he had received incorrect intelligence reports, the consul still
believed that Tōgō was lying in wait in Borneo and felt that he must
somehow convey this news to Nebogatov. He grumbled that there was no
way he could do so himself since he was under close surveillance by the
British authorities.
“Leave it to me,” said the sailor with eighteen wounds from Port Arthur
as he vowed to carry out this perilous task.
Babushkin hired a steamboat. With him was a French merchant with a
grizzled beard representing the Russian consulate and a young, yellow-
turbaned Indian, the boat’s engineer.
They waited out at sea for three whole days. Already low in provisions
and water, they were running out of coal as well when they saw black smoke
from Nebogatov’s squadron appear on the horizon. The Russian squadron
consisted of five warships, with seven other vessels in support. These were
the transport ship Kuroniya (3,773 tons), the hospital ship Kostroma (3,507
tons), and five colliers. When he realized that these vessels were flying the
St. Andrew’s flag, Babushkin was so delirious with joy that he practically
fainted.
Later, on the deck of the Nicholas I, he went on to explain his circum-
stances and gave a full report. By the time he handed over the “confidential
letter” that the Russian consul had given him to deliver to Nebogatov, he
again felt faint and fell to the deck with a crash. He soon came to and
managed to get up by himself.
“Please take me with you back to the war zone in the Far East!” he begged
Nebogatov.
Babushkin was taken off to the treatment room and examined by a
military surgeon, who discovered that his wounds were healing. Nebogatov
allowed him to take his place among the ranks once more. After providing
the steamboat with provisions, water, and coal, the squadron resumed its
course and continued on.
But when Nebogatov read the “confidential letter” in the staff office he
inclined his head in an expression of doubt. The letter said that Tōgō was
lying in wait off the coast of Borneo. If the Japanese fleet was really lurking
there in those southern waters, it must already have exchanged blows with
Rozhestvensky. The Japanese fleet was hardly likely to ignore the main Baltic
Fleet and target only his own squadron of worn-out old ships. After all, any
resulting advantage would be trivial compared to the compensation that
144 to the east
would have to be paid for having provoked such an international incident.
To Nebogatov, this information did not seem grounded in reality.
“Shall we send the Monomakh”—a cruiser—“ahead on patrol?” one of
his staff suggested, but Nebogatov replied that there really was no point.
For a squadron on the move to send out scouts would require very fast ships,
and not only were the warships in his squadron all slow, but even the
Monomakh, the fastest cruiser at his disposal, could manage a speed of only
13 or 14 knots at best. Given that the Kasagi, Chitose, Otowa, and Niitaka,
cruisers in Tōgō’s Third Division, were all capable of operating at a speed
of 20 knots, the limitations of Nebogatov’s squadron were quite clear.
“We will meet them when we meet them,” Nebogatov said.
He was more grateful for the Russian consul’s news that Rozhestvensky’s
fleet was either in Cam Ranh or Van Phong Bay than for this rumor about
Tōgō’s fleet. If Babushkin had not taken the initiative to deliver this message,
Nebogatov’s squadron might have kept wandering aimlessly to the four
corners of the earth.

* * *
Even after Nebogatov’s squadron had sailed through the Strait of Malacca,
Rozhestvensky’s fleet kept repeating its clownish maneuvers—advancing,
retreating, or simply drifting along some 3 nautical miles off the coast of
Van Phong Bay. Given the overall situation, nothing could be more ridiculous
than such antics, which is just how neutral observers around the world viewed
their actions.
“Is Nebogatov’s squadron really worth waiting for?” they asked. Experts
around the world thought not.
Rozhestvensky was not playing the clown out of any particular choice of
his own, but on the orders of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. He
was doing so at the behest of a Russian political system that vested absolute
authority in the tsar, and for the citizens, officers, and soldiers of this country
to rid themselves of this absurd state of affairs would require nothing short
of a revolution. It appeared that the reach of Russia’s autocratic system
extended as far as 3 nautical miles off the coast of Van Phong Bay.
The bureaucracy of this autocratic state was malfunctioning so seriously
that Rozhestvensky and his staff had heard nothing about the course taken
by Nebogatov’s squadron or how many days it would take to reach Van
Phong Bay. They had not been told anything at all. Rozhestvensky had so
little information that he firmly believed Nebogatov’s squadron would be
attacked by the Japanese fleet around the Sunda Strait or Borneo.
Rozhestvensky even seems to have been hoping that Nebogatov would
indeed suffer such an attack. If every single ship were sunk, Rozhestvensky
 clouds above the hill 145
would be freed from his burden and could speed off to Vladivostok. In his
view, this would be the best outcome. Even if several ships were damaged,
that might still be all to the good. The damaged vessels would have to be
repaired off the coast of Van Phong Bay, a process that could take weeks.
In the meantime, the tsar would perhaps change his mind and give the order
to leave them behind, and press on ahead.
On May 6, Engineer Politovsky wrote, “Is Nebogatov’s squadron even
coming? If so, can it make it this far without coming under attack from the
Japanese? Men are placing bets and holding discussions about this throughout
the fleet.”
According to Paléologue’s diary, the French Foreign Ministry knew the
exact location of Nebogatov’s squadron from one day to the next. For their
intelligence gathering, France could depend on its several colonies in this
region, but the Russian Foreign Ministry did not even have the initiative to
gather such basic information from their own French allies behind closed
doors.

* * *
On May 7, a Russian destroyer hurried back after an expedition to Nha Trang,
a short distance to the north of Cam Ranh Bay. There was a telegraph office
there, so the trip had been a chance to pick up the latest news. Before
returning to Cam Ranh Bay, the captain of the destroyer received a telegram
from the Russian consul in Singapore: “Nebogatov’s squadron sailed past
Singapore at 0400 hours on May 5.” In fact, it sailed by at dawn on May 4,
but the Russian consul had never had a good head for figures.
The cruiser Zhemchug was sent out on patrol to search for Nebogatov,
and during the night on May 8 it picked up the first radio signal from the
approaching squadron. Nebogatov, sailing north, also gave orders for the
Monomakh, the vessel in his squadron with the most powerful radio
equipment, to transmit signals to Rozhestvensky’s Suvorov. They succeeded
in exchanging messages shortly after noon on May 9.
“It looks as if they have arrived safely after all.” When Rozhestvensky
received this report in the admiral’s cabin, he smiled with the mixed emotions
of fondness and bewilderment that a man might feel on seeing his grand-
mother who had come to request his support. “Show them the course they
should take,” he ordered.
The officers and sailors of the Baltic Fleet went mad with joy when they
saw the first column of smoke far away on the southern horizon at two
o’clock in the afternoon that day. They wrestled with each other to climb
up the masts and grabbed at the binoculars to have a look. As the single
column of smoke became two, three, and more, they let out a series of cheers
146 to the east
loud enough to shake the fleet. Sailors on every vessel had made disparaging
remarks about Nebogatov’s decrepit old ships as “floating iron” or “sunk
vessels roused from the deep,” but at that moment they seemed to have
forgotten these feelings completely. Their joy did not come from any belief
that reinforcements had arrived to strengthen the fleet but was rather a simple
feeling of happiness that they had somehow been joined by their Russian
homeland in remote, unknown waters.
That was how isolated they had come to feel after seven months at sea
with no one to turn to. The encounter with Nebogatov’s squadron so gratified
their longing for their homeland that they felt like crying.
As Nebogatov’s Nicholas I approached, its prow cut sharply through the
waves and plumes of black smoke produced by the good-quality coal belched
from the funnels. The signal went up from Rozhestvensky’s Suvorov:
“Welcome. Congratulations on the success of your voyage.”
Until this point, Nebogatov’s squadron had been sailing in a single column
en route to catching up with the Baltic Fleet, but once this had been
achieved, they divided into three lines and sailed alongside Rozhestvensky’s
ships.
Aboard the Suvorov, a band of marines struck up a tune. On the deck of
every vessel, all the crew members formed a line and greeted their comrades
from afar with cries of “Hurrah!” Cheers echoed back from Nebogatov’s
ships as well, and the sea seemed to be boiling over with music and applause.
In that moment, practically the entire fleet felt moved to believe, “Now we
can win!”

* * *
Rear Admiral Nebogatov’s squadron soon came to a halt.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, a steam launch was lowered from the
Nicholas I, and Nebogatov and his staff were transported across the water.
The sky was the clearest blue that day, and in the full glare of the sun the
sea was drenched in rays of light. Only the deep-green color cast by the
ships’ shadows broke into this as the steam launch wove its way across the
glassy surface of shimmering light and shade.
Casting his eye over Nebogatov’s squadron from the bridge of his flagship,
Rozhestvensky said, “We’ll have to get those funnels repainted.”
For whatever reason (and no research on military history has ever made
the reason clear), Rozhestvensky had the funnels of every ship in the Baltic
Fleet painted yellow. When taking aim at the enemy, nothing could be more
to the advantage of Tōgō’s fleet than this, for it saved the Japanese the effort
of trying to distinguish friend from foe.
 clouds above the hill 147
“Give him instructions about this,” Rozhestvensky ordered his staff.
Though difficult to believe, this was the only time that Rozhestvensky
ever gave an order to or conferred with Rear Admiral Nebogatov on the
subject of the fleet’s operations.
Nebogatov and his staff soon climbed aboard the Suvorov. There, on the
gangway ladder, the two admirals who carried the fate of Russia on their
shoulders embraced and exchanged kisses. This dramatic scene was watched
closely by the crews of the entire fleet. Rozhestvensky invited Nebogatov
and his staff into his captain’s cabin where they were served glasses of
champagne. The staff officers of the Suvorov were also present. After the
toast, they sat down to dinner.
During the meal, when someone asked him how the voyage had been,
Nebogatov gave a concise answer. Considering that he had such worn-out
old ships under his command, the three months at sea had been a total success.
They experienced no breakdowns, none of the vessels sustained any damage
serious enough to require repairs, and they were ready to enter the war zone
right away.
Nebogatov’s squadron had been sailing with the ships’ lights turned off
at night. During Rozhestvensky’s voyage, however, the lights from all the
ships had shone so brightly after nightfall that the fleet might have been
mistaken for a floating metropolis. But even in this matter Nebogatov was
the seasoned veteran, and when someone declared, “You were lucky to avoid
any collisions,” he just laughed and said they had been spared by the grace
of God. With his easy manner, generosity, and simple ways, he had the air
of a Russian village elder.
Rozhestvensky would have been expected to brief Nebogatov about his
plans for the fleet’s route and future operations, but he did not so much as
mention this. The only other instruction he ever gave him, and this he
conveyed through his chief of staff, was on the new formation of the fleet.
The main ironclad ships in Nebogatov’s Third Pacific Squadron were to make
up the Third Division of the battle fleet. All the other vessels in his squadron
were detached and assigned elsewhere, the Monomakh joining the First
Cruiser Division, while the auxiliary vessels were all grouped together in
the Transport Squadron under the command of Captain Otto Radlov.
The dinner lasted for an hour and a half.
Nebogatov took his leave of the Suvorov, climbed aboard his steam
launch, and left. Nebogatov had, in effect, been totally ignored. Rozh-
estvensky said not a word to him about how they should fight the Japanese
fleet, where the enemy was, or, on a more crucial note, what course their
fleet should take. All he told him to do was repaint his black funnels yellow.
 4
FAR-OFF BATTLESHIPS

Van Phong Bay lies along a windswept shore some distance to the north of
Cam Ranh Bay. On the morning of May 14, the Baltic Fleet set out from
there on its journey, by the will of God and of the tsar, to teach the Japanese
a lesson. Having just been joined by Nebogatov’s squadron, this largest
armada ever to appear in Asian waters had swelled to gigantic proportions,
amounting to some fifty ships with a total displacement of 160,200 tons.
As for the battleships that would decide the contest, the Baltic Fleet had
eight, and Japan, four. The four ships that made up the Baltic Fleet’s main
force—Suvorov, Alexander III, Borodino, and Aurora—were modern
battleships, newer and easily superior to the Mikasa class, which consisted
of Mikasa, Shikishima, Asahi, and Fuji.
When he drew up his initial plans, Rozhestvensky had dismissed
Nebogatov’s squadron, which had joined up with the main fleet, as just a
collection of worn-out old vessels. Even so, with their large guns, these ships
could still serve as floating batteries in the event of any sea battle, and many
of the Russian staff officers were quite happy to include this fighting power
when they made their calculations.
In the words of an account written anonymously after the war, “The reason
the entire fleet was so overjoyed by the arrival of Nebogatov’s squadron
was that its seventeen large guns greatly increased their hopes for the fleet.
In battle the Japanese would make use of their superior speed and would no
doubt try to place some distance between themselves and the Russian fleet.
In an exchange at such a great range, the firepower of Nebogatov’s ships
could have a real impact.”
Rozhestvensky had thought of Nebogatov’s squadron as a hindrance, but
he changed his mind when he actually saw it, realizing that, on paper, his
 clouds above the hill 149
fighting strength now far exceeded that of the Japanese. With their generally
weak mental calculations, the Russians often put a stress on large quantities
and tended to base their value judgments on numerical figures.
In his joy, Rozhestvensky sent what was a puzzling order to the whole
fleet. “God has fortified our spirits and given us the strength to withstand
this unprecedented voyage. God has given us the strength to fulfill the wish
of the tsar and also with our own blood, to wash away the shame of our
ancestral land.”
“Is our admiral a priest?” a sharp-tongued sailor remarked vindictively.
In any event, with all the vessels sailing in line together, this grand fleet
left its last anchorage on May 14 at the onset of its voyage bound for the
field of battle.

* * *
The Baltic Fleet’s departure from Vietnam on May 14 was kept a closely
guarded secret. In Paris, however, the Foreign Ministry had received enough
information to make a rough estimate of its movements. Several days before
it left, there were reports about signs of restless activity in the Russian fleet
as the preparations to move this giant force got underway.
On May 12, Delcassé’s intelligence secretary Paléologue had told the
foreign minister that he could set his mind at rest on the matter because the
fleet was proceeding toward Taiwan. “So we need not bother about it
anymore.”
Delcassé asked about when the Russians would encounter the Japanese
fleet, and Paléologue replied, “I inquired at the French Naval Ministry, and
it doesn’t seem possible for there to be any battle for at least ten days.”
This turned out to be accurate. The battle began on May 27.
“But of course Admiral Tōgō’s intentions are not clear to us,” he pointed
out.
The accuracy of this French intelligence was actually quite remarkable.
To inform the Baltic Fleet of their planned course, Rozhestvensky gave sealed
orders to the captain of each ship, to be opened only after their depar-
ture from Van Phong Bay. According to Paléologue’s diary entry for May
16, the French Naval Ministry knew about this secret already. Paléologue
specifically wrote, “The Russian armada is now proceeding in a northeasterly
direction with a view to going through the Korea Strait and achieving a
rendezvous at Vladivostok.”
Nothing tormented the Japanese more than this riddle over the direction
the Baltic Fleet would take. Not only the Naval Ministry and the headquarters
of the Combined Fleet but the whole country collectively held its breath in
anxiety. Around this time, Japan was abuzz with the rumor that a samurai
150 far-off battleships
dressed entirely in white had appeared before the empress in a dream. His
name was Sakamoto Ryōma, an activist samurai from the last years of the
shogunate. He had set up his own shipping company in Nagasaki, which
had served as a forerunner of the merchant fleet and Imperial Navy. In this
dream, Sakamoto reassured the empress that they had nothing to fear from
the Baltic Fleet’s voyage to the east. Along with countless other examples,
this shows how the whole of Japan was reduced to a neurotic state on this
issue.
Japan was slow in collecting information. Not until May 18 did Tōgō
Heihachirō in Chinhae Bay hear the news that the Baltic Fleet had weighed
anchor in Van Phong Bay four days before and was now heading to the Far
East. Scouting activities immediately swung into operation.
The plans for these patrols had already been drawn up by Akiyama
Saneyuki and conveyed by Chief of Staff Katō Tomosaburō to Tōgō for his
approval. So original was the design for this operation that it would win the
Japanese Navy a measure of distinction. The plan consisted of first plotting
a large square area on a sea chart, with one side formed by drawing a line
from Cheju Island off the Korean coast all the way to Sasebo in Japan. The
area was subdivided into dozens of smaller zones like the squares on a
chessboard, with patrol boats assigned to each one. The ships deployed to
these zones were vessels that would not be required in battle. In all, some
seventy-three such ships were involved in the operation.

* * *
As far as Rozhestvensky was concerned, all he really had to do was lead
the fleet forward and hole up in Vladivostok. This would be enough to fulfill
his strategic objective and so much the better if there was no battle along
the way.
From his enemy’s perspective, if the port of Vladivostok were packed
with a grand Russian fleet, the Sea of Japan would no longer be safe and
the supply line to Manchuria would be under threat. The Japanese fleet had
to be on guard for signs of the Russians.
The best scenario for the Russians was to reach the safe haven of
Vladivostok without encountering the enemy, so it would be enough just to
dodge past Tōgō, find an escape route, and race off at full speed. If that proved
impossible, they had to think about how to escape with minimum damage.
One approach was to draw the Japanese fleet out into the Pacific Ocean.
This would involve taking the Ogasawara Islands. By using these as a
decoy, the Russians could strike out here and there at any approaching
Japanese ships, and wait for a chance for the whole fleet to race off and
make for Vladivostok via the northern route. The Pacific was so vast, after
 clouds above the hill 151
all, that if they wanted to hide out at sea, this would be just the thing to do.
The drawback to the plan was that it would take the Russians into completely
unknown territory, and they might run out of fuel on the way.
They also considered dividing the fleet in two. The First Division, which
had the fastest battleships, would take the most direct route through the
Tsushima Strait. The other divisions would take the northern route and reach
Vladivostok later. This plan of operation on two fronts had the advantage
of forcing the Japanese fleet to divide its own forces. But if the Japanese
chose not to follow the script and divide their ships, there was a real risk
that the First Division might receive a sound beating on its way through the
Tsushima Strait. The beauty of this idea was that, of all the various plans
put forward, it might ensure that the largest number of Russian ships survived
and managed to reach Vladivostok.
Yet another plan was to distract the enemy with small groups of vessels
taking various different diversionary routes. When the small Japanese
squadrons sent to head them off appeared, these could engage in skirmishes
before making their separate ways to Vladivostok. But as this tactic might
create confusion among themselves, it was perhaps not appropriate for the
glorious Imperial Russian Navy.
In other words, there was no one decisive plan.
To discuss the operation that would decide the fate of the Russian Empire,
Rozhestvensky convened just one war council on May 8, but after that no
such meetings were ever held. Amazingly enough, he did not even raise this
important topic with Rear Admiral Nebogatov when he arrived the following
day. Neither did he give him any instructions.
Then came May 14, the day the ships of the Baltic Fleet weighed anchor
and left. All that Rozhestvensky did was hand over sealed orders to the
commander of each vessel. On reaching open sea and opening their
envelopes, they discovered the route they would take.
“To Tsushima,” and at full speed at that.

* * *
Just as the Baltic Fleet had no definite plans about its route other than the
thoughts inside Rozhestvensky’s head, leaders in Japan too had no fixed
ideas on the subject nor any information to go on. “It would be best if they
took a route through the Tsushima Strait and into the Sea of Japan. But the
chances are that they will head into the Pacific Ocean and through either
the Tsugaru Strait or La Pérouse Strait.” This kind of pointless discussion
was repeated over and over again.
If the Japanese had two separate fleets at their disposal, they could have
handled the enemy on two such fronts. With just the one, it was imperative
152 far-off battleships
that they receive intelligence on the Russians’ movements as soon as possible.
If they were indeed heading out into the Pacific Ocean, the Japanese fleet
based in Chinhae Bay would have to rush to the north, but if the Russians
took a route through the Tsushima Strait, the Japanese should just stay put
and wait. If there was the slightest mistake in the Japanese fleet’s decision
on this, the entire outcome of the Russo-Japanese War would be placed in
grave danger.
Akiyama Saneyuki thought the chances of the enemy approaching through
the Tsushima Strait were as high as eighty percent. Yet, as Ogasawara
Naganari (then on the staff at Imperial Headquarters) wrote in later years,
“Of course we could not completely ignore the possibility that they might
take the northern route instead.” So even though Saneyuki himself had
designed this master plan to deliver a strong blow to the enemy around
Tsushima, he found it hard to decide whether or not he could really afford
to risk all his money on just this one throw of the dice. As a result of this
dilemma, he soon became so haggard and gaunt that he looked like
a different man altogether.
“Akiyama seemed terribly perplexed and had a worried look on his face.”
This is how Commander Suzuki Kantarō, in charge of the Fourth Destroyer
Division, would later describe Saneyuki’s appearance. He was talking about
the time Saneyuki went on a steamship from Chinhae Bay to visit the naval
base at Takeshiki in Tsushima. Takeshiki was the base of the Fourth
Destroyer Division under Suzuki and also of the Third Squadron, which was
led by the flagship Itsukushima, a protected cruiser of 4,210 tons.
That night, Saneyuki stayed over at the naval base, so Suzuki went to
visit him and they had dinner together. Suzuki was three years Saneyuki’s
senior, having joined the Naval Academy in 1884 in the fourteenth class of
students to enroll there.
“He seemed deeply unsettled.” To Suzuki, there was something odd
about Saneyuki’s demeanor. Holding the rim of his sake cup without touching
a drop, he just kept on muttering to himself and had lost all color in his
cheeks.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Suzuki was surprised because he had never seen Saneyuki looking so
stumped before. Since joining the Naval Academy, this young man had
always been brash to an extreme and after graduation so full of self-
confidence that he seemed to carry the whole navy on his shoulders.
But this same Saneyuki said, “Many of the fleet’s commanders and those
at fleet headquarters suspect that the enemy will sail into the Pacific Ocean
and around through either La Pérouse Strait or Tsugaru Strait. They are
saying that we should not wait in Chinhae Bay but instead head up to
 clouds above the hill 153
Hakodate as soon as possible. However slim the chances of this, they do
have a point!”

* * *
Two days before, on May 21, Saneyuki and the rest of Tōgō’s staff in Chinhae
Bay had, in fact, been alarmed by a report that some Russian ships in the
Vladivostok cruiser unit had been sighted briefly in the area around
Okinoshima Island. These vessels were supposed to have been practically
destroyed during the battle off Ulsan on August 14 of the previous year.
Perhaps they had managed to make it back to port and, fully repaired,
intended to sail to the Tsushima area and join up with the Baltic Fleet
approaching from the west.
Someone had observed, “If they have already reached Okinoshima, the
arrival of the Baltic Fleet cannot be far away.”
The Japanese had done everything they could to stop the Russian ships
in Vladivostok from sailing out to sea by laying mines outside the harbor
and strengthening their patrols. Nevertheless, the Baltic Fleet had still not
appeared in Japanese waters even after having left the coast of Vietnam on
May 14. This bolstered the theory of some commanders that it was not
heading their way at all.
“If they are coming through the Tsushima Strait, they really should have
appeared by now, but there is just no sign of them,” Saneyuki reported to
Suzuki on his visit to Takeshiki. Impatience had given rise to speculation
that, unknown to Tōgō, Rozhestvensky’s fleet was already heading for the
Pacific instead. If so, it would render meaningless all the efforts this
impoverished country had poured into building such a grand fleet in the
thirty-odd years since the Meiji Restoration.
“I don’t agree,” replied Suzuki in the crisp Japanese of eastern Japan, an
unusual accent during those times when so many naval officers hailed from
the western region. He was the son of a retainer who had served under the
Kuze family of fudai daimyo lords. Although he was born in the village of
Kuze in Senshū Province (now the city of Osaka), where his father worked,
his family had returned to Edo after the collapse of Tokugawa rule and later
moved on to Maebashi in Gumma Prefecture. “Those men who say the Baltic
Fleet should have appeared by now if it’s taking the Tsushima route are
probably assuming it’s sailing at a speed of 10 knots. This is understandable
given that our intelligence says the enemy fleet has a cruising speed of 10
knots. But its actual speed since it left Madagascar appears to be closer to
7 knots. Of course, it may have been spotted at some time sailing at 10 knots,
but on this voyage the whole fleet has had to stop to take on coal, so 7 knots
would be better as the figure for any calculations.”
154 far-off battleships
“What?” Saneyuki fixed a keen stare on Suzuki as if he had just heard
some astounding news. Gulping down some sake, he began to do some sums
in his head. If the enemy was approaching at an average speed of 7 knots,
there was no need to panic after all. It would be five or six more days before
they appeared in the Sea of Japan. All they had to do was wait.
In fact, the Baltic Fleet was sailing at a speed of between 8 and 9 knots.
On three occasions on the way, when combat drills were being carried out,
this had dropped to 5 knots. As Suzuki said, they also had to carry out the
tricky operation of taking on coal at sea. Moreover, the whole fleet spent
the night of May 18 at idling speed after an engine broke down on board
the ironclad coastal defense battleship Apraxin, one of the ships that
Nebogatov had brought with him. On average, therefore, the fleet was
probably traveling, as Suzuki observed, at a speed of just over 7 knots.

* * *
With four ships sent on ahead on patrol, the Baltic Fleet stealthily made its
way forward in two grand columns.
“Can such a large fleet possibly approach Japanese waters without being
detected by the enemy?” This was one of the worries for all the officers in
the fleet.
Lighting regulations were put in place at night. Rozhestvensky should
really have followed the example of Nebogatov, who throughout his voyage
had made the Third Pacific Squadron sail in total darkness before joining
Rozhestvensky’s fleet. But since the fleet had been swollen to such a vast
size it was simply impossible to keep lights turned off at night without
running the risk of collisions.
Even so, the deck lights and porthole lights were turned off on every ship.
Only the side lights were kept on, turned on so low as to be visible only to
the nearest ships so they could see their positions. All use of the wireless
equipment was of course prohibited.
For any communication during the night, signal lights were used. These
would sometimes flicker from the masthead of the Suvorov. Rozhestvensky
was too highly strung a character to remain calm despite the sense of dread
that grew in him because they would soon enter the danger zone of Japanese
territorial waters. Even on less than vital matters, he used these signal lights
to convey his wishes to the entire fleet. On each occasion, the commander
of every vessel was obliged to reply with the signal: “Understood,” and so
every time a dialogue of flashing lights would flicker across the dark sea.
At dawn on May 19, the Russians captured a British steamer off the Batan
Islands between Taiwan and Luzon. This was the Oldhamia, on its way from
New York to Hong Kong. On inspection, the ship turned out to be carrying
 clouds above the hill 155
a cargo of mainly oil, but given the need to conceal his fleet’s movements,
Rozhestvensky sent out an order for the ship to be captured.
The Oldhamia was taken over by Russian officers and crew, while the
British crew was detained in small groups on separate vessels. But this
steamer was very slow, so all the other ships in the fleet had to reduce their
speed to fall in line with this one vessel.
“Why do we have to take such a burden with us?” some members of
the crew complained. Yet in this instance, Rozhestvensky’s action was
strategically sound.
This was not the case with the Norwegian steamer Oskar II, which the
Russians stopped at nine o’clock in the morning on the same day. After an
inspection, it was allowed to proceed on its way.
Sailing from Manila and bound for Kuchinotsu in Nagasaki Prefecture,
this ship was, in fact, a charter vessel of the Mitsui Corporation. After being
released, Oskar II promptly wired a telegram to the head office in Tokyo.
The message was conveyed to Imperial Headquarters and from there to Tōgō
in Chinhae Bay.
Although the message revealed the Baltic Fleet’s movements at this
stage, the Japanese were still no closer to knowing whether the fleet was set
on a course for Tsushima or would veer off into the Pacific Ocean instead.

* * *
The captured British steamer Oldhamia proved to be a real encumbrance to
the Russians. They sailed with this ship from May 19 on, and so the pace
of the fleet fell to just 3 knots. Finally, Rozhestvensky thought up a use for
the ship. He summoned Captain Clapier de Colongue, his chief of staff.
“Make that British steamer sail alone,” he ordered.
The ship was to be dispatched into the Pacific and would make for
Vladivostok the long way round through La Pérouse Strait. If a Japanese
patrol ship spotted it in the Pacific flying the Russian naval ensign, the enemy
would become confused about the Baltic Fleet’s route.
On May 22, the steamer was detached from the rest of the fleet and set
on a course heading north-northeast. The British captain and chief engineer
were put on board as passengers, but it was manned by a crew of Russian
officers and sailors.
This ruse by Rozhestvensky worked. The steamer, once discovered, did
mislead the Japanese to some extent, but it would come to a tragic end. The
sea between the Kuril Islands and La Pérouse Strait is notorious for its thick
fog, and the milky white blanket of mist encountered off the east coast of
Urup Island limited visibility so much that the ship eventually ran aground.
156 far-off battleships
Rozhestvensky selected not only the Oldhamia to sail into the Pacific
Ocean but also two steamers from his own fleet (both of them passenger
liners converted into auxiliary cruisers). The Terek and Kuban were later
sighted some 50 miles off the coast of Tokyo Bay, but they never made it
through the Tsugaru Strait and on to Vladivostok since at some stage they
seem to have turned back and sailed home to Russia via another route. They
also did contribute, even if only marginally, to confusing the Japanese
assessment of the situation.
The Baltic Fleet had already entered the East China Sea around May 22
and May 23. Though they did not encounter storms, the horizon was covered
in low cloud, and so the Russian ships were spattered with drizzling rain.
As they plowed through the high waves, fierce gales screamed through the
ropes and masts on every deck. This fleet indeed conjured up the image from
Asian poetry of warriors on a military expedition of 10,000 leagues with
their uniforms assailed by a mournful wind.
On May 23, Rear Admiral Felkerzam, commander of the Second Division,
died after a long illness. An excellent sailor who enjoyed the confidence of
his men, he had been in poor health since leaving Russia, especially so after
leaving Madagascar and heading across the Indian Ocean, when he had been
confined to his bed.
The main force of the Baltic Fleet consisted of three battleship divisions.
The First Division, which had the best ships, was under the direct command
of Rozhestvensky, while the Second Division was under Felkerzam. When
the naval surgeon on board the flagship Oslyabya declared that Felkerzam
was dead, a coded signal message was hoisted saying, “The admiral has been
summoned by God.”
Rozhestvensky immediately gave out an order that Felkerzam’s death
should be kept a secret. On the eve of battle, he feared that the news would
damage the men’s morale, but he did not even appoint an interim commander
in his place. The Second Division, led by the Oslyabya, was just left to face
the battle ahead under orders from its deceased commander.

* * *
At this point, the tsar of Russia should have felt regret about his decision to
appoint Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky commander of the Baltic Fleet.
Because of his decision, the Second Division proceeded to its fate without
a commander at the helm. Rozhestvensky was the only man in history to
have dreamt up the idea of a military force with no commander.
These were the battleships in the Second Division: Oslyabya (12,674 tons);
Sisoy Veliky (10,400 tons); Navarin (10,206 tons); and Admiral Nakhimov
(8,524 tons). With the exception of the Oslyabya, which had a speed of
 clouds above the hill 157
18 knots, they were not the fastest vessels, with top speeds of only 15 or 16
knots. If they were organized together as a fighting unit, they might serve
some strategic purpose, but without a commander this was practically
impossible.
Perhaps Rozhestvensky made the rather general assumption, “They can
tag along with the First Division under my command.”
This might have worked if they were just on a voyage, but in the heat of
battle he could not possibly grasp the overall situation sufficiently to control
this fighting unit. Even if he did, he would not really be in a position to
respond to changing conditions by managing tactical maneuvers in any detail.
Though it is hard to believe, Rozhestvensky did not even inform Rear
Admiral Nebogatov, commander of the Third Division, about Felkerzam’s
death. Nebogatov only heard the news after the battle, when he was taken
prisoner by the Japanese. They told him. Throughout the voyage and even
in the very midst of this impossible struggle, he never had any reason to
doubt that Felkerzam was alive and well. Felkerzam’s ensign had been flying
throughout on board the Oslyabya, since Rozhestvensky had never permitted
it to be taken down.
There are always numerous unforeseen events, of course, on the field of
battle.
One possibility was that Rozhestvensky himself might die in combat. To
guard against such an eventuality, they determined in advance, according to
rank, who would take command in his place. This would be Felkerzam as
commander of the Second Division. For as long as Felkerzam was alive,
Nebogatov as commander of the Third Division could not exceed his rank
and deputize for Rozhestvensky.
There is also some startling evidence that Rozhestvensky never even
considered the possibility of dying in combat. A commander would usually
brief his second in command so that in the event of his own death he could
immediately take over the operation in his place, but Rozhestvensky never
held any meeting with either Felkerzam or Nebogatov to make arrangements
over policy or tactics.
This point was emphasized in the anonymous record written by one of
Rozhestvensky’s staff. “Neither commanders nor captains were ever
assembled for any meetings.” A fleet can only function smoothly as a unit
when the commander in chief has fully briefed his commanders and captains,
but Rozhestvensky did not even carry out this basic task of military command
that every sailor would be expected to know. According to one description,
Rozhestvensky was “a self-important character who believed himself to be
a man of genius surrounded by fools,” but it would be overly simplistic to
blame this for his grave oversight. Even if he was just paranoid, regular
158 far-off battleships
meetings were such a routine feature of navy life that as an experienced
sailor, he would surely have managed to arrange at least one or two.
The suspicion grows that Rozhestvensky intended to be the only one to
make it through the Tsushima Strait and escape to Vladivostok. Although
he was the commander of a vast fleet of fifty-odd ships, he had only five
really dependable vessels at his disposal. These were the battleships in his
own First Division that had been more recently built than the enemy’s Mikasa
class, together with the Oslyabya. In a variety of ways, Suvorov, Alexander
III, Borodino, Oryol, and Oslyabya were superior to the Mikasa, Asahi,
Shikishima, and Fuji, Tōgō’s battleships. In the all-important matter of
speed, only these five Russian ships could really compete with the Japanese
Navy, which was noted around the world for its fast vessels. Just like the
ships in the Mikasa class, these Russian ships not only had firepower and
heavy protection, they could also sail at a speed of 18 knots.
If a demon had taken shelter in Rozhestvensky’s mind, it doubtless
whispered to him, “Once the battle begins, think of nothing else. Rely only
on the Suvorov and your four other modern battleships. All you have to do
is keep firing and press forward at full speed. The Third Squadron under
Nebogatov cannot keep up with your own four ships and the Oslyabya, so
you can leave them behind in the battle zone. As for the cruisers and other
ships, their fate can be left to the will of God. The five new battleships are
the pride of all Russia, so you must take these through the Sea of Japan and
escape to Vladivostok. Even if only these make it through to Vladivostok,
wouldn’t this be enough to threaten Japan’s command of the sea and at least
partly fulfill the tsar’s expectations?”
There is, in fact, very little to suggest that Rozhestvensky ever intended
to sink the greater part of Tōgō’s fleet in battle at sea, while plenty of
circumstantial evidence supports the view that he was quietly listening to
this demon. He did not assemble his commanders or captains for any
meeting, and he never made his plans clear to his own staff. Perhaps he felt
that there was no real need for this, but perhaps he also feared jeopardizing
his real design.

* * *
Upon entering the East China Sea, the fleet was wrapped in cool air as the
heat subsided. Since their days in Africa, a number of sailors on the Suvorov
had grown accustomed to sleeping on deck, and they promptly caught colds.
Many of the officers had nothing much to do, and the officers’ wardroom
became a parlor for discussion, perpetually thick with tobacco smoke. Some
were regular visitors, but when First Lieutenant Zotov occasionally appeared
they would all halt their conversation and look in his direction, waiting for
 clouds above the hill 159
him to speak. Zotov was not a staff officer, but in recognition of his superb
navigation skills, he was serving as the chief navigator on the Suvorov
(commanded by Captain Ignatzius).
During the afternoon of the fleet’s second day in the East China Sea, ten
officers sat in the luxurious surroundings of the officers’ room. Much like
an impromptu flea market, discussion had opened on the question: “Will
our fleet really make it through the Tsushima Strait?” Since Rozhestvensky
had never convened any formal meeting to address the issue of the strategy
that would determine the fate of the fleet, they had no choice but to discuss
this when they could, as if they were opening up stalls by the side of the
road. No matter how much they talked, none of their resolutions was ever
conveyed to their superior officers, so in the end they were left feeling despair
at their own futile efforts.
“Why doesn’t our admiral take a roundabout course through the Pacific
and make for Vladivostok through La Pérouse Strait?”
Just as voices in support of this view were beginning to be raised, Zotov
entered the room. Immediately they all fell silent. If this group of officers
had been Cossacks with their tradition of a nomadic life on the plains, they
might have followed the old custom of electing their own leader. The man
they would have chosen would certainly have been not Rozhestvensky but
this Zotov. He had the experience, skills, and intuition of a dependable leader
on the field of battle.
As a veteran officer of navigation, Zotov knew just how difficult a voyage
through La Pérouse Strait would be. In his view, the admiral of such a large
fleet could not risk a passage through this stretch of sea, since it was covered
with endless fog, and had hidden reefs lurking in areas not covered by their
French charts and islands that would require acrobatic navigating skills to
somehow squeeze between. Zotov agreed with Rozhestvensky’s decision to
choose the Tsushima Strait.
“The best course for our fleet to take,” he began, “is the eastern channel
of the Korea Strait.” This was the Tsushima Strait. “There is no doubt about
it.”
Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the navy would opt for this route,
said Zotov. The channel was wide and also deep enough for the fleet to
choose a course at will, and, no matter how bad the weather was, their
progress would not be obstructed. Bad weather conditions, in fact, might be
the very thing they needed to avoid detection by Tōgō’s fleet.
“Tsushima,” said Zotov, raising his hands to his chest. “We just have to
face whatever fate lies in store for us on this voyage. The reason why is
simple. There’s no other route we can possibly take.” He went on to explain
that they must try to see things from the enemy’s perspective when they
160 far-off battleships
considered the battle ahead. “Unless Tōgō is more foolish than we are, he
must be aware that this is our only route.”
“But then again,” someone said, “can’t we change our plan even at this
late stage? The First and Second Divisions could take the Tsushima route,
while the rest take a course through the Pacific. In other words, if our
objective is just to make it to Vladivostok, why not spread the risk? Isn’t
Tōgō himself worrying that this is what we’ll do?”
“He probably is,” replied Zotov, “but if Tōgō has a compass and can solve
basic numerical sums, he can easily see if we are taking the long way around
through the Pacific. As soon as he realizes that, he can simply send his entire
fleet to head us off. As for where Tōgō is hiding now,” he went on, turning
to the sea chart spread over the table, “he’s probably somewhere around
here.” With his forefinger he pointed to a circle over an area of sea to the
north of Tsushima.
Ensign Bal, a navigation officer with beautiful eyelashes, took one look
at the chart and said, “Perhaps at Masan Bay on the coast of Korea.” This
turned out to be an accurate guess. The port of Masan was situated in an
inlet of Chinhae Bay, where Tōgō was waiting.
Despite its uneven ria coastline, which was blessed with numerous inlets,
the water around Chinhae is generally quite shallow. Only Masan Bay is
deep enough for large ships, and centuries ago Mongol and Korean armadas
set out on their invasion of Japan from there. In 1899, the Korean government
had established an open port at Masan, which was developing into a
flourishing mercantile center known for its thriving community of Russian
residents. With so many houses, this was hardly the best place for the
Japanese Navy to hide away. That’s why Tōgō chose a location for his fleet
some 8 nautical miles to the south near Chinhae Bay. Even so, Bal’s quick
guess was not much wide of the mark at all.
Zotov demonstrated even shrewder insight than Bal when he replied, “We
don’t really need to know the exact name of the place.” They could just say
the area to the north of Tsushima. They could not entertain any false illusions
that Tōgō might somehow not be lurking around Tsushima after all. As Zotov
told them, “We simply have to face up to the reality that the battle deciding
our fate will be fought within sight of Tsushima.”

* * *
The sense of unease within the Japanese Navy was reaching new heights,
but Tōgō somehow contrived to stay put. The commander in chief of the
Combined Fleet had no intention of moving away from his position in
Chinhae Bay, a response that would make him a hero.
 clouds above the hill 161
Charged with the task of doing the thinking for Tōgō, however, Akiyama
Saneyuki was extremely agitated. We’ve told about how uneasy he appeared
during his meeting with Commander Suzuki Kantarō. This perhaps illustrated
the difference between Tōgō and Saneyuki in their respective roles as the
heart and brain of the operation. Unlike the heart, the brain must consider
all the permutations, a process that puts a man under extreme pressure.
Saneyuki around this time seemed a tiny figure by comparison to Tōgō.
In addition to him, one other man was also acting as the brain of the
Japanese Navy. This was Commander Satō Tetsutarō, the vice chief of staff
to Vice Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō, who was in charge of the Second
Squadron. Years later, Satō wrote a book on naval strategy, Stories of Great
Japan’s Sea Battles, which contains a passage describing the situation at
this time.

After the Russian fleet’s departure from Cam Ranh Bay, we had not the
faintest idea about the enemy’s whereabouts. We were fortunate enough
to hear later that they had passed south of Taiwan and were heading east,
but after that our mood became increasingly tense. Would the enemy head
into the Pacific, sail up past the east coast of Honshu, and through the
Tsugaru or La Pérouse Strait? Or would it take a direct route through the
Tsushima Strait and north through the Sea of Japan to Vladivostok? We
had absolutely no information either way.

Another of the navy officers responsible for thinking things out, Satō was
also under intense pressure. As he confessed, “The riddle was truly
insolvable, for no matter how deeply anyone pondered the question, it was
impossible to make a decision with any real conviction.”
As vice chief of staff to the Second Squadron, he was not under quite as
much stress as Saneyuki, who was vice chief of staff to the Combined Fleet.
Saneyuki at this time was far from being calm or collected, and the pressure
was so unbearable that his thoughts swung violently from one extreme to
the other. Shortly after May 22, he at last seemed to be on the verge of making
up his mind. “Just sitting tight in Chinhae Bay like this, we are missing
something important. Our patrols are not picking up any signs of the enemy,
which means that they must be making their way through the Pacific. In that
case, they can’t be heading for La Pérouse Strait, which is so difficult to
navigate. They must be making for the Tsugaru Strait. We should weigh
anchor immediately, leave Chinhae Bay, and wait for the enemy at the mouth
of the Tsugaru Strait.”
Chief of Staff Katō Tomosaburō, his superior officer, supported this
approach, for he had once been told by his predecessor Shimamura Hayao,
162 far-off battleships
“You should always let Akiyama think it through and follow what he
decides.”

* * *
At this juncture, there is some confusion. In his 1930 book, Satō Tetsutarō
did not specifically name Akiyama Saneyuki when he wrote, “At the time,
the staff of the Combined Fleet thought the enemy fleet would probably go
through Tsugaru Strait. They would have to respond by making for Mutsu
Bay and attacking the enemy from there, so they had to leave Chinhae Bay
and head north.” This seems slightly at odds with the train of events, but
Satō believed this to be true. Such a belief was also understandable since
Saneyuki appeared so very nervous that he might easily have conveyed this
impression.
Satō was not the only one to think this way. At Imperial Headquarters in
Tokyo as well, there was uproar when the rumor reached them. “The
Combined Fleet is leaving Chinhae Bay and heading north through the Sea
of Japan? This is no joke!”
Imperial Headquarters, Naval Section was the wartime name for the
Navy General Staff. The chief of the Navy General Staff was Admiral Itō
Sukeyuki and the vice chief was Vice Admiral Ijūin Gorō, both of them
Satsuma men. Under them, the head of the Operations Bureau was Captain
Yamashita Gentarō. Yamashita Gentarō had never once strayed from his
initial prediction that the Baltic Fleet would definitely aim for the Tsushima
Strait. From his days as a lieutenant serving as chief of navigation on the
Musashi, when it had been assigned to coastal security off Hokkaido,
Yamashita knew full well the difficulty of navigating through the northern
waters around Japan.
He never talked much about his 1905 experience, and so a legend grew
up in the navy that Admiral Yamashita (he later rose to admiral) had actually
been the one who believed that the enemy would come through the Tsushima
Strait. Years afterward, when he was asked about this by Kojima Hideo, a
first-year student at the Naval Academy, he responded, “You just have to
look at it through the eyes of the enemy.”
“If I had been the admiral of the Baltic Fleet,” he went on, “there would
be no way that I would have sailed through that narrow channel”—La
Pérouse Strait—“at a time of year when there was so much fog around. His
fleet did not even have sufficient training or any knowledge of weather
conditions in the east. So naturally I couldn’t believe that they would take
such a detour through the Pacific Ocean. No matter how much the Russian
admiral tried to avoid a battle at sea, it was inevitable. So he would definitely
choose the shorter and more navigable route through the Tsushima Strait.”
 clouds above the hill 163
On May 24, a telegram arrived from Chinhae Bay with the astounding
news, “If the enemy does not appear by a certain time, the fleet will move
as necessary.”
The plot was becoming entangled. This telegram implied that on leaving
Chinhae Bay, the Combined Fleet would head north and take up a new
waiting position there. This is how the Operations Bureau under Yamashita
Gentarō at Imperial Headquarters interpreted the message.
But the truth of the matter was slightly different. Saneyuki and the staff
of the fleet had sent this telegram not to notify Tokyo of Tōgō’s intention,
but rather just as an expression of opinion since they wished to have an
exchange of views with Imperial Headquarters. Also implicit in the telegram
was the question: “What do you think?” The telegram’s intention was clear
because they had not even received Tōgō’s approval to send it.
But Yamashita and the others in Tokyo took it as a “statement of intent.”
“The situation is critical,” Yamashita told Takarabe Takeshi when he
summoned him to confer on the matter. At Imperial Headquarters, the Chief
of the Navy General Staff Itō Sukeyuki, Vice Chief Ijūin Gorō, and all the
others had never strayed from their judgment that the enemy would come
through the Tsushima Strait. Calculating that there was a ten percent chance
the Russians might come through the Tsugaru Strait after all, they had taken
the precaution of placing mines there. But no one had informed the Combined
Fleet in Chinhae Bay about these mines.
“We must order or advise them that they are to stay in Chinhae Bay.”
Yamashita took a cautious approach when he consulted with Takarabe
because of the belief that Imperial Headquarters, operating behind the front
lines, should not interfere at every turn with the expeditionary force in the
field.
This case, however, was an emergency, and they had to interfere. Takarabe
agreed with Yamashita, but since they did not want to be seen as meddling,
they drafted what Captain Takarabe described years afterward as “a long
telegram loaded with meaning.” They immediately presented this draft to
Vice Chief Ijūin and received his signature of approval. Chief of the Navy
General Staff Itō had already left the building, so Takarabe rode by bicycle
to his house in Takanawa. Just before dusk, passersby were treated to the
curious sight of this naval officer in a staff officer’s sash, his face flushed,
as he raced through the streets on a bicycle.
Itō also gave his approval, but added, “You should also get Yamamoto’s
consent.”
Navy Minister Yamamoto Gombei was in charge of administrative affairs,
so he was not directly concerned with matters of military command. Yet he
164 far-off battleships
held a unique position since he had founded the Navy General Staff and also
was the architect of the Imperial Navy itself.
At eight o’clock in the evening, Captain Takarabe rode his bicycle into
Yamamoto’s ministerial residence in Takanawadai-machi. After hearing
Takarabe’s report in a reception room, Yamamoto immediately responded,
“This will not do,” and vetoed the telegram. Throughout his career, he had
always detested anyone speaking out of turn beyond their own authority.
“We must leave the operation entirely up to Tōgō. He cannot fight the
Russians if he is receiving interfering messages from Tokyo, far away from
the front line.” Invoking the old expression “While the general is away the
ruler cannot send him orders,” he prohibited any meddling by the Navy
General Staff.
But Takarabe protested. “It’s precisely because we don’t handle operations
on the ground that we are not misled by all the distractions at the front. We
have more information here in Tokyo. The men in Chinhae Bay don’t know
about the mines that we have laid in Tsugaru Strait. Principle may be
principle, but this is an emergency!”
Yamamoto dismissed his argument. “If it’s such an emergency, all the
more reason to stick with principle! Anyway, that’s enough for tonight. We
can talk about it again tomorrow at work.”
At the time, the vice minister under Yamamoto in the Naval Ministry was
Saitō Makoto. Saitō heard about this exchange the next day and for the rest
of his life, whenever he described Yamamoto’s character, he would always
refer to this episode.
When they discussed the issue at the Naval Ministry the following
morning, Vice Chief of the Navy General Staff Ijūin, together with Yamashita
and Takarabe, practically tore into Yamamoto. For Yamamoto, it made no
difference whether the enemy came through the Tsushima Strait or the
Pacific. “I have nothing to say on the matter. I simply trust Tōgō. If Tōgō
decides that the enemy is not coming through the Tsushima Strait, and he
leaves Chinhae Bay, that’s fine with me. I will support him.”
When Yamamoto said this, the usually placid Ijūin could no longer
contain himself and insisted, “But the enemy is coming through the Tsushima
Strait!”
“Ijūin! Such loose talk is of no use in wartime. Tōgō and his staff are the
men doing the fighting. Your role is to let them get on with it. If you were
the Russian admiral, which route would you take?”
Leaning over the table and bringing his face close to Yamamoto’s
whiskers, Ijūin replied, “If the commander in chief of the Japanese Combined
Fleet were Admiral Yamamoto Gombei himself, I would go through the
Tsushima Strait.”
 clouds above the hill 165
Smiling wryly at this gesture of defiance, Yamamoto finally relented.
“Very well. Send your telegram in that case. But make sure you tone it down
so that it reads as nothing more than a message from one staff officer to
another.”
A telegram was sent to the effect that it would be better to stay put in
Chinhae Bay. Before this could reach the Mikasa in Chinhae Bay, however,
the Mikasa’s original message about its intentions was sent once more to
Tokyo. “If there is no sign of the enemy by midday on May 26, the fleet
will sail from Chinhae Bay that same evening and head north.” These words
reflected the growing sense of impatience among Saneyuki and the other
staff officers.

* * *
With its anchor resting on the bed of Chinhae Bay, the battleship Mikasa
cast a deep-green shadow across the sea as if boring a hole through the white
surface of the water.
That year, the cherry and plum trees had come into bloom at just the
same time. Since spring was passing, the sunlight was growing stronger by
the day, and already reflected on the sea was the bright sunshine of early
summer. The waterline of the Mikasa was lower than usual, since it had
been loaded right up to the deck with British coal. Next to the Mikasa was
the battleship Shikishima. Asahi and Kasuga were also close by. They all
lay low in the water fully loaded with coal, as were all the vessels dotting
the scene from Chinhae Bay out into the Katoku Channel.
“The chances are that the enemy will go through the Pacific.” This
possibility unnerved Akiyama Saneyuki and the other staff officers of the
Combined Fleet, and was the reason why all the ships had been loaded
to capacity with coal. If the enemy took what for Tōgō’s fleet would be
this inopportune course, they could rush headlong north and wait for them
in the Sea of Japan off Aomori Prefecture. But if the enemy chose to come
through the Tsushima route after all, this fuel would be surplus to
requirements.
“In that event we can just throw it into the sea,” thought Saneyuki.
His mood continued to be troubled, since he was not absolutely certain
about the route the enemy would take. The strain Saneyuki felt was so intense
that he looked like a completely different person. The nervous exhaustion
he suffered during this time would remain with him for the rest of his short
life. He slept with his boots on.
Unable to stand idly by, Chief of Staff Katō Tomosaburō, his superior,
warned him, “You cannot hold out physically if you carry on like this.”
166 far-off battleships
But Saneyuki just stared at him, as if he could not even hear what he was
saying. Katō felt so nervous himself that he was sporadically afflicted by
violent stomach pains, and he frequently woke during the night. Another
staff officer suffered from a curious condition, finding himself unable to
urinate.
“It might be better for us to wait for them off the Noto Peninsula,” one
young staff officer suggested.
This would put the fleet right in the middle, well placed to hurry off in
either direction regardless of whether the enemy approached from north or
south.
But the plan also had a fatal flaw. The duration of any sea battle would
be reduced. If the Russians approached via Tsushima, the Japanese would
be unable to fulfill their strategic objective of completing the seven battle
stages required to destroy the enemy fleet before it reached Vladivostok. If
they started out from the Noto Peninsula, they could only complete one or
two battle stages at most.
Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo, the staff of the Second Squadron, and
Suzuki Kantarō, commander of the Fourth Destroyer Division, were firmly
convinced that the enemy would definitely come through Tsushima. Far away
from the center of the operation, these men were effectively bystanders, so
they were in a position to be objective in their judgment and look at the
wider picture without being distracted by small events happening around
them. But this was not so for the staff officers around Tōgō. Even though
the admiral alone made the final decision, they were constantly anxious,
quivering like the needle of a compass. They felt the psychological pressure
of knowing that the fate of the nation rested on their judgment.

* * *
Lieutenant Colonel Moriyama Keizaburō was a former classmate of
Saneyuki’s from his days at the Naval Academy, where Saneyuki had once
helped him figure out the exam questions. He was attached to the Second
Squadron, serving as the staff officer of the Fourth Division.
Moriyama was frank by nature, in fact actually blunt. He had a habit of
pointing out the faults of others without any hesitation, no matter who the
person might be, but at the same time he never concealed his own weaknesses
and failings. Years later, when he had risen to the rank of rear admiral and
looked back on this time, he was quite candid about his own ignorance. “The
majority of the staff officers insisted that we could not just sit around and
wait in the Tsushima Strait. I myself was one of them, but Matsui Kenkichi
thought differently.”
 clouds above the hill 167
Matsui was a commander attached to the First Squadron, serving as staff
officer to the First Division. At each and every staff meeting held on the
issue, he was adamant that the Baltic Fleet would take a course through the
Tsushima Strait. Moriyama opposed this view, and they ended up placing
bets. Whoever won would take the other man out to dinner.
Ultimately, Matsui’s Tsushima course won this wager. When the battle
was over, Moriyama on board the Naniwa had a flag signal sent to the Nisshin
with the message: “Is the staff officer Matsui well?” The message that came
back read, “Died in combat.”
Matsui had been an excellent archer, and, while the fleet waited, he used
to practice firing arrows on the deck of the Nisshin. “The greatest staff officer
died in combat while we ignoramuses survived,” Moriyama lamented.
Saneyuki’s judgment may have been trusted by the whole fleet, but his
planning had wavered under the weight of his great responsibility, and so
he too was among Moriyama’s “ignoramuses.”
“Akiyama thought the enemy would go through the Tsugaru Strait.” This
was the comment made afterward by Yamaji Kazuyoshi, then attached to
the First Squadron as the staff officer to the Third Division. Three months
before, the Third Division had been sent on patrol far to the south to look
out for the Baltic Fleet. This expeditionary force was known as the “southern
detachment” and consisted of the protected cruisers Kasagi and Chitose,
which both had top speeds of 22 knots, together with the converted cruisers
Amerika Maru and Yawata Maru, and also the auxiliary vessel Hikosan
Maru. These ships were operating around Macau on March 4, near Hong
Kong the following day, and off Hainan Island. On March 8, they reached
Van Phong Bay and Cam Ranh Bay, both visited subsequently by the Baltic
Fleet, before putting in at Singapore on March 15.
“A large Japanese fleet appeared in the Strait of Singapore.” At one stage,
this false rumor had worried Rozhestvensky, and this southern detachment
had been the source of the story.
Yamaji, who had served in this expedition, later recalled, “The voyage
around Singapore was a real struggle due to the heat and became particularly
arduous when we took on coal. From my own experience, I could imagine
the suffering the Baltic Fleet had endured. They had to take on coal several
times en route, a difficult operation, and so I decided that they would take
far longer to get here than our calculations at the time suggested. That’s why
I concluded the enemy would come through the Tsushima Strait.”

* * *
Long afterward, Navy Minister Yamamoto Gombei was admired for having
clarified the command structure within the Japanese Navy when he said,
168 far-off battleships
“Leave it up to Tōgō. At such a distance from the front, Imperial Head-
quarters should not interfere with his thinking at every turn.”
Even more noteworthy, Yamamoto clarified his position for Satō
Tetsutarō, the staff officer who later wrote a book on naval strategy. “I did
not say this because of some brilliant theory of my own,” Yamamoto
explained, “but just laid out a guiding principle.”
Praising Yamamoto’s attitude, Satō wrote, “This is really worth conveying
to future generations.”
When Yamamoto later heard that Satō was writing a manuscript that
included these comments, he invited Satō to his house and asked to see the
manuscript. After reading it, Yamamoto declared, “I did not really take such
a bold action, and it would be misleading to future generations if you write
about me making such a brilliant decision. Please rewrite this section.”
This is just speculation on my part, but Yamamoto may have secretly
believed that the Russians would not take the Tsushima course but sail into
the Pacific and through the Tsugaru Strait. In any case, he was not really in
a position to interfere in operations because he was in charge of naval
administration. A man of the Meiji period, he possessed imaginative powers
and meticulous analytical skills that were equal to those of Mutsu Munemitsu,
the foreign minister at the time of the First Sino-Japanese War.
The greater one’s analytical abilities, the easier it is to venture down
blind alleys and become enmeshed in trivial details, and this was certainly
the case with Akiyama Saneyuki in Chinhae Bay. One factor that swayed
his judgment was the question of distance. While Vladivostok is 600 miles
away from the Tsushima Strait, the distance between the eastern entrance
of the Tsugaru Strait and Vladivostok is only 470 miles, more than 100 miles
closer.
“What if,” Saneyuki thought to himself time and time again. What if
Tōgō’s fleet just stayed there in Chinhae Bay, and they received news that
the enemy had appeared at the eastern entrance to the Tsugaru Strait.
However fast the Japanese fleet raced to catch up, for want of an extra 100
miles or so, they simply would not have enough time to head off the Russians
before they reached Vladivostok. Saneyuki became quite nervous as he
mulled this over and, caught up in his numerical calculations, he thought
that it might be best to wait instead at the western entrance to the Tsugaru
Strait.
This at least would allow the Japanese fleet to head off the Russians before
they reached Vladivostok, even if they came through the Tsushima Strait.
The only drawback was that his own grand plan for battle in seven stages
would be seriously undermined. The Japanese might have to be content with
only one or two light skirmishes and would have failed in their objective of
 clouds above the hill 169
totally destroying the enemy. Saneyuki seemed to be grappling with a puzzle
that had no solution.

* * *
“Meeting takes place on board the Mikasa.”
Headlines such as this appeared frequently in newspapers and magazines.
Neither Tōgō nor Chief of Staff Katō ever convened a formal war council.
But those who wished to express an opinion did make visits to the Mikasa
and held discussions with the staff there.
Some heard Saneyuki say, “There are to be no special meetings.”
Iida Hisatsune, assistant staff officer in the Combined Fleet, was one
of the people who heard Saneyuki say this. The reason given was that no
positive outcome would emerge from a formal assembly of all the com-
manders. At the same time, Saneyuki was delighted to receive visitors who
wished to voice their opinion on board the Mikasa, and, as his meeting with
Suzuki Kantarō shows, he himself also went to visit other ships. In the army,
exchanging views without going through a formal procedure was forbidden,
but in the navy this was not required, and officers of all ranks were free to
express their opinion.
During this debate about the Baltic Fleet, the opinion of Captain Fujii
Kōichi, the chief of staff in the Second Division, helped to unify Japanese
policy. Fujii had learned that Akiyama and the other staff officers of the
Combined Fleet really seemed intent on leaving Chinhae Bay and heading
north. In his view, this was a ridiculous plan, since he firmly believed the
enemy would take the Tsushima route. First, he asked Captain Satō Tetsutarō,
his assistant staff officer, “The Combined Fleet staff seem to be in favor of
moving, but what do you think?”
“It would be better to move to somewhere around Okinoshima” was the
clever Satō’s prudent response.
Since the Combined Fleet was waiting between Tsushima and Chinhae
Bay, Okinoshima was a short distance away, so short, in fact, that there hardly
seemed much point in moving at all. But with his eye for detail, Satō had
the acute, penetrating accuracy of a master engraver. If they waited off
Okinoshima instead, he argued, they could respond as circumstances
required, regardless of whether the enemy approached through the Tsushima
Strait or through the Pacific. While his viewpoint did not amount to a fine,
detailed engraving, neither was it the kind of sweeping hatchet blow that
has always been an essential element in tactics.
“So you too are in favor of moving?” Fujii asked, raising his voice in
displeasure. Fujii, a more rugged sort, took Satō’s concise response to mean
that he was in favor of relocating.
170 far-off battleships
“No, only in favor of moving a short distance.”
“Just a short distance?” Fujii tilted his head in inquiry.
“I’m not saying that we should move right away either,” said Satō. In his
view, this was not the right time, but if May 26 came around, and there was
still no sign of the enemy, he believed that they would have no choice but
to move to Okinoshima.
“In that case, you agree that we must not move for the time being?”
“That’s right.”
“Good. So you have no objection if I report to the staff of the Combined
Fleet that the Second Division is against any move.”
After making quite sure that he had the consent of this brainy junior
officer, Fujii went off to pay a visit to the Mikasa.

* * *
That day, light rain was falling in the area around Chinhae Bay. As Captain
Fujii Kōichi’s steam launch approached the Mikasa, a single cutter appeared
through the drizzle. When Fujii asked who was coming, a sailor on board
replied, “Admiral Shimamura, sir.”
This was Rear Admiral Shimamura Hayao, commander of the Second
Division in the Second Squadron. Until recently, he had served as Tōgō’s
chief of staff, but after taking up his current appointment as divisional
commander, he had been replaced by Katō. Fujii boarded Shimamura’s cutter
where he explained his own motive for reporting to the Mikasa.
“This is most opportune,” said a delighted Shimamura, as he agreed with
Fujii completely and was on his way to report just such a view himself.
The two men climbed aboard the Mikasa. A large man who looked as if
he might have been a sumo wrestler, Shimamura had a generous character
in keeping with his giant frame. When Combined Fleet chief of staff, as we
know, he had entrusted everything to Saneyuki. Now he was divisional
commander, and his taking the trouble to visit the Mikasa to present his
opinion signaled a really serious matter.
Shimamura had heard that Saneyuki and the staff of the Combined Fleet
had sent a telegram to Tokyo saying that the enemy was heading into the
Pacific. So they therefore could no longer stay in Chinhae Bay and would
have to move off. When he received this news, this large man started, just
like an astonished donkey.
“Akiyama is thinking too hard,” he thought. Some years later, after
Saneyuki’s death, he would announce during his memorial service, “The
operation during the battle of Tsushima was all Akiyama’s responsibility.”
But at the time of his arrival on the Mikasa, Shimamura had lost all faith
in him. “He must be suffering from nervous exhaustion,” Shimamura thought.
 clouds above the hill 171
Or maybe Saneyuki was not really a seasoned sea campaigner. In any case,
Shimamura was intent on telling Tōgō himself that moving was out of the
question.
Admiral Tōgō was in the captain’s cabin. Shimamura and Fujii entered
the room and were shown to their chairs, but Shimamura remained standing
as he began to speak. He was interested only in the outcome, not the details.
“Which route do you think the Baltic Fleet will take, Admiral?” he asked.
Remaining seated, the small-framed Tōgō gave Shimamura a surprised
look. He may have been wondering exactly what this question really meant,
or perhaps this exceptionally taciturn military man did not make a habit of
responding at once.
After a while, Tōgō opened his mouth and said, “The Tsushima route, of
course.”
Quite possibly this one phrase would earn Tōgō his lasting place in naval
history.

* * *
Shimamura Hayao bowed upon hearing Tōgō’s reply but did not speak much
either. His only response was: “If this is your view I have nothing more to
say.” Summoning Fujii to follow him, Shimamura walked out of the room
and left the Mikasa.
Some years later, Ogasawara Naganari interviewed Tōgō, Shimamura,
and others in an attempt to find out what exactly had passed between them.
Ogasawara had been a staff officer at Imperial Headquarters when this
exchange took place, so he was there in Tokyo when the telegram that caused
so much fuss arrived from Tōgō’s camp. As a result, he still had some
lingering suspicions. If Tōgō had really been so fixed in his opinion, why
had they received this telegram with its message “We wish to move out of
Chinhae Bay?”
When Ogasawara asked Tōgō himself, the reply was simple, “I never sent
any such telegram.”
So he was unaware of the message that had created such a storm. There
had apparently been nothing more than an exchange of views between the
staff at the front line and the staff in Tokyo, but Tōgō had always believed
that the enemy would come through the Tsushima Strait. As he later
explained to an interviewer named Abe Shinzō, he had three reasons for this
opinion.
First, La Pérouse Strait in the north was often covered in thick fog and
not easily navigable for a large fleet.
Second, the Baltic Fleet had been sailing for so long that the ships’ hulls
must have become encrusted with barnacles. This would have slowed them
172 far-off battleships
down, and so the Russians must have realized that if they made the mistake
of sailing into the Pacific, they would only be caught by the faster Japanese
fleet.
Tōgō’s third reason was fuel. Even if every ship were filled to capacity,
there was a limit to how much coal could be loaded. So if the Russians sailed
into the Pacific and used up large quantities of coal, there was a real danger
that they might bring about their own destruction. They might encounter the
Japanese fleet and be forced to fight for several days, eventually running
out of fuel in the middle of combat.
At the time, in 1905, Shimamura Hayao also made what would become
a celebrated remark to his officers. “If the enemy knows anything about
navigation, they will definitely sail through the Tsushima Strait.” The
explanation he gave was not so different from the three reasons subsequently
put forward by Tōgō.
Another of Tōgō’s comments at the time won him something of a
reputation among his officers. When Saneyuki and the staff were debating
this issue in his presence, and someone asked him for his view, Tōgō pointed
to the Tsushima Strait on his sea chart and said, “Since the enemy has
indicated that they will sail through here, sail through here they will.”
The Combined Fleet ended up staying where it was and waiting in
Chinhae Bay. Tōgō never really made waiting a firm and irreversible policy.
He just told Chief of Staff Katō and Akiyama Saneyuki, “Let’s wait until
the next piece of intelligence arrives.”
This was the sequence of events leading up to May 25.
 5
MIYAKOJIMA

“May 25 was cloudy, with a fierce southerly gale,” according to an

anonymous Baltic Fleet staff officer. The wind was certainly strong that day.
But it was actually blowing from the west. A persistent drizzle fell like a
silk veil draped over the sea. The swell was high, the sea turned a muddy
yellow, and the spray thrown up by the bow of each warship turned into
mist and hung in the air. “At nine o’clock in the morning,” the same officer
wrote in his diary, “the fleet set a course for 70 degrees northeast or, in other
words, toward the Korea Strait.” Looking at this another way, they might
be seen as heading past the Pacific coast of the Japanese archipelago.
There was one notable change that day. At eight o’clock in the morning,
after reaching a point at latitude 31 degrees 11 minutes north, longitude 123
degrees east, Admiral Rozhestvensky detached six transport ships from the
main body of the fleet and ordered to them to “Go to Shanghai.” The men
in the Baltic Fleet were overjoyed by their departure, showing clearly that
on the eve of battle they had the will to fight.
These auxiliary steamships had been an indispensable part of their long
voyage. Loaded with coal, ammunition, equipment, and food provisions, they
had sailed with the fleet throughout. But with the battle as near as two days
off (Rozhestvensky calculated they would sail through the Tsushima Strait
around noon on May 27), they would only be a burden if they were still
around.
Rozhestvensky’s decision to detach the ships, however, proved to be the
lucky break for the Japanese that practically determined their fate. Just as
they were worrying over the course the Baltic Fleet would take, a telegram
from Shanghai on May 26 reported that this flotilla of steamships had
174 miyakojima
entered port. That finally convinced them the enemy would be coming
through the Tsushima Strait after all.
Anyway, at eight o’clock in the morning of May 25, Rozhestvensky bid
farewell to these six steamships that had accompanied them so far. With the
battle so near, there was no military band playing music for the occasion
nor any gun salute to send them off. The only parting signal was
Rozhestvensky’s words of farewell hoisted on the Suvorov. Yet for everyone
there, whether leaving or staying, this sent out an even more powerful
message. Dampened by the rain, the differently colored flags on the mast
expressed the words of human beings.
On the bridge of the Suvorov, Rozhestvensky stood still in line together
with all his officers to see off the six steamships until they disappeared
from view in the drizzling rain. From a strategic viewpoint, however, this
emotional send-off was not necessarily a sign of good things to come. Later,
Rozhestvensky would come under attack for detaching only six steamships.
There were still some other auxiliary vessels, such as the Anadyr, Irtuish,
Koreya, and the repair ship Kamchatka attached to the main fleet. This small
flotilla would sail directly through the Tsushima Strait but could become a
hindrance to the warships in the event of a sea battle. They had no fighting
power of their own and were also slow. Ammunition ships such as the Koreya
were also fully loaded with torpedoes. If it was hit by a shell, there would
be an enormous explosion, with a good chance that Russian warships in the
area would sustain damage too. Nevertheless, Rozhestvensky took these
auxiliary vessels along with him to battle. Only one reason was behind this
decision: if they did make it through unscathed, these ships would be useful
when they finally reached Vladivostok.

* * *
Why did Rozhestvensky not detach all his auxiliary steamships and take only
his fighting units into the combat zone? Also, after sending the flotilla of
steamships off to Shanghai he changed the formation of the Baltic Fleet and
deployed all his cruisers to protect the remaining auxiliary vessels.
Withdrawn from the front line, these cruisers became nothing more than the
sentry guards for these moving targets. As the anonymous staff officer
pointed out in his diary, “With this change, the fleet has thus voluntarily
reduced its fighting capability by thirty-two 6-inch guns and twenty-nine
4.7-inch guns.”
In strategic terms, this was certainly an eccentric decision. An abiding
law of tactics at sea is to concentrate your firepower. Dispersal of your own
strength should be avoided at all costs, but this is just what Rozhestvensky
dared to do. Given his reputation as Russia’s foremost naval commander,
 clouds above the hill 175
he was not, of course, unaware of this principle. Yet even a commander in
chief who might be entirely rational when seated at his desk can lose hold
of his critical faculties in a crisis. Hopes and fears can often determine his
actions instead, a tendency particularly marked in the case of a dictatorial
leader like Rozhestvensky. Dictators are not necessarily strong men by
nature, but they can be paranoid about exposing their own frailties and have
an extremely strong instinct for survival. The curious formation that
Rozhestvensky adopted on the morning of May 25 may be seen as not so
much an expression of his intellect as a reflection of his personality.
Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan of the United States Navy was the world-
renowned researcher on naval tactics whose house Akiyama Saneyuki once
visited during his stay in the United States. As Mahan wrote in his Naval
Strategy (a collection of lectures he delivered at the United States Naval
Academy in 1909), “Before the battle Rozhestvensky said, ‘Even if only
twenty ships make it through to Vladivostok that will be enough to threaten
the Japanese Army’s supply line.’” To use a naval strategic term, he followed
a “fleet in being” strategy. This held that “for as long the fleet can stay
afloat it can exert an influence over the enemy,” and in Mahan’s view,
“Rozhestvensky was an extreme proponent of this outlook.” Mahan took an
entirely opposite stance himself, insisting that “A fleet’s duty is to attack.”
But while the Russian Navy General Staff had hinted that the Baltic Fleet
should hole up in Vladivostok, they also sent Rozhestvensky a puzzling
telegram during his stay in Cam Ranh Bay.
“Vladivostok is not a fully equipped naval base, so when you arrive, the
fleet cannot expect to receive any supplies. Also you must expect to receive
no provisions through the Trans-Siberian Railway.”
This made Rozhestvensky think that his fleet must carry as much of its
own baggage as possible.
Mahan spared nothing in his praise for Rozhestvensky’s grand voyage,
but he gave a cool appraisal of him as a commander in combat. Mahan
repeatedly pointed out the error Rozhestvensky made four days before the
actual battle.
“He lacked unity of purpose,” Mahan wrote.
In planning a victory over the enemy, Rozhestvensky was chasing two
entirely different targets. The first was “to escape to Vladivostok, for even
if only just twenty vessels survived they could still have a major impact on
the theater of war.” The other was that “there was bound to be a battle at
some point because they would no doubt encounter Tōgō around Tsushima.”
This single operation, therefore, had two different objectives.
Mahan’s theory of strategy was that you must have a single objective in
order to win victory. He drew on various materials to reinforce his belief
176 miyakojima
that unity of purpose was the key to success, even quoting from the political
theory of the German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886). “William
III (1650–1702) was able to crush James II (1633–1701) in Ireland,” he wrote,
“because he allowed none of the distractions around him to interfere with
his main objective. In each case he made the right decision and acted to
accomplish the single goal he had pursued all along.” Mahan pointed out
that, in contrast with Tōgō, who was faithful to this principle of “unity of
purpose,” Rozhestvensky ended up losing focus because he was chasing two
different targets. Mahan wrote:

That one of Admiral Rozhestvensky’s aims was to escape to Vladivostok

was not so bad in itself. Looking at the situation at the time, however, there
was no chance of accomplishing this. A battle along the way was inevitable.
And given that a battle was unavoidable he should at some stage have had
the foresight to detach all those vessels that might become an encumbrance
to his warships in battle. But since he was chasing two targets of both
escaping and fighting at the same time, he did not even do that.

In order to fight at sea, you must ensure that your warships can move as
freely as possible. To that end, Rozhestvensky should have reduced his coal
supply somewhat (the flagship was so fully loaded that there was even coal
in the captain’s cabin). But because he did not do this, his warships were
so overloaded with coal that they lay unusually low in the water. Given that
a battleship’s purpose is to fight, this was suicidal; his ships became much
like a fighter who enters the ring with sacks of potatoes tied all over his
body.
But, then again, Commander Semenov, the staff officer who continued
to stand up for Rozhestvensky after the war (he wrote an account of the war
and had no operational role), denied this and called such accusations
slanderous. “Some Russian officers on board at the time,” he wrote, “have
alleged that our warships were overloaded with coal as they approached the
battle of Tsushima, but what brazen liars they are!” Semenov, however, was
overstating his defense. In fact, every warship was fully loaded with coal.
At least Rozhestvensky made no effort to unload any surplus coal on the
eve of battle. He was chasing two different targets throughout.

* * *
May 25 passed by without incident for the Baltic Fleet, but in Chinhae Bay,
the staff at Tōgō’s headquarters was running out of patience. They could
not dispel the fear that the Baltic Fleet had not shown up yet because this
enemy fleet had surely slipped away into the Pacific. Saneyuki hardly slept
 clouds above the hill 177
at all that night. Exhausted from worry, he kept mumbling about how they
could only pray for divine assistance. At the same time his own inner voice
still kept whispering to him that the enemy had veered off into the Pacific,
unsettling him all the more.
Meanwhile, there was no change in Tōgō. Convinced from the very start
that the enemy had no real choice but to come through Tsushima, he managed
to keep his appetite, quietly retire to bed at the appointed hour, and sleep
soundly. Throughout the day on May 25, he said not a single word. At night
he slept like a log. Of all the admirals in the world, Tōgō had the most action-
packed career when it came to experience in combat. As a youth, he had
taken part in the defense of Satsuma during the bombardment of Kagoshima
by the British. He had also served as an artillery officer when barely in his
twenties on the Satsuma domain’s steam paddle frigate Kasuga in
engagements with the Tokugawa navy during the Boshin War. He took part
in the battle of Awa Bay (the first battle in Japan’s modern naval history,
fought between the shogunate’s Kaiyō and the Kasuga). Then he saw action
at Miyako Bay in the far north of Honshu against the Kaiten, a warship of
the former Tokugawa regime. He also fought at Hakodate, where he was
involved in bombarding the enemy forces on shore in the siege of Goryōkaku
fort. During the First Sino-Japanese War, Tōgō served as captain on the
Naniwa and played a starring role in the battle of Pungdo.
Following the Meiji Restoration, Tōgō had apparently dreamed at first
of becoming a railway engineer, but he had since spent half a lifetime in
gunfire and smoke, and with the exception of a brief period as commander
in chief of a naval station, he was that rare case of a man who had spent his
entire career at sea. Perhaps all this experience and an expert’s presence of
mind allowed him to settle his nerves, and tell himself, “Once you have done
everything you can to prepare, there is just no point in rushing around in
panic.” Kamimura Hikonojō, commander of the Second Squadron, said Tōgō
had the personality of a man of integrity.
Rozhestvensky, meanwhile, wanted to avoid encountering this Tōgō if at
all possible. If they did meet, he hoped for only the briefest encounter. During
a fall of drizzling rain at nine o’clock in the morning on May 25,
Rozhestvensky gave the fateful order for his fleet to set a course for
Tsushima. The Baltic Fleet proceeded gently at a speed of 5 knots, and when
this occasionally crept up to 8 knots he promptly used signal messages to
slow it back down to 5.
At half past five that afternoon, a signal was hoisted on the mast of the
Suvorov: “Prepare to sail at 12 knots from daybreak tomorrow.” This was
because they would be entering waters patrolled by the Japanese. All through
that night the fleet sailed at a speed of only 5 knots. According to
178 miyakojima
Rozhestvensky’s calculations, this speed would make sure that they would
meet Tōgō at a time of their own choosing. Management of the ships’ steam
engines was also a factor determining their speed. For the battle ahead they
needed to conserve both the energy of the boiler workers who stoked the
engines and also their supplies of coal. But were these really such important
considerations for a commander on the eve of combat?

* * *
The first Japanese to see the approaching Baltic Fleet was Okuhama Ushi,
a twenty-nine-year-old man from Aguni Island in Okinawa. This island was
about 12 kilometers in perimeter and had a population of just five thousand.
Many of the people there had been forced to seek their livelihoods elsewhere,
and so they, like Okuhama, had enterprising spirits.
He was living at the time in Naha on Okinawa. There he would load his
yambaru-sen—a traditional-style wooden sailboat—with groceries and take
them to the island of Miyakojima to sell. Not yet rich enough to own his
own vessel, he had borrowed this boat from Miyagi Jirō and had become
the skipper. It was no easy matter for a small crew to handle a boat on the
high seas, but having grown up in Aguni, he was well versed in the art of
coaxing and humoring the elements to steer a small vessel into port.
On this day, ships leaving Naha were issued a warning notice by the harbor
office of the Naha police: “The Russian fleet is now at sea, so if you see
anything like a warship, report to the nearest police station or public office.
If you see a box floating in the water take care to steer clear as it could be
a mine.”
Okuhama knew that this warning notice had been issued, but it did not
deter him from putting out to sea. His memory of the date and time was a
little vague. According to his recollections, he unfurled his sail on May 25
and started out from Naha Harbor. His destination was Miyakojima, a
distance of nearly 300 kilometers to the southwest.
En route the weather was cloudy, but a perfect wind for his yambaru-
sen. The sailing boat was blowing so strongly that Okuhama thought he might
reach Miyakojima sooner than expected. Naturally, he kept on sailing all
through the night.
At daybreak on the morning of May 26, the sea was covered in mist.
First of all, before eating breakfast, Okuhama carefully ran a comb
through his hair, for he was fastidious about his appearance. Even some thirty
years after the order to cut off topknots had been issued in mainland Japan,
he still kept his hair tied up in the local Ryūkyū style. So did the other sailors
on board. This would save them during the episode that followed some
minutes afterward.
 clouds above the hill 179
When they saw some kind of shadow through the fog in front of them,
Okuhama thought this must be the shore of Miyakojima. Only when he saw
this island moving toward him did he realize that it must be a ship. And not
just any ship but a warship. He could also make out its flag, not Japan’s
rising sun but a design he had never seen before.
He had just decided that this had to be a Russian warship, when these
shadows rapidly increased in number on both his right and left sides; he
suddenly realized that he had somehow found himself caught right in the
middle of a great fleet. A cruiser on patrol ahead of the Baltic Fleet had
discovered Okuhama’s yambaru-sen. Russian sailors, petty officers, and
officers were leaning over the side and shouting at him in Russian,
“Kitajskij?”—asking if he was Chinese. Apart from Okuhama’s tied hair,
what made them decide he was not Japanese was the flag fluttering from
his boat. This had a picture of a centipede, a motif that resembled the dragon
designs often used by the Chinese.

* * *
The talk in town afterward was that Okuhama had left the port at Naha on
May 24 and encountered the Baltic Fleet on May 25, but some later research
by local historian Minamoto Takeo suggested that he had left Naha on May
25 and discovered the fleet on the following morning. Some comment is
needed on the general timeline. To judge from the progress of the Baltic
Fleet, he probably actually saw the Russians on May 22, but he may have
filed his report on the morning of May 26.
Minamoto discovered the diary of Ōno Kusuo, who was head of industry
in the Miyakojima government at the time. His entry for May 26 reads,
“Today a yambaru-sen entered the port at Harimizu (Miyakojima’s main
harbor). The skipper (Okuhama) reported seeing more than forty enemy
warships on his way here about halfway between the islands of Miyakojima
and Kerama.”
It was around ten o’clock in the morning that Okuhama reached the port
at Harimizu and made his report to the government office, where an uproar
ensued. The governor of the island was Hashiguchi Gunroku.
A policeman was also stationed at the government office. He was an
extremely scrupulous individual. “Is this true?” he asked, “If it turns out to
be a lie, this will be no small offense. Make up your mind, and tell the truth.”
The policeman interrogated his valuable informant as if he were a criminal.
Okuhama was honest by nature, and without getting angry he replied, “I
stake my life on it.”
If this was at ten o’clock in the morning on May 26, then it must have
been before the famous first signal from the Shinano Maru, Tōgō’s patrol
180 miyakojima
ship. “Enemy fleet sighted” was the message the Shinano Maru sent with
its signal, at quarter to five in the morning the following day. Okuhama had
filed his report some twenty hours earlier, but at the time there was no
wireless equipment on Miyakojima.
The police officer also attached more importance to procedure than
transmitting the news as fast as possible. His own character was not
responsible for this behavior but rather the immense power wielded by
state officials. He was at the lowest end in the chain of command, and his
superior in Naha carried as much weight in his mind as the whole Japanese
archipelago.
The police officer spread out a map and made Okuhama confirm the place
where he had seen the enemy. Then he took up a pen and wrote out a record
of Okuhama’s account. Just to be sure, he showed it to Okuhama and said,
“This is completely accurate, is it?” Finally, he ordered him, “Fix your seal
here.”
Okuhama did not have his own seal. In that case, said the officer, the
document would be incomplete, and so he told him to go and get one.
Okuhama raced around the town of Hirara and had his own seal made, but
this was not ready until the following day. He then took it with him to see
the police officer and fixed his seal to the written account. By the time the
document was finally ready, the Baltic Fleet had long since passed by.
This does nothing to change the fact that Okuhama was the first person
to sight the Baltic Fleet as it approached Japanese waters. He took great
pride in this distinction, and even though his actions were not widely known
among the general public, he treasured the seal he had used on that occasion.
Before his death from illness in the last years of the Taishō period, he handed
the seal over to his children with his final request: “This seal is a token of
honor in memory of the time I risked my life to do something important.
Keep it in the family for future generations.”
From Okuhama’s story, we can imagine what common people in those
days were really like.

* * *
We’ve told about how there was no wireless equipment on Miyakojima.
Because no newspapers were delivered from Naha, the people’s awareness
of current events had remained largely unchanged since times past. They
did know that Japan was at war with Russia, but they had no idea that
everyone on the main Japanese islands was becoming obsessed with the
location of the Baltic Fleet. There was no one, moreover, who remotely even
guessed that the enemy might pass by close to their own island; they simply
 clouds above the hill 181
lacked the knowledge and information to make such a connection. Time on
Miyakojima flowed gently by as in the age of the gods.
But this sense of time flowing gently by was upset by the arrival of this
incredible news.
“What should we do?” The governor was perplexed.
He knew they must make a report, but who exactly should they tell? Was
it Tokyo? And if so which body in Tokyo? Just who in that body was in
charge of such news? It was like trying to catch hold of the clouds.
“There is a telegraph office on Ishigaki Island in the Yaeyama Islands,”
someone said. This was what saved them. If they used the telegraph
equipment there, they could promptly deliver a report to either Naha or
Tokyo. But how to get to Ishigaki from Miyakojima in the first place?
Normally, this would mean a journey past the outlying islands to the west,
a distance of some 170 kilometers. If you sailed out from Yokohama and
rowed such a distance, it would take you beyond the tip of Miura Peninsula,
west along the Sagami coastline, around the tip of Izu Peninsula, and then
across Suruga Bay as far as the shore close to Cape Omaezaki.
“Would someone be kind enough to go to Ishigaki Island for me?” The
governor and his colleagues began looking around for volunteers. They did
not specify why this person had to go. The vital information regarding the
sighting of the Baltic Fleet, which would determine the fate of the Japanese
state, was simply too heavy a burden for a small local official such as the
governor to bear. He worried over how much trouble he would get into if
he did not keep this secret. Yet he could hardly entrust anyone with this task
without telling them why. This voyage to Ishigaki in the Yaeyama Islands
would risk the volunteer’s life. No one would set out by boat just for fun
without knowing why.
At the time, the surrounding waters were filled with flying fish, and almost
all the local fisherman had put out to sea to catch them. Trawling for flying
fish was carried out in small groups, and there was intense competition among
these teams. The race was on to see how much each team could catch and
how quickly the teams could get back to port. Upon their return, wives would
be waiting impatiently for them on the beach, for once the haul had been
unloaded, these women would carry the catch on their backs a distance of
10 or even 15 kilometers to sell in the next village. The sooner the men got
back, the higher the price they could fetch for their haul. Not only could they
get a higher price, but they could sell off their fish at villages closer by.
At the height of this trawling season, no one had any time for the
easygoing governor’s request. “Would someone be kind enough to go to
Ishigaki Island for me?” As a result, more than half a day was wasted as he
looked around for a messenger.
182 miyakojima
* * *
It happened that just then a young fisherman named Kakihana Zen appeared
before the governor. Exactly when this happened is not really clear. Kakihana
was important enough to be serving as chief of the Matsubara District (in
effect, the local manager), so he had frequent contact with the governor.
Hashiguchi explained the situation to him in full and asked him to make the
trip to Ishigaki.
Kakihana was amazed. With only his experience as a fisherman to draw
on, this seemed quite beyond his own powers, but he agreed, saying he could
only try. He was known as a basically upstanding and courageous young
man, but had he been born a hundred years earlier, he would probably have
lived out the uneventful life of most common men. The same was true for
people throughout Japan. With the emergence of the ridiculously weighty
structure of the modern nation-state, youths from farming and fishing villages
had been taken away, far beyond their wildest dreams, to fight face to face
with the Russians on the plains of Manchuria. Though Kakihana volunteered
for this task, he would risk his life in a similar fashion on the journey to
Ishigaki Island.
He lived in the village of Matsubara. On returning home, he asked his
younger brother Kiyoshi and his cousins Yonaha Gama and Matsu to go
with him, and he also invited a friend from Kukai village called Yonaha
Matsu (an identical name to his cousin’s). Matsubara and Kukai would later
merge, and are now known as Hisamatsu. Situated on Yonaha Bay, this is
the fishing port closest to Hirara, the main town on Miyakojima.
“Get some millet ready.” This was all that Kakihana Zen told his wife.
He said nothing about the purpose of his trip or where he was going. The
millet was for his provisions. Kakihana stuffed this into a sack, which he
then hauled onto his boat.
The boat itself, a dugout canoe known in Okinawa as a sabani, had been
made by hollowing out the middle of a trunk of cedar wood and covering
the hull with whale fat to keep it watertight. It was about 5 meters in length
and just 1.8 meters across at its widest point.
The five men pushed their boat along the beach and then, after running
into the waves, jumped in and began pulling on the oars. Roughly made,
these oars were nothing more than whittled-down logs. Sitting and rowing
in front as the prow broke through the waves was Yonaha Matsu from Kukai.
Seated behind him was Kakihana Kiyoshi, then his cousin Yonaha Matsu
and Kakihana Zen directing operations, each one of them rowing furiously
as they plunged their oars into the sea and pulled. At the stern of the boat
was Yonaha Gama who, with his excellent sense of direction, acted as
 clouds above the hill 183
helmsman. This crew did not even have a compass but relied entirely on
Yonaha Gama’s instinct to steer them as they rowed.
As already mentioned, the usual route to Ishigaki Island would be to sail
down past the outlying islands to the west in the East China Sea. Instead,
they sailed through the Pacific Ocean to the east, an adventurous route
because there were no outlying islands along the way. This was the shortest
distance as the crow flies.

* * *
Before writing this passage, we made various inquiries and learned much
from Matsubara Seikichi, vice principal of Seijō Junior High School on
Miyakojima. Matsubara is the nephew of Yonaha Gama and Matsu. At the
time, Gama was already married with a three-year-old son. His wife’s name
was Kamado and she was twenty-six years old. Of those involved in this
tale, Kamado went on to live the longest, for she died only a few years ago
at the age of eighty-six. While she was still alive Matsubara Seikichi recorded
her account of the episode.
As for the time and date this occurred, she recalled that it may have been
around nine o’clock in the morning on May 26. She was drawing water from
the well and on her way back to the house when a messenger sent by her
husband arrived with his instructions: “I’m heading somewhere far away so
get some millet ready right away.” She thought this was strange. Her husband
had just returned from a fishing trip so she wondered where he was off to.
But she carried some millet anyway along to the Ōdomari shore.
There, on the beach, she found her husband and four others already on
board their canoe and just setting off. She handed over the millet and waved
them off, but she had no idea what was happening.
“I returned to the fields not knowing where they were going,” she later
told Matsubara. She then carried on with her chores and was making her
way back home for lunch when, as she recalled, “People were making a fuss
at every corner. When I asked what the matter was, they told me, ‘They
have gone to where the warships are’ or ‘They have gone to their deaths’
or ‘They have gone off to Yaeyama.’”
She rushed back to her house and burst into tears. “I cried all through
that day and the next. I had just found out that I was once again with
child. . .”
Incredibly, considering how upset she was, neither her husband nor any
of his companions ever told her the purpose of their mission in all the time
they spent together over the next twenty-nine years. So even afterward, these
five young fishermen heeded the words of caution from the governor on
their departure that they must not tell this state secret to anyone. They did
184 miyakojima
not even tell their wives right up until 1934, when the Osaka Mainichi
Shimbun discovered the truth and reported it nationwide. That was why this
curious episode was not known either in Miyakojima or in Japan as a whole.
What was so unusual about it all was not just their extraordinary, heroic
feat of desperate rowing, but the fact that they never revealed what they saw
as a state secret. As we look back now from our own greatly changed society,
this seems the strangest part by far. The Russo-Japanese War was fought in
an era when people still had this naïve sense of duty to the state in all its
authority. Perhaps this deeply ingrained culture of obedience was what
made fighting the war possible.

* * *
They kept on rowing across the sea for a full fifteen hours. This fierce bout
of rowing was a superhuman test of endurance, especially since all five of
them had just returned exhausted from trawling for flying fish when they
set off.
On the outward trip, the sea was calm, and there was sometimes a
favorable breeze. When they caught the wind, they promptly hoisted the sail
and rested their oars in midair, but when they lost the wind, they plunged
the oars back into the sea and rowed for all they were worth.
This is to jump ahead, but on the return voyage they had no tailwind. A
fierce gale blew from the north throughout, and not only was the sea
extremely rough, but they would row for what seemed like several kilometers
only to discover that they were further away from their goal than when they
started.
“My husband’s younger brother Matsu”—Yonaha Matsu—“burst into
tears,” Kamado recalled from what Yonaha Gama had told her. Throwing
up his oars, he crouched down inside the boat and began wailing that he did
not want to die. A combination of fatigue, the fierce wind and waves, and
thinking how distant Miyakojima still was convinced him that he would never
see his wife and children again.
“I’ve got two children. I can’t die now! What will become of my wife
and children?” Matsu kept saying. In the end, he remained curled up in the
bottom of the boat and did not take up his oars again right up to their arrival
back in Miyakojima. His kindhearted companions did not reproach him and
just kept on rowing all the harder to compensate for his absence.
All the while, their leader Kakihana Zen kept urging them on by repeating
only, “God will protect us. We’ll be all right!”
We now return to the outward trip.
In the middle of the night, after rowing for fifteen hours, they reached
Ibaruma on the east coast of Ishigaki Island in the Yaeyama Islands. But
 clouds above the hill 185
when they tried to land, their boat ran aground. Kakihana Zen decided that
they had no choice but to carry on overland, so together with Yonaha Gama,
he went ashore and began running along a country road under cover of
darkness.
Ishigaki Island is shaped like a wooden rice scoop. The handle lies to the
north, and they had made landfall in this area. The place they were heading
for, Ishigaki (now the city of Ishigaki), was located in the head of the spoon,
a distance of some 30 kilometers by road. After running all through the night,
it was apparently four o’clock in the morning by the time the two men reached
Yaeyama Post Office in Ishigaki, the main town on Ishigaki Island, where
they roused the duty clerk from his bed. As they handed over the official
box the governor of Miyakojima had entrusted to them, they could barely
remain standing and slumped to the floor.
The message “Enemy warships sighted” was sent immediately from this
Yaeyama cable station to the prefectural office in Naha and Imperial
Headquarters in Tokyo.
There are various stories about the exact time this message was sent, but
the details are far from certain since Kakihana and his companions were not
wearing watches and anyway did not think their activities were a matter of
any consequence. When their adventure suddenly became big news in 1934,
Yaeyama Post Office was searched for some record of this dispatch, but
nothing was found. The only clear fact is that their message was sent some
hours after the message “Enemy fleet sighted” was dispatched from the
Shinano Maru, Tōgō’s patrol ship.

* * *
There’s another aspect to this event that shows the character of country people
in those days, an aspect even more extreme than what these five men
endured in their terrible fifteen hours of rowing from Miyakojima. I am
referring to their firm resolve to keep quiet about the episode afterward. As
proof, we know they did not even tell their wives. The men perhaps did not
reveal their purpose or destination at the time they set out because they were
nervous about being responsible for the official box, which contained a draft
for a telegram that the governor had deemed a state secret.
But even after the war, when there was no longer any need for secrecy,
the men continued to say nothing. This reflects the spirit of people living in
the countryside, as well as perhaps their sense of humility. It was, above all,
an age in which many of the common people believed that their own actions
were of little consequence unless they were recognized by the state. So if
they received no commendation, they would not go out of their way to put
any value on their deeds or parade their achievements.
186 miyakojima
The feat of these five men sank into obscurity in the fishing villages around
Hisamatsu on Miyakojima. Imperial Headquarters, which had received their
message, knew only that one telegram among others had arrived from
Yaeyama Post Office in Okinawa and had no further information about the
events leading up to the time when the message was sent.
In 1905, Vice Admiral Ogasawara Naganari held the rank of commander
as a staff officer at Imperial Headquarters, and later, after his retirement, he
was asked about this incident. “Well,” he replied, “it’s so long ago now that
I can’t remember exactly what time that telegram came in. In any case, the
message from the Shinano Maru was the first to arrive, and after that
messages were flying in from all directions. The message from Yaeyama
was probably one of those.”
Early on in the Taishō period, Shimabukuro Gen’ichirō compiled a brief
record of the five men’s story, but this was not widely circulated. Then, in
1917, Inagaki Kunisaburō became head of Okinawa Normal School in Shuri,
Okinawa Prefecture. Shortly after his arrival, he heard about this story from
a local resident and used a school holiday to go to Miyakojima and interview
some of the survivors there. He summarized his research in a short article,
“The Secret History of Five Death-defying Brave Men,” which was published
in an educational journal.
This article was reproduced in the junior high school textbook on Japanese
language compiled by Igarashi Chikara in 1926. Even then, the public
remained only dimly aware of the episode until a woman named Ban
Shigeko, a professor at Gakushūin Women’s College, became passionate
about finding out more about the material in these textbooks and decided to
build upon the facts brought up in Inagaki’s article. She exchanged a number
of letters with Nakasone Katsuyone, the mayor of Hirara in Miyakojima,
and after that the governor of Okinawa Prefecture could no longer ignore
this episode. So in 1930, when the five men were old enough to have their
own grandchildren, he gave them some money (in a sealed envelope) as an
award. This was some twenty-five years after they had made their desperate
voyage from Miyakojima to Ishigaki.

* * *
Their story was featured prominently in the May 18, 1934 edition of the
Osaka Mainichi Shimbun, and only then was the truth about these five men
revealed to all of Japan. “The Secret History of the Battle of Tsushima”
appeared under the headline “Four Young Men’s Death-defying Adventure—
One Hour Too Late!” This referred to the fact that their message had arrived
in Tokyo an hour after the first telegram from the Shinano Maru. Perhaps
 clouds above the hill 187
the article referred to four rather than five young men because the reporter
counted only the four surviving members; one of them had since died.
Inagaki Kunisaburō, the head of Okinawa Normal School, who had
investigated the story in the early years of the Taishō period, was by then
the principal of Osaka Municipal Aijitsu Primary School. The Osaka
Mainichi reporter in Osaka probably obtained his information from him.
The Naval Ministry was amazed when this article appeared and promptly
set about giving the men the recognition they deserved. For the very first
time, the four surviving men on Miyakojima began to describe their
experience, but so many years had elapsed that their own memory of the
timeline had become rather vague. Kakihana Zen was already approaching
sixty. Cheerful by nature, he went around accepting the invitations he
received from all over the island and recounted his experience. Feted with
liquor by his hosts wherever he went, he repeated his story again and again.
When we visited Miyakojima, a young man there merrily told us the local
legend of Kakihana Zen and finished off with the words “And that was why
he went on drinking right up to his death.” A man would do well to have
just one experience in his life that merited repeating over and over again.
So when we heard this story, we thought how wonderful it was that Kakihana
Zen’s life had been so clearly defined by this one experience as a young
man that he could spend the rest of his days drinking as he related the episode.
The timeline, however, remains unclear.
“One hour late.” This phrase in the Osaka Mainichi was probably taken
from Inagaki Kunisaburō’s article, but according to Minamoto Takeo’s
minute comparison of the times involved, the five men reached Ishigaki
Island after nine o’clock in the morning on May 28, which would have been
some twenty-eight hours after the signal message from the Shinano Maru.
The decisive battle between the Russian and Japanese fleets in the Sea of
Japan would already have finished by then. So if Minamoto’s study is correct,
no matter how remote the Yaeyama Post Office may have been, everyone
there would have already known that the news “Enemy warships sighted”
was no longer urgent and so would not have sent the telegram. Or,
alternatively, given that there were no radios at the time, the Yaeyama Post
Office may have been still unaware of the outcome of the sea battle the
previous day and sent off this message anyway.
In any event, Kakihana Zen and the other four young men from
Miyakojima certainly took great trouble to row across the ocean in a canoe
so this message could be sent. In retracing the same route on the return
voyage, they were beset by high seas and frequently in danger of being swept
away. Clearly, they might not expect to return alive from such a mission,
and so Kamado, Yonaha Gama’s wife, had cried, “They have gone to their
188 miyakojima
deaths!” as she waited anxiously for them at home. Also they obviously
expected no glory or financial reward from their adventure. Looking back
on these events, contemporary society might conclude that Japan in those
days was full of very odd common folk.

* * *
On May 26, there was a warm, persistent wind from the south. The smaller
vessels in the Baltic Fleet pitched gently as they rode the rising swell and
slipped down into the troughs between the waves. At daybreak, every ship
was proceeding at a sluggish speed of 5 knots.
“I have no idea what the admiral is thinking,” a sailor on the flagship
confessed. This was understandable. At half past five in the afternoon the
day before, Rozhestvensky had sent a signal message to the whole fleet with
the order: “Prepare to sail at 12 knots from daybreak tomorrow.” Yet when
the new day dawned he made the ships carry on at the same rate of 5 knots
that they had kept overnight.
At quarter past eight in the morning, however, he gave the order: “Speed
9 knots.”
It was not the promised 12 knots, but even so the idea that they might be
entering the war zone increased their tension.
This was not the case. For the flotilla of auxiliary vessels, Rozhestvensky
set a pace of 5 knots. But the order of 9 knots he gave his warships was—
incredibly—just for a practice drill. What can he have been thinking of to
carry out a fleet exercise so calmly on the very eve of this battle, a battle to
be fought on such an unprecedented scale? In addition, he had previously
conducted only one very perfunctory set of maneuvers when the Baltic Fleet
had been joined by Nebogatov’s squadron in Van Phong Bay. Ever since
then, he had shown not the slightest interest in any practice drill, which as
every navy in the world knows is the only way to transform a mixed
collection of large and small ships into a single functioning fleet. Although
it may seem as if we are belaboring the point, he chose this of all times, the
very day before they faced the enemy, to suddenly carry out such a drill.
Still, the drill was not unimpressive. With the signal flags fluttering in
the increasingly strong southerly gale, each battleship left a trail of white
water in its wake as the crew did everything possible to act as the hands and
feet of their captain, who himself strove to transform his ship from a single
vessel to an integral part of a united fleet.
Many of the officers reconsidered their opinion of Rozhestvensky, since
this drill raised the men’s morale and did not seem like such a bad idea
after all.
 clouds above the hill 189
The drill ended at noon. The fleet then slowed its pace as it waited
for the flotilla of auxiliary ships to catch up. During these wasted hours,
the officers once again began questioning what was going through
Rozhestvensky’s mind. The maneuvers were all very well, but in the end
were they not simply treading water instead of making some real progress?

* * *
After that came one more round of maneuvers. Everyone began to realize
that they were just marking time. Rozhestvensky was deliberately delaying
their arrival at the projected battle location. At this rate, they would probably
approach the Tsushima Strait during the night of May 26. If they reached
the combat zone at night, they would face the threat of attacks from Japanese
destroyers and torpedo boats. During the day, these smaller vessels would
find it difficult to approach within range of any large battleships, but under
cover of darkness they could steal up and fire off torpedoes before making
their escape. Rozhestvensky so disliked the thought of receiving such visitors
in the combat zone that he adjusted the speed of the fleet to ensure it would
pass through the Tsushima Strait around noon on May 27.
The last practice drill finished in the evening. The fleet moved forward
at the gentle rate of 5 knots.
What frayed the nerves of Rozhestvensky’s staff at this juncture were the
signal flags hoisted on the battleship Nicholas I with the message “Enemy
warships sighted.” This had been at quarter past noon. Only after the battle
would they realize that this had been a mistake, but at the time the Russian
fleet was in a heightened state of tension.
At half past one in the afternoon, Rozhestvensky sent out the signal:
“Prepare for frequent torpedo attacks overnight.” This fear turned out to be
unfounded, for during the night of May 26 not a single enemy ship appeared.
First and foremost, the Japanese had not spotted the approach of the Baltic
Fleet at this stage.
That day and during the evening, the sea was calm. At half past four, a
signal flag was hoisted on the Suvorov with the message “Battle stations!”
At this point, the men in the wireless room on every Russian warship kept
listening to the chilling drumbeat of the enemy. From their radio monitors
they were picking up frequent exchanges of radio messages between what
appeared to be several Japanese patrol boats cruising ahead. Although they
could intercept these messages, they had no idea what they meant. The Baltic
Fleet did not have the skills to break the enemy navy’s code or even
understand the Japanese language.
Even the staff officers were convinced. “We have been discovered!”
190 miyakojima
But the level of morale in the Baltic Fleet was remarkably high. The
languor that had grown during the long voyage and the insubordination
toward superior officers—that most abhorrent illness in a fighting force—
suddenly disappeared. The more positive outlooks of the petty officers and
sailors on board the Suvorov presented a stark contrast to the mood of the
fleet during their previous sojourn in Van Phong Bay. Even the anonymous
staff officer who was so skeptical of Rozhestvensky’s command reported,
“Everyone on board was bursting with high spirits, and as they raced around
the ship, the satisfying sense that our entire fate would be decided the next
day could be seen in the sailors’ expressions everywhere.” This was no
reflection of Rozhestvensky’s skill as a leader, but instead probably shows
that the men understood what they would face the very next day.
“We’re going to receive some fierce torpedo attacks tonight.” Everyone
was resigned to the prospect. Many of the Russian officers and sailors were
so ready for a fight with the Japanese at close quarters that they barely caught
any sleep that night.

* * *
During the night of May 26, the entire fleet sailed on with all its lights turned
out. In the only exception, Rozhestvensky made every vessel shine a single
light in the direction of his flagship. The nervous admiral took this step
to control the fleet, but such a decision could be extremely dangerous if
any high-speed Japanese destroyers suddenly appeared like assassins among
them. They would probably fire off torpedoes, aiming straight at these
lights, and under cover of darkness they would be free to roam at will between
the two columns of the fleet. Some of the staff officers were apprehensive
about this threat, but their fear went no further than private talk in the officers’
mess. In a fleet where even Captain Clapier de Colongue, who was the Baltic
Fleet chief of staff, feared knocking on the admiral’s door, no one dared to
cross Rozhestvensky.
To Rozhestvensky, this action seemed reasonable enough. True to the
criticism whispered about by some staff officers that Rozhestvensky
considered himself the only genius and thought all those around him fools,
he trusted none of his commanders at all, with the single exception of the
captain of one destroyer.
Rozhestvensky must have thought, “If we have all the lights turned out
then that bunch of novices”—the commanders—“will mistake friend for foe
and start firing at each other.” This was all in his mind, however, as these
commanders were not as incompetent as he imagined. There were countless
men in the fleet who were superior sailors to him. As admiral, however, he
did not believe in them, or his character made him fear believing in them,
 clouds above the hill 191
so his commanders were reduced to accompanying him passively, like a pack
of hounds looking up to their master with no powers of judgment themselves.
Rozhestvensky made one other curious decision.
Having run up the signal for “Battle stations,” the commander of a fleet
would normally make sure that all flammable wooden equipment was thrown
into the sea. In the event of fighting, of course, fires could break out on
board and would have to be put out in turn. Past experience showed that to
have any flammable objects around such as chairs and tables might lead to
an uncontrollable blaze. To dispose of these before any action was just
common sense in the navy. Rozhestvensky, however, begrudged losing such
equipment and gave no order for these to be thrown overboard. His fear was
that if the Russian ships did make it through to Vladivostok, they would be
unable to manage without these items since they could expect no further
supplies.
Every commander in the fleet felt uneasy on this particular point. One of
them eventually made an emergency decision, telling his subordinate officers
he was taking full responsibility, and had all the wooden equipment quietly
thrown overboard during the night. Since they faced an imminent battle, he
believed that their sole objective was to win this decisive encounter; trying
to factor in their escape to Vladivostok would reduce their chances of
victory.
Of course, Rozhestvensky never heard about what this commander had
done. Even though it was the day before battle, if he had found out, he would
most likely have meted out the same sort of merciless punishment he had
already resorted to throughout the voyage.

* * *
We continue to follow the Baltic Fleet during the night of May 26. That
evening, Rozhestvensky took his dinner alone in the captain’s cabin. For
the last month, he had not had a hearty appetite. During what would probably
be his last peaceful meal on this voyage, he picked at his food with no real
relish.
When he had finished, he addressed the two orderlies waiting on him, in
a rare, kindly tone of voice, “So tomorrow then, you are assigned duties as
runners?”
As commander in chief, he was often so brutal to his own men that he
beat them with his telescope, but curiously he had practically none of the
usual Russian class prejudice. The reason for this remains unclear, but
perhaps it was because, though an admiral, he had not been born into the
noble class but came from an ordinary background. There are countless
anecdotes describing how he treated his men harshly during the course of
192 miyakojima
this long voyage, but in general terms he did understand sailors as a class
and was always attentive to improving their wages, shore leave, and levels
of hygiene. Possessing this one quality, however, did not mean that he would
ever reach the level of popularity enjoyed by Admiral Stepan Makarov, who
had died in combat at Port Arthur.
Rozhestvensky failed to win the loyalty of his men, not because of his
rough and violent temper but because the sailors as a group probably sensed
that he did not possess Makarov’s abilities and selfless spirit. As men being
led off to war, they did not expect kindness or personal charm from their
admiral. They asked only for competence.
From the long-serving petty officers came the whispers, “There’s
something not quite right with our admiral.” Though Rozhestvensky may
have been every inch a top-class admiral of the Russian Navy in appearance,
these petty officers, who had served on the flagship during the voyage, did
not find him equal to the task, especially when judging him against the record
of his wonderful career and the glowing confidence that had been placed in
him by the tsar.
Rozhestvensky had denounced each and every one of his commanders
but made a single exception in the case of Nikolai Baranov, captain of the
destroyer Bedovy. This man he praised as a model destroyer captain, and on
one occasion he even reprimanded some other commander by hoisting the
signal: “Learn from Baranov.” The whole fleet, however, was well aware
of just how disreputable a character Baranov really was. Not a normal
individual, he was mean with his money and also treated everyone from
petty officers downward as criminals, and he was always using his immense
physical strength to beat up his men.
But rather than hate Baranov himself, the sailors in the fleet detested
Rozhestvensky instead, holding him in contempt for his lack of insight when
he held this man up to them as a model commander. “Can we really beat
Tōgō with a commander in chief like that?” The sailors also brought this
matter up when they considered the abilities of their admiral.
“Yes, we will be serving as runners,” the two orderlies replied, standing
bolt upright.
But Rozhestvensky did not express gratitude for the hard work they would
do. Instead, he told them, “During the fighting, you must stay by my side
at all times.”
Depending on how you interpreted this, he could have meant that he
wanted them to do nothing but look after their admiral just in case something
happened to him.

* * *
 clouds above the hill 193
At six o’clock in the evening, Rozhestvensky went out for a stroll on the
deck of his flagship Suvorov. Whenever the sailors going about their various
tasks heard the sound of his shoes, they scurried away like mice. Those who
did not were frequently beaten so hard that they bled.
On this occasion as well, there was no sign of anyone in his path. The
sound of his hard shoes striking the wooden deck at regular intervals rang
out as he made for the bow of the ship. His greatest concern was the weather.
The wind was not so strong, but Rozhestvensky was encouraged by the
possible hint of rain in the air. His beard felt noticeably heavy, which may
have been due to an increase in humidity.
That evening, the sun set shortly after six o’clock. The mist hanging above
the sea was the dominant feature at nightfall.
At seven o’clock, Rozhestvensky emerged from his captain’s cabin for a
second time. The mist had become thicker.
“Tomorrow we will have rain or perhaps even thick fog.” He could not
conceal his delight on observing the very signs he had been praying for.
Even if he could not hope for rough weather as such, it did not look as if
the day could possibly be fine. It was entirely up to the grace of God whether
they had fog or rain, but either way, he thought, this should be enough to
obscure his fleet from the eyes of the Orientals at sea. He would be content
if the weather looked something like this when they sailed through the
confined passage of the Tsushima Channel. Even if it brightened up slightly
afterward as they sailed through the broad expanse of the Sea of Japan, not
all of his ships could possibly be spotted by Tōgō out there. They would be
all right as long as the sea and the sky were enveloped in a milky thick mist
as they sailed past Tsushima. There was every chance that this would
happen.
Shortly after midnight, Rozhestvensky emerged from his captain’s cabin
once more. The ship was heaving as the swell grew higher.
“Please God,” he muttered. There were no stars in the sky. The moon
should have come out at midnight, but it appeared to be blocked by some
mist or cloud, and since the sea was not illumined by moonlight, they were
still swathed in darkness. At this rate, visibility the next day was probably
going to be poor.
Rozhestvensky also felt more at ease because there was no sign at all of
the sustained torpedo attacks he had feared. It was still only just after twelve
so they would have to remain vigilant, but he did have a moment when he
thought, “If I were Tōgō, I would attack all through the night from sunset
onward to make sure the enemy got no sleep.” The Japanese might be wise
to use their destroyers and torpedo boats to attack and throw the approaching
194 miyakojima
fleet into chaos. With any luck they might sink several of the Russians’ main
warships, thus weakening the firepower available to them tomorrow.
As he wondered to himself why Tōgō was not doing this, Rozhestvensky
began to feel more optimistic that his opponent’s tactical skills might not
be so formidable after all. But for tomorrow’s great challenge, there could
be nothing more dangerous than to develop a false sense of security by being
lulled into underestimating the enemy.
Back at Japanese headquarters, the plans that Tōgō and Akiyama Saneyuki
had made were completely different. They had decided not to use their
destroyers and torpedo boats to attack the Baltic Fleet while it was still fresh.
During the main battle, they would rely entirely on their battleships and
armored cruisers to deliver a decisive blow. They would hold their destroyers
and torpedo boats in reserve for the later stages when they could pick off
stragglers as the enemy ships dispersed.
 Part 8
Translated by Andrew Cobbing
This page intentionally left blank
 1
ENEMY WARSHIPS SIGHTED

Tōgō’s force, the Japanese Combined Fleet, was made up of three different
squadrons. He himself was in command of the First Squadron, whose main
unit was the First Division. This consisted of four battleships under the
Mikasa, together with two armored cruisers, the Kasuga and Nisshin, and a
dispatch boat. The cruisers had been added to compensate for the loss of the
Yashima and Hatsuse, the two battleships that had sunk off Port Arthur after
striking mines. In any sea battle in those days, it was common for battleships,
with their immense firepower and armored defenses, to play the main
role. But in the case of the Kasuga and Nisshin, this posed something of a
problem, as they were armored cruisers only substituting for battleships.
Incorporated into the First Division because they had sufficient power to
attack and defend, they could not be expected to perform like real battleships
and would struggle to measure up in battle. The First Division was stationed
in the Katoku Channel off the southeast coast of Korea.
There was also the main force of the Second Squadron, under the com-
mand of Vice Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō. His main unit was the Second
Division, which consisted of six armored cruisers under his flagship Izumo
and a dispatch boat. Also in the Katoku Channel was the Fourth Division
in the Second Squadron, which consisted of four cruisers under the flagship
Naniwa.
Beyond Katoku Channel on the Korean coast was Chinhae Bay. The
solitary Mikasa was temporarily anchored there, as this allowed Tōgō to
maintain close land communication. If the ship put out to sea, it would have
to race from the very back to the front line of the fleet.
The Third Squadron was led by Vice Admiral Kataoka Shichirō on board
his flagship, the protected cruiser Itsukushima. In its main force, the Fifth
198 enemy warships sighted
Division, were the Itsukushima, Chin’en, Hashidate, and Matsushima, all
vessels which had been the pride of the fleet during the First Sino-Japanese
War but were by then past their best both in age and performance. The
bulk of the Third Squadron waited in the Tsushima area and included
protected cruisers in the high-speed Sixth Division, such as the Suma, Izumi,
Akitsushima, and Chiyoda. Together with the Third Division in the First
Squadron—four ships under the protected cruiser Kasagi—these were
steaming around the patrol zone in close formation, in an effort to spot the
enemy as soon as possible if they took the Tsushima course.
There was also the “Attached Special Service Squadron.” This was a
flotilla of large and small auxiliary steamers under the flagship Taichū Maru,
twenty-four vessels in all, ten of them converted cruisers. They had been
fitted with small guns but were essentially just steamers and did not really
have the firepower to exchange blows with the Russian battleships. All of
them were assigned patrol duties.
One of these was the Shinano Maru. With a steel hull, two masts, and a
single tall funnel, it had a gross tonnage of 6,388 tons. Under the command
of Captain Narukawa Hakaru, this ship had been puffing smoke from its
slender funnel for weeks on end as it cruised around its designated patrol
zone. Built in 1900, the Shinano Maru was a cargo vessel and, as the largest
ship in the Nihon Yūsen line, was used on the regular route between
Yokohama and Seattle.
This is to jump ahead some years, but in the history of Japanese shipping,
no vessel ever worked as hard as the Shinano Maru. After the Russo-
Japanese War, it returned to plying the route back and forth to America.
Due to the advances in shipping technology, the ship was transferred to a
secondary line of work, operating on more local routes. Eventually, the
Shinano Maru was taken out of this service and found a new role as a factory
ship for the salmon industry in the northern seas. At the time of Japan’s
defeat in the Pacific War, it was commandeered from these northern waters
and used as a transport ship for demobilized soldiers returning home from
the south. It was the Shinano Maru that arrived in the Philippines to pick
up the lead character in Ōoka Shōhei’s masterpiece Taken Captive. By the
time the ship was finally broken up and sold for scrap in 1951, it had had
an eventful career stretching over a full fifty years.
Together with the other Japanese auxiliary vessels, the Shinano Maru had
been at sea working as a patrol ship since April 9. Jutting out into the East
China Sea far to the west of the main Gotō Islands lies a tiny islet of bare
rock called Shirose. In former times, this was known only to Gotō fishermen,
but by then it had a lighthouse and was an important reference point for
 clouds above the hill 199
navigators. The rocks of Shirose were also one of the markers used by the
various Japanese patrol units operating in this area to establish their position.
The Third Division, for example, was assigned to patrol duty and cruising
to the northwest of Shirose. The flotilla of steamers—converted into auxiliary
cruisers by simply fitting guns—was strung out in a line to the west of
Shirose. Each vessel was patrolling its own designated zone. These were
the Amerika Maru, Sado Maru, Shinano Maru, Manshū Maru, Yawata
Maru, and Tainan Maru. Close by to the east, two protected cruisers, Izumi
and Akitsushima, were also churning up the waves as they raced around.
The Shinano Maru was moving north. Late at night on May 26, the
waves grew higher. By around two o’clock in the morning on May 27, a
southwesterly gale was blowing fiercely, and the voices of the men on
lookout duty were drowned out by the noise of the wind whistling through
the masts and ropes. Unless they shouted at the top of their voices, not even
those standing close by could hear them.
The fog was becoming thicker. Sometimes it thinned out, but the pale
light of the moon appeared only as a smudge through a dark cover of cloud,
and they could see no stars at all.
On the previous day, May 26, the Mikasa had received the message: “Six
Russian cargo ships have entered Shanghai port,” practically confirming their
belief that the Baltic Fleet was heading for Tsushima. But on board the
Shinano Maru, Captain Narukawa did not know this. All he had to do was
concentrate on patrolling these waters, and there was no need to send him
such news.
He steadily went about his duties. At quarter to three in the morning, he
was dozing off on the bridge when someone roused him, and he leaped to
his feet. A black silence gripped the bridge. Everyone suppressed the urge
to cry out as they fixed their gaze on an isolated group of lights floating out
of the darkness on the port side.
As one, they thought, “It must be the Baltic Fleet!” But each man held
his breath, and nobody spoke as they struggled to suppress the growing
feeling of suspense.
Of course, the men on the Shinano Maru did not yet know that this was
the hospital ship Oryol of the Baltic Fleet (which by coincidence had the
same name as the battleship Oryol). That night, the Russian ships had all
been ordered to sail with their lights turned out. Wireless transmissions were
also prohibited. But the Oryol alone, either through carelessness or for some
other reason, did not follow this order. Perhaps the lights were on because
the Hague Convention stipulated that every party should respect the neutrality
of hospital ships. So those lights were tolerated, even though this hospital
200 enemy warships sighted
ship might seem to be sailing with the express purpose of giving away the
fleet’s location to the Japanese. Any child could see that the presence of a
hospital ship meant a giant fleet was nearby.

* * *
The Shinano Maru took a long, hard look. Captain Narukawa gave the order
to approach to determine exactly what these lights were. As they came nearer,
they saw the lights strung out together at the stern of the vessel. Their colors
were white, red, and then white again.
“That’s the enemy all right!” someone said in a low, sharp voice, but
Narukawa remained silent. He was scrupulously careful. The dim moon was
one reason why they had difficulty making an exact identification of the
lights. Previously obscured from view, the moon had come out and hung in
the eastern sky. Moonlight was shining from behind the Shinano Maru,
further complicating their view, and it was unclear whether this was a
warship or some other vessel.
Narukawa gave the order to increase their speed. “Let’s go around the
stern and come out on its port side. We might be able to see better with the
moon behind that ship.”
The ship’s lights were moving. The Shinano Maru was also on the move,
but since it was so slow, this maneuver was no easy task and, in fact, took
a really long time. The enemy had been sighted at quarter to three in the
morning on May 27, but it was around half past four by the time this action
was completed. By then, they could see the black shape of the Russian ship
floating like a shadow in the darkness. It had two funnels and three masts.
“Could it be a converted cruiser?”
Narukawa looked around to one side when he heard this. Someone
suggested that it might be the Dnepor, but Narukawa made no reply and
issued an order to approach even closer. The most courageous action the
Shinano Maru took was to approach so close that they were practically
alongside the other ship. If this had been a warship, they could have been
blown out of the water with a single blast. Once beside, they could see that
the ship was not fitted with any guns.
“It must be a hospital ship after all!” Narukawa at last made up his mind.
The Oryol apparently mistook the Shinano Maru for a Russian ship and sent
a signal with a flashing electric light.
“They think we’re on their side,” said Narukawa. This was proof that
there must be consort ships around. In short, this was a fleet.
Wide-eyed with this turn of events, the crew members of the Shinano
Maru scanned around them in all directions. Narukawa also looked about
 clouds above the hill 201
through his night glasses. But because the sea mist was so thick, they could
not make out anything at all.
Narukawa was still being cautious. He thought about stopping and
searching the Russian ship, and made preparations to lower a boat. All that
was left was to give the order.
Just then, dawn broke. Although still hazy, the scene on the deck of the
enemy vessel became visible. Everyone’s gaze was fixed on that ship.
Then someone let out with a yell.
They realized that, incredibly enough, the Shinano Maru was right in the
middle of the Baltic Fleet. Countless warships large and small were spread
across the surface of the sea like giant castles puffing smoke, their turrets
raised high and kicking up white-crested waves as they pressed on to the
northeast. The battleship on the starboard bow of the Shinano Maru was
immense. Another was also fast approaching from behind on the port stern,
and the closest was just 1,000 meters away.
Narukawa decided to fight it out and die in combat. This was an unheard-
of stroke of bad luck, for, absurdly, he had been concentrating so hard on
his patrol duties that he suddenly found himself caught right in the middle
of a grand fleet. Already surrounded, he thought he could not possibly escape.
Narukawa addressed his officers on the bridge. He himself probably did
not notice that his manner of speaking made his words sound like a Chinese
verse. “We have been careless. We’re already in the jaws of death. We may
not be best served by wasting all our strength trying to escape. Our ship may
be weak, but now is the time to pick out one enemy warship and ram it at
full speed so that we can sink together.”
But then, Narukawa reminded them, they had not yet reported their
discovery to Tōgō in Chinhae Bay. As soon as they started sending out this
message, the enemy would of course not just try to block the airwaves but
no doubt would use their guns to sink the Shinano Maru together with all
its radiotelegraph equipment.
“For as long as our ship is afloat, just keep on sending the message,”
Narukawa told his officers as he gave the order to turn the wheel a full circle.
The Shinano Maru leaned heavily, waves rose up on the starboard side
and promptly washed over the deck like a waterfall, before flowing away
over the port side. The ship put on full steam ahead in its bid to escape.
Radio waves, meanwhile, carried the message “Enemy warships sighted,”
which flew out in all directions. The Japanese Navy had designated this
location as Point 203. The full message broadcast by the Shinano Maru read,
“Enemy warships sighted at Point 203. Time 0445 hours.” This number was
the same as the spot height of the peak that had proved the greatest stumbling
block in the siege of Port Arthur but was also the high ground where the
202 enemy warships sighted
outcome had been decided. Narukawa’s ship kept on sending out this
number. He was not superstitious himself, but to judge from the number,
no easy contest would ensue when the curtain went up on the decisive battle
between the Russian and Japanese navies later that day.
The ship was fitted with Type 36 radiotelegraph equipment. We’ve told
about how this was developed by a team under naval engineer Kimura
Shunkichi and was considered among the best maritime radio systems in
the world, with a broadcasting range of 80 nautical miles. Kimura had
cautioned against signaling too fast and recommended to the navy that
operators should concentrate on slow but steady transmission. On board the
Shinano Maru, the same message was slowly but steadily being tapped out
over and over again.
Most intriguingly, the Shinano Maru not only managed to escape after
sending out this message but also kept in contact with the Baltic Fleet after
moving a safe distance away. The second message revealed the direction of
the enemy: “Enemy course east-north-east, possibly heading for Tsushima
east channel.” This meant the Tsushima Strait.
Even then, the Shinano Maru still managed to hang on to the tail of the
Baltic Fleet, tracking the enemy’s progress and sending out another message
at quarter past six in the morning: “Enemy course unchanged. Heading for
Tsushima east channel.” This was the decisive report.
Apparently, the Baltic Fleet had not noticed the Shinano Maru’s first
message or its sudden about-face and headlong escape. This all occurred in
the gray before dawn, and the Russian lookouts may have been worn out
after tense days of scanning the sea.
But, then again, the Shinano Maru’s whole crew saw two enemy
destroyers following behind them in pursuit, but they quickly hid behind a
veil of thick fog and managed to escape. “We failed to spot the Shinano
Maru,” a Russian prisoner insisted after the war, so this pursuit by two
destroyers remains a mystery and may have been a hallucination.

* * *
The small cruiser Izumi (2,950 tons) was the Japanese ship patrolling closest
to the Shinano Maru. Around that time, some of the most modern protected
cruisers in the fleet were starting to be built in Japan. These included the
Niitaka, Tsushima, Otowa, Akitsushima, Akashi, and Suma. Already twenty-
one years old, the Izumi was British-made.
When its captain Ishida Ichirō received the first report from the Shinano
Maru, he knew his ship was nearest at hand and decided, “We cannot let
this one ship be sacrificed to save the whole fleet.” Increasing his speed, he
set a course heading directly for the point where he expected to find the
 clouds above the hill 203
Baltic Fleet. In Ishida’s view, the Shinano Maru was nothing but a steamer,
whereas the Izumi, though just a small cruiser with a thin armored deck only
0.5 to 1-inch thick, was still a warship. Lacking the speed of the latest designs
built in Japan, it did have the firepower to face up to the enemy’s cruisers.
So the Izumi felt obliged to take over from the Shinano Maru and carry
out this dangerous mission. The enemy fleet would probably sink them, of
course, if there were an encounter, but Ishida thought, “To lose the Izumi
would not be such a great loss to the fighting power of the Combined Fleet.
It’s far more important that we find the enemy and report in detail back to
headquarters.”
The Izumi was an extremely compact vessel with two masts and two
funnels. The waves were high, and the ship rolled heavily. Sprays of water
breaking on the prow surged across the foredeck before flowing back into
the sea. On board, naval cadet Shimada Shigetarō remembered this as being
“a ship that rolled badly.”
Seeking out the enemy took a long time. After receiving the radio message
from the Shinano Maru at quarter to five in the morning, the Izumi spent
two hours searching the early-morning sea. The haze over the water
sometimes thickened or dispersed as the ship made its way, but the sky above
them was perfectly clear.
At quarter to seven in the morning, they saw the Baltic Fleet trailing
countless plumes of smoke as it proceeded on its way. This was at a point
about 30 nautical miles northwest of the Gotō Islands, at latitude 128 degrees
15 minutes east, longitude 33 degrees 30 minutes north. Just at that moment,
the mist closed in, and visibility was reduced to only 5 or 6 nautical miles.
The Izumi had no choice but to approach even closer. Any nearer and it
might be fired on by the enemy.
Yet they just kept on going. The distance between them dwindled until
finally they were no more than 9,000 meters away. Through his binoculars,
Ishida surveyed the formation of the Russian fleet and counted the number
of ships. He could see that some large battleships had been alerted to the
Izumi’s presence and were swinging their giant guns in his direction as they
set their sights on this little hunting dog.
Preoccupied with his own observations and reports, Ishida made his ship
advance to a position alongside the enemy fleet. The Japanese crew was
reporting in minute detail on the strength, formation, and course of the Baltic
Fleet. “I had so much information on the enemy fleet,” Tōgō later
commented, “that it felt as if they were within my grasp. This was all thanks
to the Izumi.”
The Izumi was trying to act as Tōgō’s faithful eyes. This single vessel
was standing up to one of the world’s leading combined fleets. Ogasawara
204 enemy warships sighted
Naganari compared the Izumi’s action with the approach on Hideyoshi’s army
carried out by Honda Heihachirō (also known as Tadakatsu), when he fought
on the Tokugawa side at the battle of Komaki-Nagakute. Indeed, there was
some resemblance.

* * *
According to the diary kept by an anonymous staff officer of the Baltic Fleet,
the Izumi was sighted at six o’clock in the morning. The 8,524-ton armored
cruiser Admiral Nakhimov saw the ship and promptly sent out a signal:
“Enemy warship sighted to starboard”—that is, at an angle of three o’clock
on a watch. One after another, the Russian ships reported sighting the Izumi.
But Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky gave no order to drive off or sink the
enemy. At around eight o’clock in the morning, he had a signal message
hoisted on his flagship Suvorov with the order: “Starboard auxiliary guns
and stern gun turrets to take aim and keep sights set.” What Captain Ishida
saw through his binoculars—the enemy guns turning and fixing their sights
on his ship—must have been around this time.
Rozhestvensky took no other action. He may not have wanted to disrupt
his formation or lose momentum just for the sake of a small warship out on
scout patrol. He also knew that the Russians had been discovered anyway,
even before the appearance of the Izumi. At around five in the morning, the
repetitive monotone of the Japanese code signals being picked up on the
Russian radio equipment suddenly changed, and there were sounds of more
complex information being sent. What he thought was five in the morning
was, to be precise, actually quarter to five, since this was the time the Shinano
Maru sent its first report. After that, Japanese radio transmissions did change
suddenly, so the Russians could safely assume they had been sighted.
Rozhestvensky was in the control room at the time. “It looks as though
we’ve been spotted,” he said, turning around to Captain Ignatzius and
peering down at the sea chart. Calculating speed and distance, he pointed
to a small, pyramid-shaped island (Okinoshima) lying in the Genkai Sea like
a cut-off mountain summit. “The battle will probably be to the west of this
island,” he said. “At 1400 hours.”

* * *
This is to jump ahead, but back in Chinhae Bay, Tōgō received the radio
message from the Shinano Maru at five past five. Saneyuki promptly decided
that the battle would take place west of Okinoshima. This was a routine
calculation for a naval officer to make; both sides’ computations matched
with uncanny exactitude.
 clouds above the hill 205
As they were clearly destined to meet the Japanese fleet anyway,
Rozhestvensky probably felt that he could disregard the Izumi. Allowing it
to keep on sending messages, however, was quite an inexplicable decision.
After all, the Russian cruiser Ural was equipped with a Marconi radio
set, the finest in the world, with a range of 700 miles. They could have easily
used these powerful radio waves to jam the Izumi’s signals. The captain of
the Ural even requested permission to take such action. But Rozhestvensky
refused, using visual signals to reply with the message: “Do not jam the
Japanese radio.”
Not even the staff of the Baltic Fleet could understand this extraordinary
decision, which was criticized long afterward. “I think this was an act of
divine providence,” said Teragaki Izō, captain of the battleship Shikishima,
after the war. It was a mystery to the Japanese as well.

* * *
Sailing on the south side of the Baltic Fleet, the little Izumi kept following
the enemy on its way northeast. Captain Ishida continued to watch over the
magnificent spectacle of the Russian ships spread out across the sea on his
port side. As more time passed, the mist thinned out, and the sea became
clear, changing to a deep blue. Tsar Nicholas II’s order to go and “teach
those little monkeys a lesson” had, in the shape of this Russian fleet sailing
through the swell, been transformed into a great military force filled with
majesty and spirit on its mission to overpower the island empire in the
Far East.
Reporting every move on board the Izumi, Captain Ishida was astonished
to find that the ship funnels of the Baltic Fleet had all been painted yellow.
“The funnels are all yellow,” he wired. He must have thought that
headquarters on the Mikasa would be delighted to hear this news. The enemy
seemed to have gone out of their way to make things easier for the Japanese
by removing one of the challenges of fighting at sea, distinguishing friend
from foe. All the Japanese had to do was aim and fire at the ships with yellow
funnels.
Ishida recalled the orders he had received in a sealed envelope. The navy
had a convention of delivering orders to the captain in this way just before
he left port, to make sure no secrets leaked out. After putting out to sea, he
would wait for the signal before breaking the seal. Ishida’s envelope
contained the order: “If the enemy fleet fails to appear, you are to make for
the prearranged location in the Tsugaru Strait.” This reflected the oppressive
feeling of uncertainty that had hung over the headquarters of the Combined
Fleet for so long. The contingency plan was to lie in wait at the west entrance
of the Tsugaru Strait. If the Russians did not arrive as expected, it meant
206 enemy warships sighted
they were sailing east of Japan through the Pacific, and the Japanese would
suddenly have to switch to a completely different combat area. Fortunately,
there was never any need to follow this sealed order.
Filling the sky on the port side of the Izumi with clouds of smoke, the
enemy fleet pressed on toward the Sea of Japan.
An unusual incident occurred when the Izumi was close to the island of
Iki. A steamship suddenly appeared on the starboard bow. This was the
Kyōdō Maru, a Japanese army transport ship, which had set out from Hakata
Bay and seemed to be heading in the direction of Tsushima. Captain Ishida
rushed to get a signal flag message hoisted and make this vessel change
course. Next, the Doyō Maru, an army hospital ship, also came along. Again
the Izumi rushed up a signal flag with the warning: “Danger! Steer clear.”
But Ishida panicked still more when the Kagoshima Maru, an army
troopship packed with reserve units, was next to appear, churning up the
waves. Not only did this ship fail to understand his signal message, but the
soldiers filling the deck apparently mistook the Baltic Fleet for the Japanese
Navy and were crying out, “Banzai! Banzai” as they fast approached the
enemy. Ishida had no choice but to make his ship go right up close to the
troopship and taking up a megaphone, he shouted, “That’s the enemy! Flee
at once!” Even then he was drowned out by all their cheers, and no one
could hear him as they came ever closer to the enemy. Ishida took the
emergency step of sounding the ship’s whistle and made the Izumi cut right
in front of the Kagoshima Maru until they finally realized that this was the
Russian fleet.
The captain and the army transport officer on board the Kagoshima Maru
were amazed. They hastily made their escape.
 2
WEIGHING ANCHOR

The whole world was watching and waiting to see the outcome of this sea
battle. In its May 19 edition, the British journal Engineering discussed the
importance of this impending encounter between the Russian and Japanese
navies.

This battle is of unprecedented significance. What is at stake here is

command of the sea. As an island empire, Japan is in much the same
geographical situation as Britain. No disrespect to the Japanese Army’s
victory in Manchuria, but in the context of the Russo-Japanese War as a
whole, the land campaign is a subordinate contest. After all, the Japanese
can only fully exploit their victory if their navy retains command of the sea.
Japan has now reached a stage in this war comparable with that of Britain
after winning the battle of the Nile but not yet having achieved victory at
Trafalgar. If Admiral Nelson had lost to Admiral Villeneuve, the British
Army could not have operated effectively on the Iberian Peninsula, and we
might never have had the opportunity to look forward to the Duke of
Wellington’s victory at Waterloo. So what if Tōgō is now defeated by Admiral
Rozhestvensky? The army’s triumph in Manchuria will have been just an
empty victory.

The article compared the Russian and Japanese fleets by contrasting the
fighting strength of the battleships on both sides. The Japanese fleet’s main
weakness was that it had only four battleships compared with the enemy’s
eight. Five of the Russian ships were the very latest models, so in terms of
age all four Japanese vessels were inferior. In terms of size, however, the
three gigantic Japanese warships Mikasa, Shikishima, and Asahi outweighed
208 weighing anchor
their opponents at 15,000 tons each; by comparison four of these new
Russian ships had a displacement of only 13,516 tons and the other one,
Oslyabya, just 12,674 tons.
In short, the Russians had more battleships and large guns of 9 inches or
more. But the Japanese had more cruisers and guns of 8 inches or less with
a high rate of fire. The conclusion was that in terms of overall material
strength the two sides were evenly matched, and this was indeed the case.
The article also described the battle as “a decisive encounter between two
modern fleets both risking total destruction in combat.” It was, in fact, the
first time since the advent of armor-plated, steam-powered battleships fitted
with giant guns that there had ever been a decisive battle between two large
modern fleets. So until the battle actually took place, no one could really
predict the outcome. It was just impossible to gauge how much the principles
of combat would follow such great battles of the past as the battle of
Trafalgar, which had, after all, been fought by wooden warships.
Given that the material strength of both fleets was roughly equal, the article
suggested that the key to victory lay in the quality of the officers and men.
No opinion was expressed, since this could not be quantified. The article
did venture to say: “It would be wise not to think of the quality of the Russian
officers and men as being as low as the world seems to believe.” For their
part, the Japanese were certainly not underestimating their adversary. All
they could dimly hope for was the strategic advantage derived from their
secretly developed, large-scale fleet tactics and the superior accuracy of their
gunners’ aim.

* * *
It was at five past five in the morning that the Shinano Maru’s radio message
“Enemy fleet sighted” reached the Mikasa in Chinhae Bay. This had been
sent on by the Itsukushima, flagship of the Third Squadron, moored at Ozaki
Bay in Tsushima. The prearranged code for this consisted of tapping a key
seven times to make the sound, “ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta-ta.”
In this early dawn, the radiotelegraph equipment rang out on every
battleship lying at anchor from Katoku Channel to Chinhae Bay. This
included, of course, the wireless machine on the Mikasa. Together with three
other men in his unit, bandsman Kawai Gōtarō was assigned to radio duties.
They were not manning the equipment but acting as runners. On receiving
a signal, the operator would decode the message and seal it in an envelope.
Kawai’s task was to run and deliver this to the command post.
The four bandsmen took turns running these errands. It was just Kawai’s
bad luck that it was not his turn that day. The honor fell to First Class
Bandsman Kase Jun’ichirō, who was two years his junior.
 clouds above the hill 209
According to the history of the war compiled by the Navy General Staff,
this message was received “at around 0505 hours.” Kawai later recalled that
when Kase rushed off with the envelope in hand, all the sailors were out on
deck doing their morning exercises. At five o’clock every morning, the order
went out: “All hands on deck!” With this, the entire crew sprang into life,
and all those not assigned to some other duty would go up on deck to perform
about ten minutes of exercise.
Kase raced along the deck as well. “Here they come!” he cried as he ran.
The sailors’ hair stood on end when they heard this, and they promptly
stopped their exercises and made way to let him through.
Akiyama Saneyuki was on the quarterdeck doing his exercises by himself.
Standing close by was Lieutenant Commander Abo Kiyokazu, chief of
artillery on the Mikasa. Abo noticed how Akiyama’s movements suddenly
changed. He began hopping on one leg and waving both arms in the air like
an Awa dance, as he cried out, “That’s it! We’ve done it!”
“Akiyama was dancing like a sparrow,” Abo remembered years later.
Over the past week, as we’ve already seen, the fear that the Russians might
head for Tsugaru Strait had hung heavily on Akiyama’s shoulders like some
undefinable monster. If the Russians took the Tsushima course, the Japanese
could put into action the operational plan he had specially devised, which
would give them all the time and space they needed to sink the Russian ships
before they reached Vladivostok.
A strategist is a man who stakes everything on this one “magical moment”
when the enemy appears just as he has planned all along, and at that precise
moment his work is all but done. So it was that on hearing the news, “Enemy
fleet sighted!” Saneyuki for the first time smelled the scent of victory. From
then on, victory would depend on Tōgō’s skill as a commander, and the
discipline and morale of the men in the Combined Fleet.
At any rate, Saneyuki was mad with joy. After suffering so much, this
rush of delirium suddenly made him feel immensely powerful, for this
“magical moment” gave him a sensation of superhuman strength.

* * *
Chief of Staff Katō Tomosaburō, a rear admiral, never lost his composure,
no matter how much pressure he was under. He was the son of a samurai
from the Hiroshima domain, and at the battle of Ueno, his older brother
Tanenosuke had commanded a troop of samurai officers against a troop of
Tokugawa vassals who refused to surrender to the new Imperial Army.
Katō himself had enrolled at the Naval School at Tsukiji in Tokyo on
October 27, 1873. He was twelve years old. After following a curriculum
of preparatory and regular courses, he graduated at the age of nineteen with
210 weighing anchor
the rank of naval ensign. For most of his time there, he achieved only average
grades and never really stood out, but in his final year he ranked second in
the class.
Katō was not a very engaging character though, for despite being able to
drink large quantities of alcohol, he was taciturn and rarely showed much
expression. Nevertheless, he had great acumen and an uncommon ability to
evaluate complex issues before reaching an overarching conclusion.
Although he did not have a strong constitution, he was a strong and brave
character always prepared to go the extra mile. His composure and reticence
made him seem quite unemotional, but this was far from the truth, and those
around him could testify to his passionate spirit.
In the early stages of the Russo-Japanese War, Katō had served on board
the flagship Izumo as chief of staff in the Second Squadron under Kamimura.
This was at the time when volunteers were famously being recruited for the
blockade of Port Arthur. One engineer who was refused permission to join
the blockade decided to take his appeal to the captain’s cabin. The captain,
Ijichi Suetaka, tried to soothe him, explaining how nothing more could be
done, since his number had not come up in the draw. Katō, who was also there,
listened throughout without any trace of expression, but once the engineer
left the room he buried his face in his hands and began sobbing loudly.
Ijichi had known Katō well since they had been contemporaries at college.
After Katō’s death many years later, Ijichi recalled, “His dreadful wailing
was really something quite out of the ordinary.”
On that particular morning in 1905, however, Katō was sitting in his chair
and looking quite pale. For about a week, he had been tormented by stomach
pains brought on by extreme strain. He was bracing himself to bear the
terrible pain by pressing his legs down and grasping the table with both hands.
It was then that the radio assistant Kase Jun’ichirō appeared.
Opening the envelope with his slender fingers, Katō took one look at the
message and said, “Very good!” and dismissed Kase with a nod. His
expression revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Next he went into the office
of Commander in Chief Tōgō, who had already emerged from his private
quarters and was sitting in a chair. Katō showed him the decoded message.
Tōgō promptly looked up as he saw it. But even then this taciturn old
military man said nothing. Only his face was lit up with an indescribable
smile, the first time that Katō had ever seen him express such joy.

* * *
Every man in the Japanese fleet had grown weary of the sight of the
mountains around Chinhae Bay, the color of the sea in Katoku Channel, and
the barren scenery of Geoje Island.
 clouds above the hill 211
Chinhae Bay is girdled by treeless mountains about 70 meters high. They
had only the barest trace of greenery, and on some days appeared even
yellow. That morning was one such day. Set against a strikingly deep-blue
early-summer sky, these yellow slopes seemed to press against the sea. The
newly risen sun cast myriad shades of light across the landscape. Perhaps
as a result, the color of the early-morning sea seemed to harbor some deeply
hidden, almost sacred secret.
Third Class Warrant Officer Nishida Suteichi, who was a gunner on the
battleship Fuji, is today still alive and well and living in Osaka. Born in the
city of Settsu’s Hama district in greater Osaka, he tells of how in 1901 the
navy recruited large numbers of volunteers. At the time, Settsu was known
as the village of Mashita in the Mishima district, and the village headman
encouraged the young men to join up by telling them, “Please do it just for
my sake!” With his physical strength, Nishida was clearly cut out for a career
in the navy. Of the thirty-nine men who volunteered in the Mishima district,
he was one of three who passed.
Their training consisted of five months at the Kure Naval Arsenal,
followed by six months’ education at the Yokosuka Naval Artillery Training
Ground. Nishida was posted to the battleship Fuji, where he helped man the
main rear guns (12-inch). His role was to use the hoists to bring up the 800-
pound shells from the magazine and load the barrels of the guns.
When the news arrived that the enemy fleet had been sighted, Nishida
was squatting down and carrying out some maintenance work on the guns.
His head began to throb, his hands stopped moving, and with tears in his eyes
all he could think was: “What if we lose? What will become of Japan then?”
Chief of Staff Katō was still in the captain’s office. After he showed the
decoded message to Tōgō, his wan face lit up as he said, “So now I can give
the order for the fleet to sail?”
Tōgō nodded. Here, at the start of this battle that would determine the
fate of a whole nation, this was the only indication of his intentions. The
fleeting expression of joy had already disappeared from his fine, regular
features, and his everyday look was once again in place. With the gaze of
a farmer as he calmly surveys his fields in the sunshine, he gave off no hint
of any drama at all. The more dramatic the event, the more that Japanese
people tend to conceal their emotions, and Tōgō’s face was like a mask from
a Noh drama.
The ships were just waiting for the order.
Since written advance instructions had been issued to each vessel, they
already knew the exact order to follow in leaving port. Two days before,
the ships had also been replenished with coal, so the engines were now
warming up, and smoke was billowing from all their funnels.
212 weighing anchor
Just as soon as the order was given, the entire fleet would slip away
without a word. This was like a Noh drama as well.

* * *
As we know, Saneyuki was out on the quarterdeck when the telegram
arrived. He stopped that strange dance of his and began walking with a
curiously rapid step. It would not do, of course, to be away from the staff
officers’ control room at the very moment the vital message arrived. He
wanted to break into a run, but it would also be unseemly for a staff officer
to be seen racing around. The men might suspect something was wrong, and
morale would be affected. So he took immensely long strides with great
haste, which made his behind veer from side to side like a torpedo boat at
full speed. Although then thirty-seven years old, he was still as slim as ever,
just as light as in his days at the Naval Academy, and well proportioned to
a fault.
On walking into the control room, Saneyuki sat down at his desk, leaned
forward on his elbows, and glanced all around him with his usual keen gaze.
All he could really do was just pray to God and await the outcome of his
work on the field of combat, but even at this late stage he still had one further
task. This was to send a telegram to Imperial Headquarters.
It fell to him to draft the message that Admiral Tōgō must send his country,
communicating his decision as commander of the Combined Fleet to set
sail for the combat zone. In years to come, Saneyuki was remembered as a
famous staff officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy, but he always remained
something of a mysterious figure. Because of this reputation, the authorship
of this famous telegram was attributed to him. Contributing to this impression
was his reputation as a writer so celebrated that his works were said to be
written in the “Akiyama style.”
But it was not Saneyuki who drafted this telegram.
Right in front of him, Lieutenant Commander Iida Hisatsune and
Lieutenant Kiyokawa Jun’ichi were busy scribbling away in pencil.
When he was ready, Iida approached Saneyuki’s desk and handed over
his draft. “In response to the warning that enemy ships have been sighted,
the Combined Fleet will immediately commence action and attempt to
attack and destroy them.”
“That’s fine!” Saneyuki nodded. Iida began to move away to deliver this
message to Chief of Staff Katō, but before he could run off, Saneyuki said,
“Wait!”
Already he had a pencil in hand. Taking back the draft message he added
the line: “Weather today fine but high waves.”
 clouds above the hill 213
In years to come, whenever Iida Hisatsune spoke of Saneyuki, he said,
“Even in the way he added that one line, we were never a match for
Akiyama.”
Not only did it round off the message perfectly, but these simple
operational terms somehow took on a literary quality of their own. They
also incorporated a further meaning, but more on that later. In actual fact,
however, this phrase had been lying around on Saneyuki’s desk since that
morning. It was part of the weather report that was wired to the fleet every
day by a meteorological expert at Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo.

* * *
The history of Japanese meteorology and its administrative setup can be
traced back to the measurements first taken at Akasaka in Tokyo in 1875.
The Meteorological Society of Tokyo was established in 1882, and two years
later the whole country was divided into seven areas for regional weather
reports and forecasts.
But the man who really developed meteorology in Japan was Okada
Takematsu (1874–1956). Okada took up service at the Central Meteoro-
logical Observatory in 1899 after graduating from the Department of Physics
at Tokyo Imperial University. It was just the year before that his professor,
Nagaoka Hantarō, had predicted the existence of the atomic nucleus. When
the Russo-Japanese War broke out not long afterward, Okada was working
as head of forecasts and observation, so he was put in charge of weather
reports at Imperial Headquarters.
It has often been said that the outcome of a battle is sometimes determined
by the weather. So when hostilities broke out with Russia, the Japanese set
up their own observatories around the combat area. These were located at
Pusan and Inch’ŏn among other places in Korea, and there was also one at
Tianjin in northern China.
Japan was making great strides in the field of meteorology. Okada felt
that the whole world saw his country as a backward nation, even though
they were at war with Russia, so he thought it was vitally important to send
reports in English to observatories and meteorological societies around the
world. Even though he was already exhausted from his own daily duties, he
took it upon himself to set up the Central Meteorological Observatory
English Bulletin. Not only was he the editor, but, since there were barely
any meteorologists of any standing around, he wrote various articles as well,
sometimes four or five in a single issue. As the Baltic Fleet drew near, Okada
worked himself to the bone over his daily weather forecasts. This was
especially true on May 26 when he had a hunch that the sea battle might
take place over the next couple of days. So he took immense care over his
214 weighing anchor
meteorological chart before making his decision on the outlook at six o’clock
that morning.
The data for this chart had been gathered from the various observation
posts on the front lines. Two areas of low pressure dominated the scene, one
measuring 997 millibars over the sea off Kyushu, the other measuring 989
millibars near the Liaodong Peninsula area around Port Arthur and Dalian.
As a result, rain was falling over an area stretching from Kyushu and across
the Korean Peninsula as far as Liaodong.
It required experience as well as scientific expertise to use this chart and
predict what the next day’s weather might be like in the battle zone. Okada
could call on six years’ experience. After thinking it through, he came to a
final decision. All he had to do was put this into words. Taking up a pen,
he wrote in one go, “The weather looks fine but there may be high waves!”
This message was sent from the radiotelegraph office at Imperial
Headquarters to the Mikasa in Chinhae Bay. Now it lay on Saneyuki’s desk.
Of course, Saneyuki did not know the scientist in Tokyo who had written
it. He pared down this simple forecast and added it to the draft telegram:
“Weather today fine but high waves.”

* * *
There is more to be said on this telegram, as it also stated that the Combined
Fleet would “attempt to attack and destroy” the enemy. This statement
contains an important key to understanding the period. Since no military
man in the army or navy would ever dream of embellishing his reports, for
his absolute priority was to convey the reality on the ground, such an
emphatic and perhaps exaggerated phrase as to “attack and destroy” the
enemy had never been used before. Grand terms like this would become
commonplace in military circles just a few years later in the Shōwa period
as officers became bureaucrats and lost sight of reality, so swayed were they
by what can only be described as jingoistic pride. This trend, especially
around the Second Sino-Japanese War, took root and corrupted the army at
its very core. In the army of that time, even reports written by commanders
of units as small as the company level were strewn with such exaggerated
terms.
Tōgō’s command in the Russo-Japanese War, however, dared to use the
expression “attack and destroy” for reasons of its own that were entirely
appropriate under the circumstances. After destroying the Port Arthur
Squadron late in December the year before, Tōgō had returned to Tokyo.
When he went to the palace to report, the emperor asked him, “How do you
rate our chances against the Russian reinforcements”—the Baltic Fleet—
“now on their way?” Apart from Tōgō, Navy Minister Yamamoto Gombei
 clouds above the hill 215
and Chief of the Navy General Staff Itō Sukeyuki were also present. Tōgō
was the smallest man there.
In the course of all the battles he had fought since his youth, Tōgō always
displayed a keen sense of leadership. Reticent by nature and cautious by
habit, he was never even remotely given to idle boasting. Yet it was this
same Tōgō who, in a whispering tone, responded to the question his sovereign
had posed with the words “We will destroy them without fail!”
Yamamoto and Itō were astounded to hear him use such emphatic
language, and on several occasions afterward they grumbled to each other,
“What a reckless comment!” Both men, like Tōgō, hailed from Satsuma,
where no tradition of using extreme terms existed, and, if anything, this was
frowned on. Both displayed a Meiji-style apprehension about boasting in front
of the Son of Heaven. Nevertheless, they could not help but feel a grudging
sense of admiration and even growing trust in the man they had always
known as “that oblivious Tōgō.” Whenever the topic came up in years
to come, they both recalled their astonishment at Tōgō’s behavior at the
palace, for his boasting was far from the usual style of a Meiji military man.
So in a way, it was really quite in keeping for the telegram being sent to
Imperial Headquarters to choose the very same word that Tōgō had used in
his promise to the Meiji emperor. Even the junior staff officers were fully
aware of what Tōgō had said in Tokyo, so the draft message took this form
as well.

* * *
More on the telegram. We’ve explained one reason why they used the word
“destroy.”
From a strategic perspective, there was another reason: they simply had
to destroy the Baltic Fleet if this sea battle was to serve any purpose. After
all, Tōgō and his fleet were saddled with the knowledge that nothing short
of sinking every single enemy ship would do. As one expert writing for a
foreign newspaper explained, “For Rozhestvensky it will be victory enough
if even a few battleships and cruisers of the Baltic Fleet make it through to
Vladivostok and clear the way to disrupt Japan’s command of the sea.”
The Russian admiral’s aim was to escape to Vladivostok. As long as he
managed that, it would count as a categorical success, even without any
resounding victory on the way. After all, this would give the Russians a
significant advantage as they would then be able to threaten the enemy’s
communication lines and starve out the Japanese Army in Manchuria. So
from a Japanese perspective, there would be no victory unless they managed
to sink every single one of Rozhestvensky’s warships. Strategically, Tōgō
simply had to “attack and destroy” the enemy.
216 weighing anchor
Commenting on the phrase “Weather today fine but high waves” that
Saneyuki had added, Navy Minister Yamamoto later said, “Akiyama’s
elegant style was out of order. Official reports should first and foremost
describe what is happening. Any literary flourish just embellishes the reality
and hides the truth from future generations.”
In principle, Yamamoto was right. But in this case Saneyuki was
perfectly justified since he had no real intention of adding any literary
flourishes.
We know that some months before, the three Russian armored cruisers
from the Vladivostok Squadron had been raiding Japanese coastal waters
and had sunk several army transport vessels. It fell to the Kamimura’s
squadron to launch a pursuit, but time after time the Japanese ships, shrouded
in thick fog at the critical moment, allowed the enemy to escape. Stating
that the weather was fine was simply to point out that there was no danger
of that happening again at that point. Given the prospect of good visibility
stretching to the horizon, it gave a strong hint that the enemy would have
less chance to escape.
Since they were well aware of the Japanese gunners’ reputation for
excellent marksmanship, Imperial Headquarters might also infer that the
good visibility would allow them to demonstrate their accuracy and thus
significantly increase the possibility of “destroying” the enemy. The prospect
of high waves could also place the Russian fleet at a considerable
disadvantage. It was no easy matter to fight while a ship pitched and rolled
at sea, so given their superior marksmanship, the Japanese would be at an
advantage if both fleets were faced with these conditions.
With this one line, Saneyuki captured the advantage that the Combined
Fleet held. The Navy General Staff fully understood this when the telegram
reached Tokyo. Yamamoto, on the other hand, was a military bureaucrat.
He may have been the greatest creative force in the history of the Japanese
Navy, but, as he had practically no experience of combat and operations
himself, he possibly just dismissed Saneyuki’s words as mere flowery prose.

* * *
Once Chief of Staff Katō received the nod from Tōgō to get the fleet
underway, he passed this on to the navigation staff officer, who shouted
instructions for the chief signalman to announce, “Set sail in the designated
order.”
The message was transmitted with incredible speed. From the time the
signal corps was called into action, it took less than a minute to hoist the
first flags up the mast. This order was conveyed entirely by signal flags,
 clouds above the hill 217
with no radio transmissions at all. The message went from squadron level
to each division and then on to every warship.
The chief signalman was standing on the flag deck by the bridge of the
Mikasa. As soon as this colorfully spelled out message began to take shape,
each ship hoisted a flag up to half mast in response, and, once all the flags
on the Mikasa had gone up, the flags on the other ships were raised to full
mast to show it had been understood.
“Every ship reports received and understood!” thundered the chief
signalman on the flag deck. The navigation staff officer heard his voice in
the sea breeze and reported this to Katō, who in turn told Tōgō. When Tōgō
nodded, the navigation staff officer turned once more to the chief signalman
and barked, “Take them down,” and so the flags were removed.
By this time, the order had gone out to each squadron: “Prepare to sail.
Weigh anchor!” On board every ship, the same scene unfolded as the bugle
sounded, and runners raced about the deck blowing on their whistles. On
every ship, the capstan creaked violently as the anchor was winched up,
making the whole vessel shudder.
Incredibly, the next order that went out was: “All hands, offload coal!”
Every Japanese ship was loaded with coal right up to the deck, so much so
that the guns barely had any room to train, and sacks were piled up to a
man’s height. We may be repeating ourselves here, but this was in case the
Baltic Fleet decided to head for the Tsugaru Strait. On receiving this order,
all the Japanese sailors threw this coal into the sea as fast as they could.
Only the gunners were spared this task as they had to protect their eyes from
the clouds of coal dust.
On the upper deck of the Mikasa, Kawai Tarō and the other bandsmen
were throwing sacks of coal into the sea like men possessed. It was a totally
bizarre scene, as these burlap sacks were being tossed, caught, hauled, and
thrown overboard. Back then, 1 ton of British hard coal was worth as much
as twenty-five yen. This was the monthly salary of a primary or junior high
school teacher, so as he took part in this dumping operation, Kawai Tarō
thought to himself, “I wonder how many bowls of tempura over rice I could
get for this?” A bowl of tempura over rice was the most luxurious street
food in those days.

* * *
On board the Nisshin, there was as much as 160 tons of coal piled high on
the main deck alone. This all had to be thrown overboard, and it had to be
done with all speed. Everyone raced around covered black with soot, and
in just one hour the sacks had disappeared. Next, the crew had to wash the
218 weighing anchor
deck clean, and it was half past eight in the morning by the time they had
finished their preparations for combat.
Although just an armored cruiser, the Nisshin, together with the Kasuga,
was incorporated as a “battleship” in the First Division. By this stage, of
course, they were well underway. Detailed reports on the enemy were also
starting to come in from the Izumi, which was still in contact with the Baltic
Fleet. Thanks to these, every Japanese ship knew the number of enemy ships,
their formation, and location well in advance. This was a crucial difference
between the two sides, because no one in the Baltic Fleet, not even
Rozhestvensky, knew where Tōgō’s fleet was.
“The battle will probably start just after midday.” Every officer on board
the Nisshin could see this. Realizing that they still had some time left, the
vice captain, Hideshima Shigetada, roared out an order that had never been
heard before in the history of the Japanese Navy.
“Apart from liquor, everything in the canteen is free. No need for coins—
you can eat anything you like!”
If their ship sank, the whole canteen would sink as well. Even if the ship
stayed afloat, it was by no means clear how many men would make it back
to see their hometown again. A novel idea this was, to announce free
handouts, and it certainly helped to relieve the tension on the eve of battle.
Cheers went up as the sailors rushed for the canteen, and here and there
groups emerged, some targeting bean-jam buns, others red and white sugar-
coated soybeans. In those days, rural Japanese villages were simple in their
ways, and many of these men had worn shoes or eaten sweets for the first
time only after they joined the army or navy.
Although Hideshima had told the sailors they could eat all they liked, he
soon felt a bit uneasy about it, and later he felt sorry for them when he
discovered that there was, in fact, only one bag of sweets left for each man.
The Nisshin sailed as the rearmost vessel at the back of the First Division
(the same division as the Mikasa). If they sailed in reverse order, the Nisshin
would take the lead, which is why Vice Admiral Misu Sōtarō was stationed
on board as commander.
At quarter past nine in the morning, Misu assembled all the officers in
their quarters, and after delivering a few rousing words of encouragement,
he opened some champagne and prayed for victory. Captain Takeuchi
Heitarō conveyed their commander’s instructions to the crew, and the whole
ship resounded with music as the vice captain took the lead, and everyone
sang the sea shanty “However Fierce the Wind.”
By this time, everyone on board had heard the news from the Izumi: “The
Russian ships are black, and their funnels are yellow.” The Japanese warships
were painted deep gray, the most difficult color to see on the surface of the
 clouds above the hill 219
sea. The British hard coal they used was also a smokeless fuel, unlike the
smoke from the Baltic Fleet, which stained the sky with thick clouds. The
terrifying image of this immense black floating force dominating the sea
and bearing down on Japan was fixed in all the sailors’ minds, but as they
finished singing the line “Nothing to harm us for as far as we can see,” they
somehow felt a moment of calm inside.

* * *
Suzuki Shigemichi, chief surgeon of the Combined Fleet, was on board the
Mikasa. Tōgō trusted him so implicitly that it was even rumored he had
placed his final will in his care. This story dates back to the sinking of the
dispatch boat Miyako when it was struck by a mine around Dalian soon after
the outbreak of the war. This produced numerous casualties and created
demand for a large quantity of coffins, but the navy had not planned for
such an eventuality and struggled to find an adequate supply.
At that time, Tōgō told Suzuki, “If I die in combat there is no need to
have my corpse taken back onshore. Please bury me at sea. I ask this of
you.”
Suzuki agreed but replied, “Please bear in mind, though, that I might find
this difficult if I die in combat, too!”
On the eve of battle against the Baltic Fleet, the crew of the Mikasa had
just finished cleaning away the soot left behind after dumping all those sacks
of coal overboard. Before the fighting got underway, Suzuki also wanted to
disinfect the entire fleet and had informed the chief surgeon on each vessel
about this in advance. For a fleet to go into action after disinfecting the
interior of every ship was simply unheard of. It was also rare in the history
of environmental hygiene.
Whenever sailors were wounded in combat, they were vulnerable not only
to exploding shells but also to shards of other material. Lives could often
be lost if these wounds were allowed to fester without treatment. Suzuki’s
initiative was intended to try to prevent this from happening as much as
possible. Teragaki Izō, commander of the battleship Shikishima, recalled that
the men first washed down the inside of his ship with soap and then sprayed
disinfectant. The result was that the whole ship became, in effect, a sanitized,
disinfected container.
These were not the only steps taken as the entire crew was forced to take
a bath. There were not enough bathtubs on board for this, so the iron
containers used for storing hammocks were converted for this purpose. With
the hour of combat fast approaching, these empty containers were surplus
to requirements since, in order to provide extra protection, the hammocks
themselves had been piled close together in key areas like the bridge and
220 weighing anchor
next to the guns. First, the containers were lined with canvas to prevent them
from leaking. Seawater was next pumped in, and all that was needed was
to heat it by filling the tanks with steam.
A singular feature of the Japanese Navy, all the men went into battle
wearing brand-new uniforms and even new underwear; the Russians by
contrast wore their dirtiest clothes in combat. In accordance with Suzuki’s
instructions, these new uniforms had all been disinfected and kept stored
away. They were taken out for the crew to change into once they all had
taken their baths. This would significantly reduce the risk of infection when
someone was wounded in battle. Once all this had been done, the vice captain
on every ship had sand scattered around each gun. It was a dreadful task,
for this was to prevent sailors from slipping if the area around the gun became
covered with blood.
This was the last war in which such humane and barbaric tasks were
performed simultaneously.

* * *
No liquor was opened on the Nisshin, but there was some on board the
Shikishima. Out of his own pocket, the ship’s commander Teragaki Izō had
bought a barrel large enough for forty men to drink from. So once the men
had cleaned, bathed, and changed into their new uniforms, he gathered the
crew on deck, opened the barrel, and drank a farewell toast.
“Most likely we will sink together with the enemy!” were his parting
words.
He meant that an evenly fought contest was of no use to Japan. Nothing
short of destroying every enemy ship would do, so they must fight to their
very limits. As he planned to use every gun at his disposal, the ship would
need to approach so close to the enemy that they would inevitably end up
trading shots and inflicting damage on each other. They may not all live to
share the joy of victory, so they should take their leave with this parting
toast before battle even commenced. Teragaki summoned one representative
from each rank and poured out his glass for the toast. The first was a sailor,
followed in turn by a petty officer, a warrant officer, and finally a
commissioned officer.
Meanwhile, as the fleet sailed out of Chinhae Bay and through Katoku
Channel, the flagship Mikasa, which was situated closest to the head of the
bay, appeared to remain motionless. Even as the other ships were heading
out of the bay, this one ship alone did not move. “The ship was probably
running behind schedule,” a sailor on board a cruiser reported, “because on
board headquarters was communicating with the shore.”
 clouds above the hill 221
The Mikasa began to move. It had to catch up and take the lead at the
head of the fleet and so was visibly gaining speed. On board, the men were
rushing about, but as the various tasks involved in putting out to sea were
accomplished in turn, more and more white uniforms appeared on deck, and
the sense of urgency began to fade.
Saneyuki was dressed like all the other staff officers in a navy blue
uniform. But he alone appeared on the bridge wearing a sword belt around
his waist. One young officer dropped his head and suppressed a chuckle at
this strange sight, but Saneyuki feigned ignorance. A firm advocate of what
he called the “loincloth theory,” he had long been saying that a man should
go to war wearing something to tighten his waist, to help him muster his
strength. The Chinese character for loincloth, he explained, was written with
the radical for “cloth” combined with the character for military.” For him
to turn up wearing a leather belt in place of a cloth, however, was a surprise
to one and all.
Tōgō was a stickler for wearing uniforms in the correct manner, and
although a man who rarely showed his feelings, he winced when he saw this
strange apparel. But Saneyuki just pretended not to notice. He really does
seem to have been quite an odd character.

* * *
In Through a Hail of Shells by the navy lieutenant Kawada Isao, we
remember reading about how the captain of a torpedo boat prayed to the
ghost of Admiral Yi Sun-sin when the fleet was moving out of Chinhae Bay.
Admiral Yi, in Kawada’s words, “the greatest admiral in the world,” was a
famous Korean commander who skillfully defeated the Japanese at sea during
Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea. His very existence was actually a miracle
since at that time he was practically the only Korean military official of any
integrity. By any measure, he was an ideal leader, whether in his genius as
a commander, his mastery of tactics, or his loyalty and courage. Despite
being without peer as a sea commander anywhere in the world before the
appearance of Admiral Nelson, his existence had long been forgotten in
Korea, and, if anything, his memory was more revered in Japan. After the
creation of the Meiji navy, the admiral’s achievements and strategy were
carefully studied.
By coincidence, this area stretching from Chinhae Bay to the Pusan
shore, which Tōgō had been using, was also the site of an ancient battle
where Admiral Yi’s forces had once tormented Hideyoshi’s fleet. People in
Japan saw the Russian Empire as a force bent on swallowing up the whole
of East Asia, and the Baltic Fleet was the most powerful symbol of that
222 weighing anchor
ambition. It was not farfetched to believe that sinking every Russian ship
would protect East Asia as well. So the torpedo boat commander may well
have felt that offering up a prayer to the ghost of the greatest admiral that
Asia had ever produced was completely appropriate.
As the Combined Fleet moved off, a flotilla of torpedo boats sailed on
the flanks of the great battleships. On reaching open sea, however, the waves
were higher than expected, creating real difficulties for these small boats of
barely 100 tons. Sometimes their hulls would roll at acute angles of 60 or
even 70 degrees, and the higher waves would swamp their prows, drenching
everyone on board, with only their single funnels remaining visible above
the swell. On occasion, the seawater would even come in through the funnel,
putting the boiler in danger of being doused out altogether. In the end, Tōgō
had no choice but to give the order for all these torpedo boats to take refuge
along the Tsushima coast and wait there until these high waves had died
down.
 3
OKINOSHIMA

The Mikasa was gaining speed as it sailed forward to take up its place at
the head of the First Division. Kamimura Hikonojō, commander of the
Second Squadron, was on board his flagship Izumo, which was temporarily
anchored in Katoku Channel. On receiving a telegram from Tōgō with
instructions to set sail, he sent out the order for all vessels in the area to put
out to sea. They all moved off together.
The battleships in the First Division of the First Squadron were already
making some headway. The Shikishima, Fuji, Asahi, Kasuga, and Nisshin
sailed on ahead until the Mikasa under Tōgō caught up and took over the
lead. Also following behind off to the side was the little dispatch boat
Tatsuta, which pitched violently in the wash generated by the huge warships
around it.
The destroyers and torpedo boats attached to this First Squadron were:
Harusame, Fubuki, Ariake, Arare, Akatsuki, Inazuma, Ikazuchi, Akebono,
Shinonome, Usugumo, Kasumi, Sazanami, Chidori, Hayabusa, Manazuru,
and Kasasagi.
In the Second Squadron, five of the armored cruisers in the Second
Division were also cutting through the waves as they got underway. These
were the Izumo, Azuma, Tokiwa, Yakumo, and Iwate. The Asama under
Captain Yatsushiro Rokurō, however, was nowhere to be seen. This ship
was on some other mission and had to put on full speed to catch up with
the others shortly after ten o’clock that morning. Also there was the Chihaya,
the Second Division’s dispatch boat, which was sailing alongside the Izumo.
Next, the four ships of the Fourth Division, which also was part of the
Second Squadron, were kicking up whitecaps as they went. These were
the flagship Naniwa, a protected cruiser (3,650 tons), together with the
224 okinoshima
Takachiho, Akashi, and Tsushima. The destroyers and torpedo boats attached
to the Second Division were: Asagiri, Murasame, Asashio, Shirakumo,
Shiranui, Murakumo, Yūgiri, Kagerō, Aotaka, Kari, Tsubame, Hato,
Kamome, Ōtori, and Kiji. The first four of these vessels were not in Katoku
Channel at this time, having been stationed at Ozaki Bay in Tsushima.
We know that the Third Squadron under Vice Admiral Kataoka Shichirō
had also been moored off Tsushima, but on that morning it set off promptly
to try to make contact with the Baltic Fleet, in an effort to lure it into the
path of the main Japanese force under Tōgō. Its flagship, the protected cruiser
Itsukushima (4,210 tons), headed up the Fifth Division, followed by the
Chin’en, famous for its exploits in the First Sino-Japanese War, together
with the Matsushima and Hashidate—all of them first-rank vessels in the
previous generation of warships. The dispatch boat in this division was the
Yaeyama.
Also with this Third Squadron were the Sixth and Seventh Divisions. The
Sixth Division consisted of the Suma, Chiyoda, Akitsushima, and Izumi. As
is clear from the work of the Izumi, these ships had been kept busy over the
last week on patrol duty searching for the enemy. The Seventh Division was
made up of ancient relics like the Fusō, Takao, and Tsukushi, and three of
them—the Chōkai, Maya, and Uji—only weighed about 600 tons each.
The torpedo boats attached to this Third Squadron included the Hibari,
Sagi, Haitaka, and Uzura, together with sixteen numbered vessels such as
the number 43 torpedo boat. In addition to these were fourteen old-type
torpedo boats stationed at the Takeshiki and Kure Naval Arsenals.

* * *
A torpedo boat in those days was a miserable mode of transport, really just
a sort of launch that raced about as it stoked up its boiler and puffed smoke
from its single funnel. Armed with several torpedoes, the torpedo boat
would risk destruction by stealing up so close to an enemy battleship that
they practically touched before firing off its deadly load and making good
its escape. To carry out such an operation successfully required a large
measure of courage and good fortune.
“A torpedo boat,” navy captain Masaki Ikutora once explained, “usually
passed the time weaving its way through the narrow straits between the coast
and islands around its naval base. Sometimes, when the rudder struck a rock
and became bent, it would take shelter under a cliff and get a village
blacksmith onshore to come along and bang it back into shape before putting
out to sea again.”
That description had been handed down to Masaki from his father Vice
Admiral Masaki Yoshimoto, himself a lieutenant who had been wounded
 clouds above the hill 225
during the blockade of Port Arthur. It dates back to around 1900 and 1901,
when he had been captain of a torpedo boat based at Kure.
To serve on a torpedo boat in those days was known in the Japanese Navy
as a “beggar’s trade.” With their rough uniforms, poor food, and not even
any toilets on board, the crew really led a wretched existence. But what kept
them going was pride in their role as the giant-killer of the seas, for only
they could dispatch an enemy battleship at close quarters with a single dagger
blow.
The Japanese had a large number of these torpedo boats. Those based at
Ozaki Bay in Tsushima had spent the previous few weeks out on patrol duty,
and so by this stage their paint was peeling off. Without their funnels and
the Rising Sun flag flying from their sterns, they would have looked like
nothing more than old floating logs.
Their orders to put out to sea arrived at dawn on May 27.
“All hands on deck. Prepare to set sail!” This was the instruction issued
on every boat. As one, they weighed anchor at twenty minutes to six in the
morning. The capstans creaked, and the boilers began to fire up.
Once they had reached the open sea, they ran into a fiercely strong wind.
High waves surged relentlessly toward these boats, threatening to swallow
them up as they pitched from prow to stern, and rolled from side to side.
On every vessel, the officer standing by the compass platform clung on to
a post for dear life as he gave out instructions, for if he let go he would
instantly be swept overboard. Under such conditions, they would usually
have worn raincoats and rubber boots when they were showered with sea
spray. But since these would hamper their movements in combat, most of
the officers had covered their heads and cheeks instead with towels in the
style of Edo period robbers. With their pants rolled up and wearing tabi socks,
they kept these towels wrapped around their heads to prevent the seawater
from running down their necks.
At the headquarters of the Third Squadron, there was a lengthy discussion
on whether or not they should still take the torpedo boats with them through
these heavy seas. Some thought it best to leave them behind and let them
catch up later once the waves had died down. Commander Kataoka refused,
insisting, “It’s tough on them, but we just have to take them with us.”
From the Itsukushima, this flotilla of torpedo boats could be seen doing
their level best to follow, dodging waves and at times pitching so violently
that their propellers could be seen exposed above the water. Lieutenant
Commander Hyakutake Saburō, a staff officer on board the Itsukushima,
recalled, “I felt so sorry for them that I tried not to look.” The truth of the
matter was that these old warships of the Fifth and Sixth Divisions were
simply in no shape to contend with the Baltic Fleet unassisted. The only
226 okinoshima
way to make the enemy even take them seriously was to have these torpedo
boats with them, so even if a fair number were to sink in the heavy seas en
route, they really had no choice but to take them along as well.

* * *
The waves grew fiercer as the First Squadron under the Mikasa sailed out
of Chinhae Bay.
“Weather today fine,” read the report, but, in fact, they were shrouded in
mist so thick that it was almost a dense fog, and the visibility was far from
good.
“This mist should clear eventually,” Akiyama Saneyuki told Rear Admiral
Katō Tomosaburō, the chief of staff. Katō gloomily said nothing.
By the time the battle got underway, the mist had indeed become
somewhat lighter, although the sky was not yet entirely clear. Even so, Katō
still felt slightly displeased by the fact that Akiyama, in his telegram to
Imperial Headquarters, had said the weather would be fine. It wasn’t “fine”
at all!
Akiyama looked practically like a shaman priest as he kept chanting away
to himself, “This mist will probably clear. Fortune has to smile on our fleet.”
In later years, in fact, he became a firm believer in divine spirits as a result
of the series of fortuitous turns that blessed the Combined Fleet on that
single day.
This trait of his was so pronounced that Yamamoto Gombei frowned and
said, “That Akiyama talks too much about grace and providence. I fear for
the fate of Japan if future generations are under the illusion that we somehow
won through divine intervention.”
But Saneyuki had, in fact, been racking his brains to the very limit during
the preparation for this sea battle. All he could do at that point was trust in
providence, and the more he pondered, the more it drove him crazy—in such
circumstances, it might not have been such a surprise if he had gone
completely mad. He did not know many Shinto and Buddhist deities, so he
just chanted some names he had learned from his mother as a child as
he prayed that all the kami gods of Japan would descend from the sky above
Okinoshima where the Combined Fleet seemed destined to encounter the
enemy.
“In the land campaign of the Russo-Japanese War,” someone said,
“Kodama Gentarō was the man so exhausted from operational planning that
his life was shortened. In the sea campaign, Akiyama Saneyuki was the one
who went mad.”
But Saneyuki did not really go insane. Having racked his brains so
intensely hard during this campaign, however, he never really looked like
 clouds above the hill 227
the same man after the war. A firm believer in divine spirits, he tended to
jump wildly from one topic to the next.
Saneyuki knew at the time, of course, that dense fog would be no good.
If the Baltic Fleet were shrouded in mist, its escape would be far easier. But
a clear sky would be no good either. This would allow Rozhestvensky to
spot Tōgō’s fleet some distance off, giving the Russians enough warning to
change course and maybe even slip away.
When the two fleets eventually clashed, there was still some mist around.
As a result, by the time Rozhestvensky finally discovered the Japanese fleet,
his own ships were already so close that they could not get away. They simply
had no choice but to put all their energy into fighting it out. Tōgō’s fleet
was fortunate in that the weather was not entirely clear, and there was still
some light mist hanging in the air.
“Ever since he was a young man Tōgō has always been blessed with good
luck.” This is what Yamamoto told the emperor when he explained his
decision to appoint Tōgō commander in chief of the Combined Fleet. Even
more than talent and leadership, an essential quality for an illustrious general
is to have better luck than his enemy. An ill-fated great commander was a
logical impossibility. A general simply had to have good fortune on his side.
Curiously, Saneyuki never really thought of this taciturn little old man
standing next to him as being particularly blessed with good fortune.

* * *
Each member of the Japanese crew hung a wooden name tag across his
shoulder. On the front was written his combat posting, and on the back his
name and address. This was so that he could be identified if he died in action
and was disfigured beyond recognition.
“Do not leave your post during the fighting” went the orders on one ship.
“Even if you need the toilet, just sort it out where you are.”
The large warships did not shake so noticeably, but the smaller cruisers
and destroyers heaved so much that the underbellies of their hulls could be
seen. Before long, they were sailing across the Kuroshio—Black Tide—
Current. This is a major current of warm water that flows into the East China
Sea from the south and splits into two branches west of Kyushu. One of
these, the Tsushima Current, then flows into the Sea of Japan. Known to
fishermen in Kyushu as the “Kuroshio River,” the water here is indeed black,
and as the Japanese fleet crossed into this zone, the color of the sea changed
as vividly as does a tatami mat’s sheen under shifting light.
On the bridge, Chief of Staff Katō Tomosaburō looked deathly pale. His
stomach pains had begun. Never constitutionally very strong, over the last
few weeks he had been suffering on and off from nervous strain, as we’ve
228 okinoshima
already mentioned. The pain became so intense that it seemed to be boring
a hole through his stomach, and he could barely stand. He did all he could
to use sheer willpower to suppress the pain, but at this rate he might not be
able to think straight at all.
“Why does this have to happen now?” Katō thought he was on the verge
of blacking out. Never once had he panicked though, no matter what the
circumstances. He had a reputation for his icy cool reasoning, and he was
also a man of action. He promptly climbed down from the bridge and went
to see Chief Surgeon Suzuki.
“It’s the usual stomach pain,” Katō told him with his habitual dour
expression. “This time it’s really bad. I only need five hours. All I have to
do is survive the next five hours, so please just give me some strong medicine
or something.”
“Just for five hours?” Suzuki laughed knowingly. He was perfectly aware
that Katō’s stomach pains were largely brought on by nerves, so he gave
him some medicine to calm him down.
Katō moved off gingerly as if nursing his pain. Afterward, Suzuki also
went up to the bridge. His main role was as a surgeon, since in those days
military medicine had little in the way of psychiatric treatment. But he
thought he would just go up and check on the health of the key figures
standing on the bridge.
Akiyama Saneyuki was poring over a sea chart. From time to time, he
thrust his right hand into his jacket pocket, took out some boiled broad beans,
chucked them in his mouth, and crunched hard.
“This man’s in a bad way too!” thought Suzuki. He knew that Saneyuki
had taken to keeping his boots on when he went to bed. On his face was
some greasy sweat, a clear sign of sleep deprivation, but given Saneyuki’s
extraordinary powers of concentration, the surgeon felt that his health should
last out at least for the next five hours or so.
Tōgō wore his usual expression. He caught a glimpse of Suzuki’s face
but said nothing in particular and carried on breathing evenly. The tip of his
scabbard was just scraping the floor, and the decorative gold fittings on his
sword appeared to be covered with a green patina.
* * *
The worn-out old ships of Vice Admiral Kataoka’s Third Squadron had been
waiting in Tsushima, closest to the projected battle zone. Tōgō had ordered
this veteran squadron to first make contact with the Baltic Fleet, stay in touch,
and then deliver the enemy into the path of his main force.
“The main role of the Third Squadron was to lead Admiral Rozhestvensky
toward Admiral Tōgō,” the squadron’s chief of staff Lieutenant Commander
Hyakutake Saburō later pointed out.
 clouds above the hill 229
Although buffeted by waves, the Third Squadron under the flagship
Itsukushima was making steady progress. At five minutes to ten in the
morning, at a point 7 nautical miles south by east of Kōsaki, they spotted
some black smoke staining the sky to the south.
“It’s the enemy,” Hyakutake muttered as he peered through his binoculars.
Kataoka nodded. For a while, silence reigned on the bridge of the
Itsukushima.
By this stage, the Fourth Destroyer Division attached to the Second
Squadron (Asagiri, Murasame, Asashio, and Shirakumo) had also made
contact with the Baltic Fleet.
These four destroyers were even bolder than the Izumi, which had made
contact with the enemy already. They were led by Suzuki Kantarō, considered
to be the best of all the commanders in charge of these destroyer divisions.
He went on to have a long and checkered career, and in 1945 he was appointed
prime minister at the height of the Pacific War, when Japan was on the brink
of destruction. He formed a cabinet on April 7 and is remembered for carrying
out the delicate task of negotiating peace by August 15.
That day, Suzuki was on board the Asagiri. The four destroyers under his
command all had tonnages of just 375 tons each, but they had top speeds of
29 to 31 knots. “We were in Ozaki Bay that morning,” he said later. “We
did not receive the radio message from the Shinano Maru, but we did get
the transmissions from the Yawata Maru and Izumi. We immediately weighed
anchor and put out to sea. I think it was about 0500 hours.”
This little destroyer division of four ships was heading further south at a
speed of 20 knots. Conditions made progress heavy going, for whenever the
prow plunged through a wave the propeller at the stern could be seen turning
in midair, and at times they almost keeled over.
The weather was not “fine” at all. Due to the sea mist, the visibility was
reduced to just 5 or 6 nautical miles. At nine o’clock in the morning, these
four destroyers sighted the enemy to the east. They kept approaching at high
speed until at last they were only 7,000 or 8,000 meters away on their port
bow. The Japanese ships clung on without letting the enemy out of their
sight, and at times the two sides were just 3,000 meters apart. This was a
range close enough to be blown to pieces if they were hit by one of the
Russian battleship’s main guns.
Thanks to the radio messages received from this Fourth Destroyer Division
under Suzuki, the main force of Kataoka’s Third Squadron was able to take
a direct course and intercept the Baltic Fleet at five minutes before ten that
morning.

* * *
230 okinoshima
Kataoka’s Third Squadron was sticking close to the Baltic Fleet, heading
on the same northeasterly course as the enemy. These old ships left behind
from the First Sino-Japanese War were sailing parallel to the Russian vessels
4 to 5 nautical miles away on their port bow, for all the world as if they
were part of the Baltic Fleet themselves.
They were strung out in a single line, with the Itsukushima in front,
followed by the Chin’en, Matsushima, and Hashidate. The commander of
the 4,210-ton, 16-knot protected cruiser Matsushima was Captain Okumiya
Mamoru. He had been keeping his binoculars trained on the enemy ships,
concentrating to see when they might open fire. The Russians would have
been able to sink his cruiser without much effort if they wanted to. Okumiya
tended to sweat easily anyway, but at that moment the perspiration was
pouring from his palms like dripping water. Since he was totally responsible
for his ship, he felt anxious about his crew’s morale.
“Some of the men might lose their nerve,” he said to himself in a worried
state as he descended from the bridge and took a turn around the deck. But
if anything the petty officers and sailors looked so calm that he felt ashamed
of himself. Everything appeared just as normal; some men were taking a
rest at their assigned posts and waiting for orders, while others had gathered
in a small circle, assessing the enemy’s strength and formation. These
Japanese officers and sailors had already experienced several battles since
the bombardment of Port Arthur in the early stages of the war, and, more
than the crews of the Baltic Fleet, they were familiar with the unusual tension
that came with the onset of battle.
Just then, a navy surgeon happened to pass by.
“Do you have your lute with you?” Okumiya asked him. He recalled that
this man was skilled at playing the Satsuma biwa lute. The surgeon replied
that he had left it in the officers’ quarters. Okumiya asked him to play a
song, so off he went to fetch it. Soon he was back out on deck and sitting
beneath the bridge.
Waves broke against the prow, and clouds of spray flew past. The deck
gently rose and fell. In this setting, the navy surgeon plucked the strings of
his lute as he began to play the melody of Kawanakajima.
When he asked the surgeon to play a song, Okumiya had intended to calm
the men’s spirits, but listening to the music he himself was transported into
a mood of euphoria. The ship was plowing through heavy seas. The tempo
of the song rose and fell, and at the climax, when recalling how Uesugi
Kenshin had raised his sword and singlehandedly charged the enemy camp
on horseback, shouts of encouragement could be heard here and there from
the officers. The Matsushima found itself in much the same situation as that
of Kenshin charging the enemy. Only the Third Squadron’s task was not to
 clouds above the hill 231
attack but, no matter how irritating this might be to the enemy, to stick to
the Baltic Fleet until Tōgō’s main force appeared. Even so, as long as they
remained within range of the Russian guns, clinging on like this was even
more dangerous than charging straight at them.
Next, the Third Division under Vice Admiral Dewa Shigetō in the First
Squadron, and the Fifth and Sixth Divisions in the Third Squadron each made
contact with the enemy in turn. As the Russians did not respond, they grew
increasingly bold, closing the gap between the two sides still more. But
when they were within 3,000 or 4,000 meters, they suddenly saw some lights
flash from the enemy ships on their starboard side and heard the report of
guns booming across the sea as huge shells began to land all around the
Kasagi and Otowa.
The Third Division, consisting only of cruisers, was hardly capable of
exchanging blows with the main force of the Russian fleet and so hurried
away out of range. Striking the correct balance was difficult, for if the division
strayed too far there was always the danger of losing sight of the enemy
altogether.

* * *
On board the Suvorov, the flagship of the Baltic Fleet, Rozhestvensky had
not left his place on the bridge all morning. Since that day, May 27, was the
anniversary of Nicholas II’s coronation, staff officers and sailors alike
harbored their own assumptions, “The admiral has adjusted the speed of the
fleet to ensure that the sea battle takes place on this particular day.”
In normal circumstances, a grand banquet would have been held in the
officers’ assembly room. Preparations for this did go ahead, although
Rozhestvensky said, “Tell everyone to attend, but for my part I cannot leave
the bridge.” This meant, of course, that Captain Ignatzius was in no position
to leave the bridge either. When the Izumi was sighted at first light,
Rozhestvensky just ignored it. He also ignored the four Japanese destroyers
that arrived later. And even when three enemy cruiser divisions appeared
on the port side, he gave out no particular orders.
“The Chin’en is there,” he muttered to himself as he peered through his
binoculars. The Russian staff officers announced each ship in turn. “There’s
the Matsushima, Itsukushima, and Hashidate.”
“Leave them,” said Rozhestvensky. He wanted to concentrate all his
firepower on the impending encounter between the main forces of both fleets.
These enemy vessels that happened to appear along the way were essentially
no more than couriers, so better simply to ignore them. It was pointless, he
thought, for the Russians to be distracted enough to waste their shells and
232 okinoshima
energy. In this respect, he was perfectly right, and his attitude remained
consistent throughout.
At about twenty minutes past eleven, however, the Japanese cruisers of
the Third Division under Dewa came alarmingly close to the Baltic Fleet.
They came particularly close to the battleship Oryol. As they approached
the combat zone, the morale in the whole Russian fleet had risen, and this
military force seemed completely different from the one that had been so
listless throughout the voyage. Morale was especially high on board the
Oryol, where in their every action the gunners were brimming with fighting
spirit, each man the epitome of a warrior created by God for this purpose
alone.
The gunners of the 6-inch guns amidships on the port side in particular
could not bear to watch the Japanese cruisers kicking up whitecaps as they
sailed before their very eyes.
“Why is there no order to shoot?” they asked.
The gunner in charge of taking aim was so tense that his head seemed
ready to burst. He was convinced that the order to fire would come at any
moment. As a result, he was confused by the shouts around him.
“Open fire!” was what he heard.
The deafening sound of a gun firing thundered out. Everyone briskly went
about their tasks.
But the officer had not given any such order. The gunner had just imagined
the order to open fire. Since this first shot from the Oryol had been fired
using smokeless powder, the Russian warships in the area were not sure
which vessel had actually opened fire. Assuming that it had probably been
the Suvorov, they each opened fire themselves. The bombardment from the
Third Division was particularly intense.
All around the Japanese cruisers, spouts of water immediately shot up in
the areas where the shells hit the sea. They returned fire and kept up their
bombardment as they sailed out of range. Soon a reprimand from
Rozhestvensky appeared in the shape of signal flags on the Suvorov with
the message: “Stop wasting shells.”
This accidental gunfire had an unforeseen effect, for seeing the Japanese
Third Division take flight greatly raised the morale of the Baltic Fleet.
“This Japanese fleet does not look like it’s up to much, does it?” everyone
remarked, and their excited cries helped to lift the oppressive tension on
the eve of battle. From the outset, these crews of the Baltic Fleet had felt a
strong inferiority complex both in terms of training and skill in relation to
the Port Arthur Squadron, which was composed of active Russian service-
men. “There’s no way we can win against Tōgō’s men,” they also believed
because the supposedly strong Port Arthur Squadron had been beaten and
 clouds above the hill 233
sunk by Tōgō’s fleet. This had drained their spirits, but for the time being
the whole fleet felt that this anxiety had suddenly gone.
The exchange of fire was over in about ten minutes. The shells that the
Russians had fired by mistake did no real damage to the Third Division, but
not one of the Japanese shells fired in response hit their targets either.
“They’re not such good shots after all,” everyone said, with relief.
At the same time, many of the Russians had noticed something strange
about the way these Japanese shells hit the water. In any navy in the world,
a jet of water normally shot up in the air on impact. But in the case of these
Japanese shells, thin films of black smoke were also swirling among these
clouds of spray.
“Is that Shimose powder?” cried the astonished commander of the Oryol,
Captain Nikolai Yung. They had been told repeatedly about Shimose
powder’s strange power to burn up everything it touched, but this was the
first time they had seen it for themselves.
From the bridge of the Suvorov, they could not really see how these
Japanese shells had fallen. But Rozhestvensky was not sad to observe this
irritating little flotilla of Japanese cruisers taking fright at the Russian
barrage of foam and scurrying away. That was why, even though some of
his ships had fired without orders, he did not send his usually sharp reprimand
but contented himself with the instruction: “Stop wasting shells!”
In the officers’ assembly room on board the Suvorov, a banquet was being
held to commemorate the anniversary of Nicholas II’s coronation. “Today
on the anniversary of our sacred sovereign’s coronation,” announced the
commander, Andrei Makedonsky, as he gave the toast, “we shall do every-
thing in our power to render service and show our faith in the motherland.
May God protect the Tsar, the Empress, and the Russian Empire. Hurrah!”
“Hurrah!” cheered the assembled officers as they joined in. They repeated
this three times. After the third hurrah, a trumpet sounded from somewhere
on deck calling on them to prepare for combat. The flotilla of Japanese
cruisers had returned.
“Look! They’re back!” cried a staff officer on the bridge with a pained
yell as he pointed toward the port bow. The Japanese cruisers, with the
Itsukushima at the front, had indeed reappeared. One by one, they emerged
like shadows through the light mist.
Incredibly, some of these Japanese ships were also moving so fast that
they seemed intent on cutting right across in front of the Baltic Fleet. None
of the Russian staff officers could believe that they really meant to give
combat. If there was a full-scale exchange of gunfire, these decrepit little
Japanese cruisers would be smashed to pieces like eggshells.
234 okinoshima
“Cut in front of the enemy fleet,” Kataoka, who was in command, did
actually order the Sixth Division (minus the Izumi). His aim was to get ahead
of the Russians so as to monitor their movements more accurately. Or, to
be more precise, the Baltic Fleet had been periodically changing direction
in an attempt to obscure its course from the Japanese, so he wanted to get
out in front to see whether or not the reports (indicating a northeasterly
course) that they had been receiving from the Izumi were, in fact, correct.

* * *
Accuracy and attention to detail were priorities not only for Tōgō but also
for the whole Japanese Navy. Putting such priorities into practice, however,
required the courage to risk total destruction. Then again, total destruction
of the Third Squadron would not have been such a disaster in the pursuit of
these goals. The Third Squadron’s mission was to patrol, report, and lure
the enemy; the squadron would have been of little use in the impending sea
battle involving the main force of the Japanese fleet under the Mikasa.
Fulfillment of its one mission would be sufficient for the Third Squadron.
If the entire squadron sank in the process, the Japanese would not have lost
much.
Meanwhile, the Izumi, which had been tracking the enemy since early
morning from the other side (the starboard side of the Baltic Fleet), was still
sending out radio messages on its course. Because these readings were taken
at some distance from the Russian ships, the slightest mistakes in the
readings could make ascertaining their position accurately very difficult. That
was why Kataoka still had his doubts and decided to send the Sixth Division
out in front of the Baltic Fleet.
As already mentioned, the Fourth Destroyer Division (under the command
of Suzuki Kantarō) was also on the scene, although this was attached to the
Second Squadron and not under Kataoka’s command in the Third Squadron.
“Let’s try to get out in front of the enemy,” thought Suzuki, his mind running
along the same lines as Kataoka. The four destroyers under Suzuki on board
the Asagiri were speedy vessels capable of 29 knots each. The enemy’s speed
was 12 knots. Suzuki gradually overtook and then cut in front of the Baltic
Fleet.
“From out in front you can see clearly,” he explained in years to come,
“so there is no more accurate measurement than that.” After getting ahead
of the enemy, they could see to their amazement that the Izumi’s observations
had been right all along.
This action by the Asagiri, however, came as a great shock to
Rozhestvensky.
“They have laid mines in our path!” He leaped to the wrong conclusion.
 clouds above the hill 235
* * *
Suzuki had cut in front simply to take an exact reading on the course of the
Baltic Fleet with no margin of error. In part, his own scrupulous nature may
have been behind this act. Rozhestvensky and his staff were totally unaware
of this obsession for accuracy within the Japanese Navy, and they did not
have the remotest idea that such a trait would be manifest at such a critical
time as this.
“Those four destroyers have laid mines,” they said, promptly changing
their formation. They were trying to avoid sailing through the zone where
they thought these mines had been laid. Russian records confirm that they
were thinking along these lines: “The Japanese had also done this on August
10 (battle of the Yellow Sea). There was a strong suspicion that they had
been laying mines.”
Until then Rozhestvensky had been tolerant of these Japanese wolves in
pursuit (decrepit old vessels that they were), but at that point he said, “Right!
Let’s sink them!” By deciding that the First Division should move in
formation and swerve sharply to starboard, he could not only avoid the
minefield in front but also be in a position to use the firepower of his best
four battleships under the Suvorov against the enemy ships ahead.
To achieve this, the Baltic Fleet had to embark on a maneuver that was
not really its greatest strength. First, the order was given for each vessel in
the First Division to turn hard to starboard by 8 points. This meant a full 90
degrees to the right. Each ship performed this maneuver in turn. On every
ship, high waves surged over the deck from the starboard side. It was a
stirring sight to behold.
But they could not keep on heading out to starboard indefinitely. At some
stage, they would all have to turn back again a full 8 points to port in order
to regain their original course. During the course of this subsequent turn,
some confusion arose when the Alexander III misinterpreted the signal flags
from the flagship Suvorov (something that was just not supposed to happen
on a well-trained battleship of a major naval power). Instead of turning, it
just kept on tracking behind in the wake of the Suvorov.
“The Alexander III is just tracking the Suvorov,” the commanders of the
other battleships following behind decided, with amazement. From this, they
jumped to the conclusion that it was they who had misunderstood the signal
flags. Even though they had already begun making turns of 8 points to port
as ordered, they immediately abandoned the maneuver and adjusted their
own course to follow behind the Alexander III, which had made the mistake
in the first place.
“Those foolish commanders!” thundered Rozhestvensky from the bridge
of the Suvorov. His voice was carried away in the strong westerly gale.
236 okinoshima
The resulting chaos in the Russian formation was beyond redemption.
Previously, the First Division, as the command center of the fleet throughout
the voyage, had been out in front just ahead of the Second Division, with
the Third Division following behind. But at this point they seemed to be
sailing alongside each other in a formation that defied description. This was
not the shape required to fight a battle.
Rozhestvensky soon had signal messages hoisted to disentangle the chaos
and return the fleet to a fighting formation, but this disarray just before the
encounter with the main enemy force had created a terrible mess.
“A fleet is not just a collection of ships. Only constant training really
creates a fleet.” Navies around the world could only look with derision on
Rozhestvensky’s fleet as they invoked this general principle.

* * *
In this stretch of sea is a solitary island known as Okinoshima. In ancient
times before the dawn of history, people made their way between what is
now Korean and Japanese territory in log boats called amanotorifune, a
“heavenly bird boat.” For them, this remote place in the distant sea seemed
so mysterious that the island itself was worshipped as a deity, and they held
religious rites in its name. The people who lived along these coasts appear
to have called themselves the Azumi or Munakata.
These tribes closely resembled the fishing communities in the Liaodong
Peninsula and along the west coast of Korea that in ancient China were
apparently known as the Huo. The Huo disappeared without trace, but in
Japan the island of Okinoshima, which such tribes had worshipped, is still
revered today as a sea deity of the Great Shrine of Munakata in Kyushu. In
recent years, it has become famous for the archaeological surveys that have
unearthed large quantities of Yayoi-style earthenware vessels once used in
daily life and religious ceremonies.
Viewed from the sea, Okinoshima resembles not so much an island as a
giant rock. About 4 kilometers in circumference, sheer cliffs rise up on all
sides, and girdled by the Tsushima Warm Current it is covered with primeval
forests of betel palm trees that have made it known in botanical circles as
the northern limit of the Asian tropical zone. Since this is sacred ground of
the Great Shrine of Munakata, women are forbidden even now from setting
foot on the island, and only men are allowed to live there. Today, the only
residents are a shrine priest and two lighthouse attendants. This lighthouse
was built in 1921, after the Russo-Japanese War.
At the time of the Russo-Japanese War, there were just two permanent
residents on Okinoshima, a shrine priest and a single youth, both of them
servants to the island deity. The priest was a shrine official called Munakata
 clouds above the hill 237
Shigemaru who had been sent there from the Great Shrine of Munakata to
officiate at religious ceremonies. The youth, Satō Ichigorō, was on hand to
perform a variety of tasks. In the Great Shrine’s hierarchy, he was classed
as an “errand boy.” Born in 1886 on Chikuzen Ōshima Island, he was such
an excellent swimmer that many thought he had been born from the sea.
After graduating from Ōshima Higher Primary School in Fukuoka Prefecture
in March 1902, he promptly became the “errand boy” on this island.
Around the start of the Russo-Japanese War, these two residents were
joined by five sailors under a petty officer. They set up an observation tower
on Ichinodake (the highest point on the island at 243 meters), which is now
the site of the lighthouse. This was to keep a lookout on passing shipping.
On June 15 in the first year of the war, the Hitachi Maru, carrying a whole
army unit on board, was sunk off the southwest of Okinoshima by a Russian
cruiser, and as a result some further installations were added. An underwater
cable was laid between Shimonoseki and Izuhara in Tsushima, passing
through Okinoshima on the way. Five men were permanently stationed on
the island—the head of the observation tower, a radio operator, two
technicians, and a telegraph engineer. In the absence of a lighthouse, a beacon
made of a high pole strung with lanterns was set up. A 3-inch naval gun
was also installed on a rock in front of the shrine office.
It was when he climbed up a large tree near the summit of Okinoshima
that before his very eyes the youth Satō Ichigorō saw the battle of Tsushima
unfolding far below.

* * *
At the time of our writing, this Satō Ichigorō is receiving treatment for an
illness, but he still vividly remembers these events from the time when he
was eighteen years old. The shrine office diary, which he had to update each
day, still survives. Looking at the entry for May 27, the weather seems to
have been marked by “a strong westerly wind, cloudy, with a misty sky.”
As Ichigorō also recalls, “A strong westerly wind had been blowing from
the night before, and the sea was terribly rough.”
Because of these heavy seas, a squid trawler from Tsushima ran aground
on the island just before noon. Ichigorō helped the fishermen ashore, and
thinking that he might be able to report the incident to Izuhara using the
newly laid underwater cable, he told them, “I’ll ask the navy men,” and
climbed up to the observation tower on Ichinodake.
On entering the military field hut by the tower, he found all the men inside
looking very serious and locked in discussion. First Class Petty Officer
Kasaoki Ryōma, the head of the observation tower, was fond of this lad.
But when he told him about the trawler that had just run aground, Kasaoki
238 okinoshima
seemed troubled. “Ichigorō! We can’t send out any telegraph messages on
civil matters today.”
Kasaoki next showed him a decoded telegraph message lying on the table.
It read, “Enemy fleet set to sail through Tsushima east channel. Stay on high
alert.” The Baltic Fleet was going to pass close by Okinoshima.
Before he realized what he was doing, Ichigorō let out with a scream. He
next fled from the cabin and rushed downhill back to the shrine office to
report this urgent news to Munakata Shigemaru. The shrine priest, whom
Ichigorō always called “Munakata Sensei,” was the single authority he had
to answer to, and he thought he was the most important man in the world.
Munakata had his lunch set out before him and was just pouring some tea
into an empty bowl when Ichigorō told him the news. But Munakata simply
nodded and looked curiously unperturbed.
Just after this, the telephone rang. A line had recently been installed,
linking the shrine office to the observatory tower. When Munakata picked
up the receiver, he heard the voice of one of the sailors telling him, “The
Baltic Fleet is approaching Okinoshima!” With that, the sailor hung up.
Telephone still in hand, Munakata’s face visibly changed color. He
suddenly stripped down to just his loincloth and called out, “Ichigorō, follow
me,” as he ran down to the shore, dived off a rock, and plunged into the sea.
Having purified themselves in this way, they put on ceremonial robes and
climbed up to the shrine. They had just reached the top when they saw a
sudden flash of light through the gloom. Next they heard the report of a
distant gun that froze them stiff with fear.
“That was the first shot fired in the great sea battle,” Ichigorō recalls.
Judging from the time, the Baltic Fleet must have been firing at the annoying
flotilla of Japanese cruisers that had been shadowing its progress.
Back at the shrine, Munakata was feverishly chanting his prayers. Out at
sea, the booming echoes of firing shells reverberated in quick succession.
Ichigorō, who was sitting behind Munakata, was shaking all over, crying
uncontrollably and quite beyond help.
 4
SEA OF DESTINY

The Combined Fleet continued on its journey south.

Captain Ijichi Hikojirō, commander of the Mikasa, was said to be the best
sailor in the Japanese Navy. The only thing he shared in common with his
counterpart Captain Ignatzius, commander of the Suvorov, was that neither
of them would likely make it back alive. Once the sea battle got underway,
both sides would concentrate their fire on the enemy’s flagship.
During this trip to the combat zone, Ijichi decided to deliver a parting
address to all on board the Mikasa. Assembling the men on the quarterdeck,
he stood up on a slightly raised platform to see over their heads. A gale force
6 wind was blowing from the west, the waves were as high as ever, and
even this great battleship was rolling heavily from side to side. All the men
lined up on deck struggled to maintain their balance.
“These are the last orders I shall give you,” Ijichi shouted out in his
distinctive Satsuma accent with its gently drawn-out vowels. His words were
carried away on the wind, and those standing toward the back could not
really hear him. He went on to say that they would be making their
rendezvous with the Baltic Fleet in two or three hours. All those drills they
had been doing throughout their long sojourn in Chinhae Bay had been aimed
at this one single battle. Everyone in Japan expected their very best efforts.
He rounded off his talk with the rallying cry, “Let’s raise our last banzai on
this earth.”
All the men on board cried out at the top of their voices, “Banzai!” in
honor of their homeland. The sound of their cheer raced away across the
Sea of Japan, and curiously enough they then heard an echo ringing back
across the waves. Everyone heard that echo. It came as a surprise, since there
were no mountains or islands in the area. Had their ears deceived them, or
240 sea of destiny
could they, by pure chance, faintly hear the sound of another banzai cheer
emanating from a nearby warship at just the same time?
In the engine room of the battleship Asahi, Chief Engineer Seki Shigetada
had got hold of a camera. Unusually for this period, photography was his
hobby, and he had a full-size camera apparatus complete with box and tripod
of the kind a professional would use. In the whole Japanese Navy, there
were about a dozen men who had their own camera equipment, but only
Seki had any real skill, and he took almost all the battleship photographs
that still survive from this campaign. During actual combat, however, he
was confined below decks in the engine room and so was unable to take any
pictures of the action himself.
“Please take some photographs for me,” he asked a foreigner who was
on board the Asahi at the time. This was the British naval captain William
Pakenham, who was there as a military observer. Although in a purely
noncombat role, Pakenham was well aware that he also ran a high risk of
being killed during the action. As Seki had spent seven years studying in
Britain and spoke fluent English, he had been assigned to act as Pakenham’s
interpreter. Disappointed not to have the chance to take photographs of the
battle himself, he had urged Pakenham to buy a Kodak camera.
“If I stand on the bridge, I can even take shots of the shells as they come
flying in!” Pakenham cheerfully told him. To climb up to the bridge during
the fighting required a particular kind of courage from a man who was only
a military observer, but he did not seem at all alarmed by the prospect.

* * *
“West of Okinoshima!”
This was where Tōgō’s headquarters had calculated the battle would take
place. As they headed south, the Japanese fleet reached the projected combat
zone a little too early. Sailing at the head of a long single column, the Mikasa
reached a point about 15 nautical miles north of Okinoshima around midday.
“They should be here at any moment!” muttered Lieutenant Commander
Iida Hisatsune to Lieutenant Kiyokawa Jun’ichi, another staff officer on the
bridge. Both men were peering at the horizon on the starboard side through
mounted telescopes. Their power of magnification was low, but these were
the telescopes generally used by every navy around the world at the time.
Only Tōgō had his own pair of binoculars around his neck. Invented by
the German maker Carl Zeiss, these so-called prism binoculars had high-
magnification lenses commonly known as “horn-rimmed glasses” because
of their shape. Tōgō was not actually using them, but just silently gazing
out on the starboard side. A veil of mist still limited visibility to about 5
 clouds above the hill 241
nautical miles, so there was not much use for binoculars anyway, and he
could make do just as well with the naked eye.
Even so, such is human nature that the others around him were reaching
for their telescopes. Even Rear Admiral Katō Tomosaburō, the chief of staff
and a man famous for never losing his composure, held his telescope up to
his eye.
“I can’t see anything,” muttered Adjutant Commander Nagata Taijirō.
The only exception among them was Akiyama Saneyuki, whose eccentric
behavior later made him something of a legend in the Japanese Navy. He
was now glaring out at the starboard side without a telescope—he did not
even have one. He firmly believed in relying only on the naked eye, so even
now he just kept gazing out into the distance.
The bridge towered over the main forward gun turret just in front with
its two gun barrels sticking out. The wooden deck up there was a confined
space, surrounded only by a rail and protected by lagging. That was all there
was. Exposed to the wind on all sides, this platform was so high up that
anyone suffering from vertigo would feel faint.
Shortly after midday, a telegram arrived from the Third Squadron under
Kataoka Shichirō, which had gone out to “meet” the Baltic Fleet. It said the
enemy was in Ikinokuni, the old name for Iki Island. The full text read,
“Location 12 nautical miles north of Niyakujima in Ikinokuni, sailing
northeast by east at a speed of 12 knots.”
The decoy role played by the Third Squadron had been extremely
effective. Thanks to this, the chief of navigation on the Mikasa only had to
adjust their course in response, thus leading them straight to the enemy. At
this juncture, this involved a turn to starboard to head further west.
The waves were becoming higher. The largest were just like mountains,
and strung together like mountain ranges they would suddenly break against
the prow and wash over the foredeck, throwing up clouds of spray in the
swirling gale that climbed as high as the bridge.
Standing with his legs slightly apart, Tōgō remained motionless, simply
tapping on the deck with the point of his long sword, which had been crafted
by the famed thirteenth-century master sword maker Ichimonji Yoshifusa.
The area around his feet was soaked with sea spray. He would not leave this
position until the battle was over, and, according to one witness, the only
dry spaces still on the bridge afterward were the footprints left by his boots.

* * *
Never in the course of naval history had a search unit displayed such
supreme skill as Kataoka’s Third Squadron. “Everything about the enemy’s
242 sea of destiny
situation was clear to us. . .before we even saw them,” wrote Akiyama
Saneyuki in the report that Tōgō later sent to Imperial Headquarters.
“The enemy is sailing in two columns,” a telegram from Kataoka had
said. But could you really call this two orderly columns? Rozhestvensky
had wanted to play by the book and sail into combat in a single line. But,
as we’ve already learned, when he issued orders to give pursuit to Dewa’s
Third Division, the Alexander III had misread his signal flags, and the
confusion that followed resulted in a strange formation.
In the lead was the First Division headed by the Suvorov, while to port
alongside sailed the Second Division led by the Oslyabya, making the two
columns. Behind them, the Third Division huffed and puffed to keep up.
So although the fleet was arranged in two columns, they were not two
columns as such. Following on some distance behind, the First Cruiser
Division could also see these two long tails of battleships on both port and
starboard sides, and was sailing right into the middle space between them.
“The enemy was all bunched up like a line of dumplings crowded together
on a skewer.” This was the Japanese reaction when they saw the Baltic Fleet
shortly afterward. It had indeed become bunched up like skewered
dumplings.
Behind Rozhestvensky on the bridge of the Suvorov was the easy chair
he had been sitting in until dawn. He was somewhat annoyed by the confusion
in his own fleet. Had he been his usual self, he would no doubt have
screamed with rage like a mad dog. Now, on the eve of battle, even this
admiral kept his silence.
Once Dewa’s Third Division had disappeared through the mist,
Rozhestvensky had signal flags hoisted on the mast of the Suvorov with
orders for the Russian ships to revert to their original single column: “Second
Division to follow on behind the First Division,” this read. But only the most
highly trained fleet could possibly perform a stunt that meant changing
formation in such a short time while sailing at a speed of 12 knots. Perhaps
only England and Japan had the naval commanders capable of such an
intricate maneuver.
To rearrange these “two columns” and make them fall into a single line,
the First Division under Rozhestvensky’s command would have to speed up
for a while. The First Division did so, according to instructions. At the same
time, the Second and Third Divisions sailing on its port side would have to
lower their speed. Rozhestvensky gave the order: “Reduce speed by 2
knots.” But for whatever reason, these two divisions had trouble slowing
down. It is not clear why.
Perhaps there were psychological reasons behind this. The Baltic Fleet
had already reached the western entrance of the Sea of Japan. Since their
 clouds above the hill 243
prime objective was to do everything possible to escape to Vladivostok, these
divisions may have feared that any loss in speed would in effect mean being
left behind in enemy territory.
On the bridge of the Mikasa, Akiyama Saneyuki tried to visualize a fleet
he could not yet see based on a telegram he had received from Kataoka, “Of
the two enemy columns the one on the port side looks the weakest.” The
Second and Third Divisions on the left indeed lacked the fighting strength
of the First Division on the right.
“Let’s strike at their left,” Saneyuki suggested, and Katō agreed, giving
orders to change course.

* * *
“Is that the enemy?” was the question asked at quarter past one in the
afternoon on the bridge of the Mikasa.
Several warships were now visible in the direction of southwest by west.
They soon realized, however, that these were from their own side, the four
cruisers of Dewa’s Third Division, which had been out looking for the
Russian fleet. In command of the Kasagi in front was Yamaya Tanin, the
man who had been the first to develop naval tactics in Japan. Then there
was the Otowa under Arima Ryōkitsu, a man known for his role in the
blockade of Port Arthur, together with the Chitose and Niitaka. They were
approaching at high speed and in a rush to fall in with Tōgō’s line of battle.
Shortly afterward, some more ships appeared here and there in the sea to
the west. The sense of tension returned to the bridge, but these again turned
out to be vessels on their own side. It was the Fifth Division, the main force
of the Third Squadron under Kataoka Shichirō, which was under orders to
stay in contact with the Baltic Fleet and lead it into Tōgō’s path. In a line
behind the flagship Itsukushima out in front, they could see the shapes of
the Chin’en, Matsushima, and Hashidate growing larger in turn. Some
small-scale cruisers of just 2,000–3,000 tons also appeared. These made up
the Sixth Division attached to the Third Squadron. Among them was the
Izumi, which had been out searching and clinging close to the enemy since
before dawn, and was now hurrying to get back. Also following were the
Suma, Chiyoda, and the Akitsushima, which was under the command of
Prince Higashifushimi Yorihito of the imperial family.
“The Baltic Fleet is tracking the Third Squadron,” someone said on the
bridge of the Mikasa. They had not yet seen the enemy, but from the
constant flow of telegrams they were well aware that this squadron was
leading the Russians into their path. Having now fulfilled its role as a decoy,
the squadron’s mission was half complete. After all, the Third Squadron
consisted of worn-out old vessels that would be no match for the big guns
244 sea of destiny
of the enemy fleet and unable to take any real part in the decisive battle. At
this stage, therefore, they handed over their responsibilities to the main force
of the fleet under the Mikasa and retired to the rear lines. This allocation of
roles was all in accordance with Saneyuki’s plan, and so far it had all worked
out better than even he could have hoped.
Remember, the only civilian witness of the battle of Tsushima was Satō
Ichigorō on the island of Okinoshima. At around this time, he climbed up
a tall tree and was sitting on a branch, looking out across the sea. Ichigorō
is now eighty, but he still remembers that moment: “After a while, the Izumi
and one other small cruiser approached as if they were being pressed back.
They were making straight for the edge of the island.”
They were probably seeking refuge. The young Satō could not yet see
the main Japanese force under Tōgō, but before this appeared, the Baltic
Fleet came into view to the northwest.
“They were arranged in two columns, just like the stones of a go game,
all in a row. I thought how wonderfully well ordered these lines looked. I
can still recall the thrill I felt on seeing the grandeur of that fleet.”

* * *
Time and space were becoming ever more compressed. This minute-by-
minute shrinking of time and space had not come about just in these few
hours of this single day. History itself was overheating, reaching an intensity
fierce enough to melt rock and burn iron.
There are numerous ways to interpret Japanese history, but one thing is
clear: if the Japanese Navy had lost this sea battle, Japan would have been
very different from the country we know today. The Japanese Army had
been fighting effectively in Manchuria until then despite ebbing strength,
but a defeat at Tsushima would have resulted in the inevitable isolation of
this force in a single stroke and its likely destruction within six months.
Naturally, the Japanese nation would surrender. The government would
have relied on its diplomatic expertise, which was at a higher stage of
development than at any time in the country’s history. The diplomats would
have invoked the principle of maintaining the international balance of power
and so not all of Japan’s territory would necessarily have fallen under
Russian control. But at the very least Tsushima and the Sasebo Navy Yard
would have been leased to the Russians, and, given the conventions of
international relations at the time, the Russians would most probably have
secured the whole of Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands as well.
The subsequent history of East Asia would also no doubt have been very
different. The Russians had occupied Manchuria even before the war,
and this would have been recognized internationally. Korea would have
 clouds above the hill 245
practically become a Russian dependency with, at the very least, suzerain
control of the kingdom passing from China to Russia. There would have
been precious little to stop the Russians from obtaining the leases on the
ports of Masan, Wŏnsan, and Pusan, which they had so long desired, and
establishing their own colonial government headquarters in Inch’ŏn.
The battle of Tsushima was the culmination of an historical era labeled
“post-1853 and 1854” by Kido Takayoshi, a revolutionary statesman active
in the overthrow of the Tokugawa regime and in the early years of Meiji.
Those were the years when Perry had come to Japan. Ever since then, the
country had been pitched into an unstable international arena, while at home
swarms of patriotic zealots screamed that the nation’s survival was at stake.
Both the shogunate and the individual domains had meanwhile worked at
synthesizing traditional science with Western technology. This culminated
in the Meiji Restoration, when a modern nation-state was forged in the course
of transformation rapid enough to be a miracle in world history.
At the same time, a modern navy was being systematically introduced
with warships now being built domestically, and although at first the strategy
only aimed at guarding against intrusions from the Great Powers, under the
guidance of Yamamoto Gombei, Japan went on to fit out a fleet that could
actually win. In several respects, therefore, all the energy that had been
poured in since 1853 had brought about the climactic sea battle that would
now be fought.
Also it was the only time in modern history—there have been no other
examples since—when two nations armed with first-class navies put all their
effort into one decisive battle in a fixed stretch of water.

* * *
At thirty-nine minutes after one in the afternoon, the Mikasa finally sighted
Rozhestvensky’s grand fleet, fixed at “to starboard facing south.” To be
precise, it was probably to the southwest. Just as they thought they were
beginning to see some dark blots here and there oozing out through the milky
mist hanging over the water, the surprisingly large shadows of several
warships suddenly broke through this murky canvas. With visibility so poor,
they found themselves already right up close to the enemy.
No one on the bridge of the Mikasa so much as muttered, “Here they
are!” With his tough beard and ruddy cheeks Captain Ijichi Hikojirō took
just one look through his binoculars and then squinted into the distance as
he fixed his gaze on the enemy ships. Standing by the compass, Commander
Nunome Mitsuzō, chief of navigation, peered at the sea chart and measured
the enemy’s location. Just behind him, Lieutenant Commander Abo
Kiyokazu, chief of artillery, was clutching a stopwatch as he looked toward
246 sea of destiny
the enemy to calculate the flight time for their shells. Meanwhile, Chief of
Staff Katō Tomosaburō just kept on looking through his telescope and
hardly moved at all.
Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō was standing half a step in front of these staff
officers. In that sense, he was probably closer to the enemy than anyone in
the Combined Fleet and exposing himself to considerable danger. The
binoculars that he was so proud of were hanging around his neck, but he
barely picked them up, relying instead on his unusually keen eyesight to
observe the enemy. Clutching the hilt of his sword in his left hand, he stood
with his legs astride, not moving at all. His policy as a commander, it seemed,
was to stand on the bridge at the head of the fleet, exposed to the elements
but unmoved. He looked like a statuesque god of war.
“The scene at that moment on the bridge of the Mikasa can only be
described as sublime,” recalled Abo Kiyokazu later. He was also standing
there holding his stopwatch.
Akiyama Saneyuki, vice chief of staff, was taking notes some distance
away to the left behind this group. From time to time, he thrust the high
bridge of his nose, a family feature, way up into the air, and then looked
down to write comments about the enemy. Even in this, there was something
eccentric about him. None of the others could see much point in taking notes
at a time like this.
Behind these men, another officer was looking through a range finder to
measure their distance from the enemy. From time to time, he called out the
distance in a loud voice.
Getting a close look through a field glass, they could now see the ships
of the Baltic Fleet painted pitch black, in contrast to the deep gray of the
Japanese vessels. It was easy to pick out these enemy ships against the color
of the sky, and their yellow funnels also helped the Japanese to identify them.
This color could look different to different people.
“It was kind of biscuit color,” observed Third Class Warrant Officer
Nishida Suteichi, for example. He was manning the aft gun turret on the
battleship Fuji, which was following on behind the Mikasa and the
Shikishima.

* * *
One account describes how the enemy broke through a wall of mist. The
impression Tōgō had was indeed of one ship after another emerging through
the gloom and looming into his field of view. By around quarter to two in
the afternoon, the entire Baltic Fleet could be seen against the backdrop of
this curtain of mist, although its tail still appeared only indistinctly in the
haze.
 clouds above the hill 247
The distance between the two forces was roughly 10,200 meters.
“There is no point in firing shells until the enemy is within 7,000 meters,”
Tōgō had often told his staff officers. This was not an official rule but just
what they had come to expect. The enemy would probably open fire when
they were 9,000 meters away. Tōgō’s intention was to weather this initial
bombardment and approach in silence to within 7,000 meters before
unleashing a fierce, accurate volley of his own.
On the bridge of the Mikasa, Chief of Artillery Abo Kiyokazu was in
charge of not only the flagship’s guns, but in effect responsible for leading
the fire of the entire Japanese fleet. Having heard Tōgō’s words, he fully
expected him to go for an all-out bombardment at close quarters. He
envisioned a ferocious volley of fire, but the onslaught to come was on a
scale that defied the imagination.
Chief of Staff Katō stood next to Tōgō and would long remember the
words he muttered at around a quarter to two, when the distance between
the two sides was roughly 10,200 meters.
“What an odd shape!” The admiral looked composed as he said this, his
expression and voice no different from usual. His navy career had spanned
over forty years, starting with his involvement in fighting against the British
Navy at Kagoshima in 1863, and so he could claim more experience of
combat than anyone. Even now, at this critical juncture, he showed no sign
of any great excitement. He referred, of course, to the formation of the Baltic
Fleet, which, viewed through his binoculars with their eight-fold power of
magnification, presented a strange shape indeed.
“Two grand columns” was the impression recorded by many observers,
but, as we have described, the reality was quite different.

* * *
We now turn our gaze to the Russians and the journal of A. Zatyorty, an
officer on board the armored cruiser Nakhimov, which was sailing at the tail
of the Second Division. “It was at half past one in the afternoon,” he wrote
(actually it was thirty-nine minutes past one), “on May 27 that the Japanese
fleet appeared on our port bow. At that point the Baltic Fleet was sailing
through the narrowest part of the strait.” He wrote this as if this neck of the
strait just happened to be there, but, in fact, Tōgō and his staff officers had
been planning all along to meet the enemy in just this spot. “The men had
long since finished their lunch. Now slightly relaxed, they were taking
a rest.”
These thick-skinned Russians appeared surprisingly calm even on the eve
of such a momentous event as this. On board the battleship Oryol in the
First Division, for example, the men were taking a nap after lunch just as
248 sea of destiny
usual. Then, at twenty past one, an order went out, signaling an end to their
period of rest. Following their snooze, they were allowed to drink some tea,
an essential part of their daily life. On every ship was kept the bronze
samovars that might be found in any Russian home.
“Teatime!” the order rang out. With cups in hand, the sailors all ran toward
the giant samovar. In the face of adversity, human beings must invariably
try to keep up their spirits by clinging to their everyday routine. These sailors
were no exception as, prompted by this order, they broke into a run and went
about pouring hot water down their throats as usual.
At this juncture, the Japanese fleet was not yet in sight, but it could not
have been much more than ten minutes after they put these teacups to their
lips that the enemy came into view.
“The Japanese fleet was sailing at tremendous speed in a single column
toward the transport ships at the rear of our Second Division.” In other words,
Tōgō’s fleet was making its way south. The Baltic Fleet was sailing north.
As Zatyorty pointed out, the Japanese were heading toward the Russians’
left-hand column—the Second and Third Divisions—which they had
identified as their weak spot.
On the foredeck of the Oryol, the officers and sailors gathered to gaze at
the Japanese fleet. “Isn’t that the Mikasa?” one officer shouted out, causing
a stir. As yet they could not see the whole of the enemy fleet, just the ship
in front followed by about ten vessels. But the sight of the Mikasa kicking
up waves gave everyone the uncanny feeling of seeing some kind of phantom.
After all, this ship was believed to have been sunk after striking a mine during
the blockade of Port Arthur.
“That’s impossible!” retorted another officer, but for anyone who
remembered the shape of these Japanese warships the fact was undeniable.
At that moment, a chink appeared in the clouds covering the heavens, and
strong beams of sunlight shone down over the surface of the sea. Yes, it was
the Mikasa! Lit up from above by these clustered rays of light, this deep-
gray battleship appeared a glittering blue.

* * *
On the bridge of the Suvorov, Rozhestvensky sighted the Mikasa through
the mist at the same time that Tōgō discovered the Baltic Fleet.
“Look, sir!” shouted Commander Semenov. “Tōgō is sailing in the same
formation as on August 10!”
Three times the weight of an average man, Semenov was a staff officer
assigned to keeping a record of the journey. He may have had some talent
as a writer, but unfortunately for him he was not considered an essential
figure in the running of the Baltic Fleet. Not only was he excluded from
 clouds above the hill 249
briefings, but he was not given any specific operational role. Forever
indignant about this perceived slight to his honor, he did not just curse his
comrades, but became so incredibly obsessed that he never forgot this insult
for the rest of his life.
This isolated scribe’s sole consolation was to lavish much affection on
a single man, even turning defects into strengths. That man was Rozh-
estvensky. The Russian Navy had ordered Semenov to employ his writing
skills to record for posterity the historic mission now being undertaken by
this grand fleet. Ultimately, though, Semenov displayed little talent for
creating such a record. By comparison with the letters that Engineer
Politovsky sent home to his new bride, Semenov’s prose is crude and of
little value. He utterly lacked the talent to write up “Rozhestvensky’s
Voyage,” the title he gave to his account of the Baltic Fleet’s long journey.
Much could have been made of the various issues confronting the Russian
men while they were out at sea on these soulless, brand-new battleships that
were such a symbol of the modern age. Semenov made no mention of this
at all.
Semenov lacked analytical skills both as a military man and a chronicler,
but he approached his assignment with a particular point of view: because
of his loyalty to the tsar and his patriotism, he had an unshakable conviction
that the Russian fleet would win. Then again, probably his patriotism was
not as significant here as his own inflated ego. He did not write as a detached
observer but instead came up with a rather passionate literary style, better
suited to some overblown heroic poem. He intended, in fact, to write epic
verse extolling Rozhestvensky’s exploits on the Sea of Japan. Even before
the battle got underway, he had decided on his main theme—how the great
commander Rozhestvensky sank Tōgō and his fleet, and sent the Japanese
to the bottom of the sea.
Rozhestvensky, the subject of this heroic verse, was well aware of
Semenov’s intentions. According to Russian custom, such a poet regularly
accompanied a military force, so Rozhestvensky did not feel particularly
embarrassed. Every ship in this grand fleet flew the St. Andrew’s flag,
symbolizing the Russian mission of world conquest, but this Russian poet
and staff officer might have been a more appropriate symbol. For Semenov’s
poems to come forth, his admiral simply had to win.

* * *
“Tōgō is sailing in the same formation as on August 10.”
Semenov’s observation was actually incorrect. At the battle of the Yellow
Sea on August 10, 1904, Tōgō had approached with a different formation.
But Semenov could not keep from voicing his opinion. Of all the Russian
250 sea of destiny
staff officers, he alone had served in the Port Arthur Squadron and was the
sole survivor from the fiercely contested battle of the Yellow Sea.
“I am the only one who knows the smell of Shimose powder,” he kept
reminding his comrades. He was also critical of those staff officers who had
graduated from the Naval Academy with flying colors. “They may have great
talent for sitting at a desk, but they have no combat experience. Neither do
they know Tōgō’s habits, so how can they fight him when they leave me,
who knows so much, out in the cold?” For Semenov, “August 10” was
therefore a source of pride and a chance to show off.
For Tōgō, the battle of the Yellow Sea had been the tough encounter that
we have recounted. The Hatsuse and Yashima had already been lost to mines,
and so he had only four battleships under the Mikasa against the six
battleships of the Port Arthur Squadron. The Japanese had just seventeen of
the main guns that would decide the contest compared with the Russians’
twenty-four. The absence of the four armored cruisers (Izumo, Azuma,
Tokiwa, and Iwate under Kamimura), all expected to support his battleships,
was another crucial problem for Tōgō. That day’s formation was therefore
a single column of six ships: Mikasa, Asahi, Fuji, and Shikishima, together
with two brand-new armored cruisers, Kasuga and Nisshin, which were
considered close to battleships in strength.
In claiming that Tōgō was approaching just as on August 10, Semenov
was deluded by his own memory and desire to show off his experience. It
was not entirely illusory, however, since the Japanese once again appeared
with a main force of six vessels. But this time Kamimura’s squadron, with
its near main force strength, was also following on behind. Semenov could
not yet see beyond Tōgō’s front line. He only saw the first six vessels under
the Mikasa when he bragged about the accuracy of his own forecast.
In military terms, Rozhestvensky, who Semenov was trying to cast as the
main character in his heroic verse, had a cooler head than his court poet. “I
don’t think so,” he said. “There are more than just those six ships. Look
behind them. Tōgō is bringing all his ships with him.” Taking his eyes off
his binoculars, Rozhestvensky completely ignored Semenov as he sent his
staff officers packing with the cry: “Now! To your posts!” and descended
from the bridge. Together with his captain and staff officers, he then went
into the conning tower, which was protected by thick steel armor plating.
Given his usual demeanor, there had been some concern that
Rozhestvensky might go berserk when it came to the actual fighting, but in
the event he was surprisingly calm. He straightened his slightly stooping
back to take a look around outside one more time. Now he could see the
shape of the Izumo, the flagship of Kamimura’s squadron. Next appeared
 clouds above the hill 251
the Azuma, followed by the other large cruisers—Tokiwa, Yakumo, Asama,
and Iwate—as they made their solemn approach.

* * *
The gale kept on screaming and howling across the masthead. The Mikasa
was heaving even more violently now, and the men could barely feel the
vibrations from the rumbling engines beneath their feet. Inside, the ship was
as quiet as a deserted forest. All the men stood motionless at their posts as
if frozen, and no one said a word. The new recruits felt so parched that they
had no saliva left to swallow. Many of the sailors there had not experienced
the battle of the Yellow Sea, and so the oppressive tension was difficult to
endure as they waited for the next order, the one that would decide their
next move and whether they lived or died.
The men on the bridge had not changed their positions at all. Picking up
and lowering his binoculars from time to time, Tōgō still stood with his legs
slightly astride as he kept gazing at the enemy flagship Suvorov. Ogasawara
Naganari, who later became a close associate of Tōgō, heard detailed
eyewitness accounts about what had taken place on the bridge in the minutes
following ten minutes before two. According to Ogasawara, Akiyama
Saneyuki moved closer to Tōgō and asked, “The signal is ready. Do we raise
it now?”
He was referring to the already prepared special signal flag—the “Z
flag”—that later became so famous. Every ship in the fleet had its own signal
logbook. A few days before they set sail, the meaning behind the hoisting
of the four-colored “Z flag” had been penciled in. The chief of navigation
and pilot on board every ship knew about this, but not all the men in the
fleet.
They were now counting down the minutes and seconds before the
fighting got underway. Tōgō nodded in response to Saneyuki’s request.
Saneyuki then gave a sign to the chief signalman. The four-colored “Z flag”
was soon hoisted and fluttering in the gale.

* * *
“The fate of our empire rests on this single battle. Every man must do his
utmost duty.”

* * *
On each ship, this code was soon converted into words, and the message
then reached all ears, conveyed through the voice tubes stationed at every
post. On board the Mikasa, runner Kawai Tarō heard it echoing from the
252 sea of destiny
voice tube next to him. He then hurried to pass the news on through every
available channel.
Nishida Suteichi, who was serving on the aft 12-inch turret on the
battleship Fuji, also heard this message. It came through the voice tube in
a high-pitched tone. The words sounded like some literary expression that
he did not really understand, but he grasped enough to know that if they
were defeated Japan would be destroyed. Out of the blue, he broke down in
tears.
The moves that Tōgō made changed the direction of the gale in relation
to the Japanese fleet. It was entirely on purpose that he made them now
stand to windward, but to a mere seaman like Nishida it seemed miraculous.
We once talked to Nishida in his home in Osaka, and he told us about that
day. “It was incredible. Black clouds suddenly appeared, and a strong wind
began to blow toward the enemy. Now we were facing downwind, and so
our guns could be more accurate.”
Just after that, there was a change on the bridge of the Mikasa. Tōgō was
still in his usual position. Chief of Staff Katō Tomosaburō and Akiyama
Saneyuki had drawn closer to him and were standing in the wind, but the
other staff officers went down one level and took shelter in the armor-plated
conning tower below.
To give a more detailed explanation of the scene, once the Z flag had
been hoisted, the warships following on behind responded with signal flags
to register that they had understood. When Lieutenant Kiyokawa Jun’ichi
on the flag deck then gave the order to take down the Z flag, Akiyama
Saneyuki turned to Tōgō and said, “Please go down into the conning tower.”
But Tōgō just shook his head. “I’m staying here!” His adjutant commander
Nagata Taijirō then approached him and requested several times that he
should take cover. Even Katō begged him to move.
But Tōgō would not move. In effect, the bridge amounted to just a
balcony exposed to the elements, so during the fighting there was a high
chance that shell fragments flying around would strike anyone standing there.
For that reason, the conning tower was built below. The visibility inside was
limited, but its 14-inch-thick armor plating should have been enough to keep
the commander alive.
Tōgō, however, did not move. “I am an old man, and at my age it makes
no difference, so I am staying here. All of you, go inside!”
As this was the ship out in front, the enemy’s shells would probably rain
down on the Mikasa most of all once the fighting got underway. Nelson was
the only admiral from the past whom Tōgō saw as a role model, and, since
Nelson too had died in combat, Tōgō was no doubt prepared to lose his own
life now in this final decisive battle of the campaign.
 clouds above the hill 253
Katō understood his feelings well. He instructed his staff officers to
disperse. At the battle of the Yellow Sea, the staff officers of the Mikasa
had remained together in one group on the bridge, and as a result they suffered
several casualties from just one shell. Katō thought that if they spread out
at least someone would survive.
“Akiyama and I will stay by your side. Iida and Kiyokawa, continue your
work inside the conning tower.”
Iida and Kiyokawa obeyed the order. The adjutant also went inside. Apart
from Tōgō, Katō, and Akiyama, only three men were left on the bridge.
These were Lieutenant Commander Abo, who as chief of artillery was there
to give firing commands, together with Sublieutenant Second Class
Hasegawa and the naval cadet Tamaki Shinsuke, who were operating the
range finder.
The Z flag had been hoisted at five minutes to two in the afternoon.
The Russians were heading due north. The Japanese, meanwhile, were
approaching from the north so that the two sides would sail practically right
past each other.
At this time, the firing technique used by Tōgō’s fleet was the first of its
kind in the world. This was the “director firing command system” developed
by Lieutenant Commander Katō Kanji, the Mikasa’s former chief of artillery.
We’ve described this previously, but the idea was that all the shells fired on
board any one warship should be subject to the commands from the chief
of artillery on the bridge. Until then, the prevailing system had been a
fragmented approach, with the orders depending on the judgment of the
commanding officer at each gun. The experience at the battle of the Yellow
Sea had demonstrated that this was not suitable in a decisive battle. Delivering
a decisive blow to the enemy became practically impossible, particularly
when their ships were sailing in the opposite directions; only a short window
of opportunity existed for firing.
Katō Kanji had been thinking this over for some time. At the battle of
the Yellow Sea, he had endured a tough time himself, sustaining a slight
wound, but as chief of artillery on the Mikasa he went on to develop his
new system, which was then adopted by Tōgō and also by his successor
Lieutenant Commander Abo. In short, all firing commands on board a single
vessel must be controlled from the bridge; the same was true of the orders
on range, so that no single gun turret should ever have to make its own
adjustments. Some doubt remained as to whether these instructions could
be successfully communicated in the heat of battle, but at any rate Abo,
current chief of artillery, also subscribed to this new system, which was why
he had not left the bridge.
254 sea of destiny
“I was terribly nervous,” he later recalled. With his large frame he was
the epitome of an artillery officer, and he rarely ever gave the impression
of being unduly fussy, but on this one occasion he could not help but feel
agitated. After all, right up to the very last minute, neither Tōgō nor Katō
gave any clear indication about their fighting formation. Would the enemy
be on our starboard or on our port side? Would we sail alongside the enemy
and fight it out from there, or sail past and fire a broadside? For Abo, who
was in sole charge of issuing firing commands, much would depend on this.
Abo did not have access to the various convenient tools and systems that
were subsequently developed, and so he had to do a mental calculation of
various factors on the spot as he gave instructions to each gun turret. These
included his own ship’s speed, the guns’ line of fire, the enemy fleet’s speed
and direction, the wind direction, and wind speed. He had to calculate all
this in a split second to produce gunsight figures and then issue firing
commands to each gun turret.
With each passing moment, the two fleets came closer and closer to each
other. Abo was doing his level best to stay calm, although, with both fleets
moving so fast, he could not tell whether his imagination was playing tricks
on him or not when, in just the blink of an eye, the enemy seemed to grow
larger. All the while, his assistant, Sublieutenant Second Class Hasegawa
Kiyoshi, kept his eyes pressed to the range finder.
Abo was so desperate for his commanding officers to hurry up and decide
on their formation that when Hasegawa called out, “Distance 8,500 meters,”
he could bear it no longer. He yelled out to Tōgō and Katō, “Only 8,500
meters left now, sir!”—though by then this was obvious.

* * *
“Chief of Artillery!” Katō said, looking round with a deathly pale face. His
stomach pains were troubling him. “Would you kindly take a measurement
on the Suvorov?”
This man’s almost unnerving ability to remain composed under intense
pressure defied belief. Hasegawa had announced the distance to the Suvorov
only seconds before, so it was not really so urgent for Abo to measure this
again. But even at this stage Katō did not lose his meticulous eye for detail.
Abo passed in front of Saneyuki and back to the rear of the bridge where
he took over from Hasegawa. Peering through the range finder, he was
amazed. The distance between the two fleets was already approaching 8,000
meters.
Here’s when he cried out, “Now only 8,000 meters!” Next he demanded
to know, “Which side are we fighting on?” The port or starboard side? Unless
 clouds above the hill 255
he knew this, he could not prepare his firing commands. At this stage, even
he could not imagine what formation Tōgō was thinking of.
“I muttered in a loud voice,” Abo later recalled, denying that he had acted
out of turn by raising his voice and yelling at Tōgō and Katō. He remembered
how, just as he “muttered” this, Tōgō, standing out in front of him, raised
his right arm high and then swung it down to his left in a semicircular arc.
Katō promptly requested confirmation. Tōgō nodded. At that moment,
the instruction was given for an unusual maneuver that would go against all
rules of naval tactics.
“Captain! Full turn to port!” Katō called out in a piercing cry that all
those who heard it never forgot. Captain Ijichi was one level below them
on the flying bridge. He could not believe his ears.
What amazed Ijichi was that as they were already within range of the
enemy, the entire flank of his ship would be exposed as they made this turn.
“Do you really mean full turn to port?” His words came out before he
had time to think.
“That’s right!” came back the reply as Katō repeated the order.
The Mikasa promptly lurched, as the ship commenced this maneuver with
a jarring motion. On the port bow, white waves leaped over the prow, and
the wind blew the spray high up toward the bridge.
The famous “Tōgō’s Turn” had begun.

* * *
Tōgō, in other words, was performing a U-turn right in front of the enemy,
or, to be more accurate, his ships moved in the form of the Greek letter
“alpha.” In the words of a Russian history of the war, “At this time Tōgō
and his fleet did their customary alpha-movement.”
To recap: at two minutes past two in the afternoon, Tōgō began this turn
facing south and wheeled a full 145 degrees to the left to end up facing east-
northeast. On reaching the spot where the Mikasa had started this maneuver,
each Japanese vessel following on behind then performed the same sweeping
left-hand turn with the precision of a well-trained dancer. The Russian fleet,
meanwhile, was heading north in the shape of a sheaf of arrows. Tōgō now
drew up his fleet in a straight line and moved at an angle so as to intercept
the front of the enemy fleet. The tactic he adopted was in Japanese naval
parlance known as “crossing the T.”
Crossing the T was Saneyuki’s idea. We’ve already written about how
he had taken a hint from the tactics once used by the Nojima pirates of yore.
He had read about this in some naval books he had borrowed from his friend
Ogasawara Naganari when in the hospital. It was extremely difficult,
256 sea of destiny
however, to apply this in practice, and you could even risk the annihilation
of your own fleet. Saneyuki himself, in fact, would have hesitated to use it
here when they were already so close to the enemy.
For the Mikasa and the other Japanese ships, firing on the enemy while
they were engaged in performing their own turns was practically impossible,
but for the Russians this was as simple as aiming at a sitting duck. Even if
the entire Japanese fleet sailed at a top speed of 15 knots, fifteen minutes
would still be required to complete this maneuver. During that time, the
enemy would be able to fire countless shells at Tōgō’s fleet.
“This was the one time that fortune smiled on Admiral Rozhestvensky,”
wrote Alexei Novikov-Priboy, observing this curious development on board
the Oryol.
Pakenham, the British military observer on board the Asahi, held Tōgō
in great esteem, but on this one occasion he too could see the risk of a
Japanese defeat as he clicked his tongue. “This is bad, really bad.”
It is doubtful whether even Saneyuki, who was renowned as an exceptional
staff officer, would have elected to take this action. Had he been in charge,
he would most probably have avoided such a risky venture and set about
reducing the enemy’s strength over an extended period with his seven-stage
battle plan. Devised just for this purpose, this plan would chase the enemy
en route to Vladivostok.
Nevertheless, Tōgō went ahead. He no doubt decided on the spur of the
moment that the enemy gunners, never so adept from long range at the best
of times, would have trouble being accurate given the unfavorable wind
direction and high waves.
“The way to achieve victory,” Tōgō later said, “is to seize the right
moment to fire on the enemy. The skill required to judge this is something
you gain through experience and cannot be learned from books.”
Now drawing on his abundant experience as a military strategist, Tōgō
had the gut feeling that the time had come.

* * *
“Has Tōgō gone mad?” Commander Semenov yelled out to Lieutenant
Anatoly Redkin, commander of the after starboard secondary turret, as he
watched Tōgō’s curious maneuver from the after-bridge of the Suvorov.
Redkin also jumped in surprise. “What are the Japanese trying to do?”
As far as he could make out, every single enemy ship would become a sitting
target in the very spot where the Mikasa was now performing its turn. All
the Russians had to do was set their sights on this one spot, and they could
sink each Japanese ship with the ease of target practice.
 clouds above the hill 257
When Rozhestvensky in the conning tower of the Suvorov saw Tōgō make
this change, of course, he promptly gave the order to open fire. This was at
eight minutes past two in the afternoon and at a range of 7,000 meters, around
the same time that the Mikasa had completed its maneuver and found its
new course. The first shells to thunder across the Sea of Japan in the
direction of the Mikasa came from the giant 12-inch guns of the main forward
gun turret. The Russian flagship shook with the force of the recoil action
from these guns, smoke billowing out behind them as the men looked out
to see where the shells had gone.
The opening shots in any exchange of fire often miss their targets, and
these shells flew mournfully over the Mikasa, producing water spouts in the
sea beyond its two funnels. After that, all the main ships of the Baltic Fleet
fired away with abandon using all their main and secondary guns.
But the Mikasa did not respond. Neither did the other Japanese vessels,
as they quietly went about performing their formation turns with what
Novikov-Priboy called “astonishing skill.” As they were busy still carrying
out this maneuver, they were not in any position to return fire. Fortune indeed
smiled on Rozhestvensky for the full fifteen minutes it took Tōgō’s ships
to complete this task.
Many of the Russian shells did find their targets. The Mikasa soaked up
most of this pressure. Tōgō, in fact, had intended as much. “The enemy
opened fire at eight minutes past two in the afternoon,” Saneyuki later
recalled, writing this down in his notebook on the bridge of the Mikasa.
“After that they unleashed a fierce barrage. I think at least three hundred or
more shells came flying over us during the first three or four minutes alone.”
The Mikasa sustained terrible damage. On just this one day of fighting,
the ship was hit forty times on the starboard side and eight times to port,
but most of this was inflicted in these first few minutes following the initial
turn.
The Mikasa was being battered without reply. The unbelievable crash of
enemy shells on impact sounded as if the side of the ship was being pounded
by a giant hammer, and some gun installations were destroyed even before
they had the chance to fire a single shot. Shell fragments flew through the
air, striking down members of the crew. Suddenly, the deck was spattered
with blood.
The sixteenth shell to strike the Mikasa on the starboard side—this was
after the Japanese had begun returning fire—pierced the outer steel wall of
the crew’s latrine and exploded on impact with the inside wall; not only
were the men in the area felled like chess pieces, but countless splinters flew
in all directions. Some of these even reached as high as the conning tower
258 sea of destiny
just below the bridge. Even though this was supposed to be protected by
armor plating, the splinters inflicted wounds on Lieutenant Commander Iida
Hisatsune, Lieutenant Commander Kanno Yūshichi, and two petty officers,
while other fragments wounded eight men including Vice Captain
Matsumura Tatsuo.
Tōgō, meanwhile, just kept peering through his binoculars as he stood
firm in his position on the bridge. Even there, the deck was drenched with
the spray thrown up by enemy shells on hitting the water, and the crashes
of splashing shells rang relentlessly in his ears. Then a large fragment from
one shell flew past just 15 or 16 centimeters in front of his chest and
smashed into the compass at his side. The cord of the hammocks that had
been wrapped around the compass broke, and one of them ended up lying
at Tōgō’s feet.
Afterward, the prevailing view in naval circles held that Tōgō’s Turn—
what the Japanese called “the turn in front of the enemy”—was too
unorthodox to become a general principle of strategy. It was rather an
exceptional case made possible only under the particular conditions he
found himself in at the time. As he himself declared, his own experience
had given him the intuition to take this course of action.
Not only were the Russian gunners unskilled at firing over long distances
but facing into the wind, they were covered in sea spray. This made it more
difficult for them to set their sights. The main Japanese ships were also faster
than the Russian ships, and, as their own commanders were well trained in
fleet maneuvers, only a single order from Tōgō was required to get the whole
fleet to perform this turn just as he envisioned. When making his decision,
Tōgō had taken into consideration the enemy’s disadvantage, his own side’s
advantage, and also the distance of 8,000 meters between the two fleets. He
also included in his calculations the distinct possibility that he himself
would be killed and the Mikasa sunk.
All the Japanese ships put on as much speed as they could during this
desperate, risky action. They wanted to get through the maneuver as soon
as possible. These fifteen minutes could make all the difference between
life and death.
The Mikasa was being continually beaten like a drum by Russian shells.
It was not just the Mikasa that was being hit, of course. The Shikishima,
Fuji, Asahi, Kasuga, and Nisshin following on behind were also struck during
this constant barrage of fire. The damage to the ships in the Second Division
was particularly severe. This division consisted of six cruisers under the
command of Kamimura Hikonojō on board the Izumo, the flagship of the
Second Squadron. Weighing in the region of 9,000 tons each, these vessels
 clouds above the hill 259
were called armor-belted as they all had protection just like battleships, but
their belts were by no means as thick. Their main guns were also smaller,
but speed was their big asset. In contrast to a battleship’s top speed of 19
knots, they could reach 22 knots or more.
The Japanese had been innovative in considering these six armored
cruisers an important fighting force. Yamamoto Gombei was the inspiration
behind this. Cruisers had never really been considered significant in major
sea battles due to their weak protection, and they were used more for hit-
and-run attacks. Ten years before, however, the world had been surprised
to learn that Japan was fitting out just as many armored cruisers as battleships,
so much so that a British Navy source cautioned, “Doesn’t this seem illogical
from a strategic point of view?” When these ships demonstrated that they
could perform a useful auxiliary role in combat, Yamamoto’s decision
would be seen as having been right all along. Subsequently, every navy would
place more emphasis on having armored cruisers with powerful guns, until
eventually there were even some major sea battles fought entirely between
cruisers.
Nevertheless, these ships had to be skillfully maneuvered in order to be
effective in combat. Between them, Tōgō and Kamimura managed to do
this, although one cruiser, the Asama, was hit near the stern by a giant shell
from a 12-inch gun during this quarter hour, and the shock from the explosion
was so fierce that the rudder was damaged and control of steering lost. This
vessel soon fell out of line and became separated from the rest of the fleet.

* * *
Once the Mikasa had completed its turn and was fixed on its new course,
the thirty-eight ships of the Baltic Fleet lay spread across the sea on the
starboard side. Now there were only 6,400 meters between the two sides,
and, with all the Japanese ships frantically sailing at high speed, this space
was visibly shrinking.
Chief of Artillery Abo held a stopwatch in his left hand. With his right,
he clutched a telescope through which he peered from time to time or clung
to the rail when he was in danger of losing his footing. The ship was swaying.
The hull was shuddering from the waves and from the impact of enemy shells.
When these exploded, it was sometimes impossible to see through the
smoke.
Abo’s first command to fire in this decisive battle came at ten minutes
past two in the afternoon. Every gun large and small on the starboard side
fired at once, and a volley of shells flew off with the precision of a line
dance. The shock of these guns’ recoil action made the hull of the Mikasa
groan as if it were being bent right over.
260 sea of destiny
Their target was the Suvorov. Once the Shikishima following on behind
had completed its turn and was set on its new course, it too opened fire on
the starboard side just like the Mikasa. So did the Fuji next in line, and the
Asahi, Kasuga, and finally the Nisshin bringing up the rear. When all the
ships in the Second Division under the Izumo had completed their turns as
well, the entire main force of Tōgō’s fleet trained all of its guns on one side—
a total of 127 main and secondary guns—and concentrated its fire on the
Suvorov and Oslyabya, the two ships sailing at the head of the Baltic Fleet.
Seen in purely mathematical terms, this tactic was highly logical. “If at
the start of the battle we train all our firepower on the front of the enemy
fleet, we can sink two or three ships.” This was a ploy that Akiyama
Saneyuki had plucked from the strategy once used by those Japanese pirate
bands. This approach had not been used by any other navy since Tōgō was
maneuvering his fleet in accordance with his vice chief of staff’s rules.
Saneyuki had taken several key points from the pirates: “First, destroy
the enemy flagship. Use all your combined power to strike at just one section
of the enemy. Always move to surround the enemy.”
This was why in next to no time Rozhestvensky’s Suvorov and the
Oslyabya sailing alongside suddenly found themselves swathed in Shimose
powder. As shells exploded on impact, lights flashed and flames began to
rise through the dark-colored smoke that soon enveloped the confined space
around these two ships.
The Russians kept up their fire as well. Their target was the Mikasa. Three
minutes after the Japanese flagship opened fire, a shell from a 6-inch Russian
gun struck the foremost funnel and, perhaps because of a defective fuse,
shot straight through without exploding and flew out the other side. Then,
a minute later, a 12-inch shell—fired from the very largest of a battleship’s
main guns—fell through the air with a terrible scream before smashing
through the roof of the No.3 gun turret and exploded in the gunhouse, wiping
out all the men inside.

* * *
Soon, the distance between the two fleets was in the region of 5,000 meters.
“There is no point in firing shells until the enemy is within 7,000 meters.”
This was Tōgō’s maxim, but now there was every reason to engage. At this
distance, on both sides, they could even see the enemy crews moving around
on deck. The surface of the sea was being churned up by falling shells, and
water spouts were shooting up like a forest of trees. Those from the Russian
12-inch shells in particular rose above the height of the bridge, before
tumbling like a waterfall over the deck. With the air split apart by the terrible
 clouds above the hill 261
noise of scattered firing and explosions smashing the surface of the sea, the
sky itself seemed likely to fall.
On board each vessel in Tōgō’s fleet, the situation was a living hell, and
they appeared to be losing the fight. Inside the after gun turret of the Fuji,
sailing third in line, Nishida Suteichi was, as we’ve said, posted to the
handling chamber. There, he was operating the hoist mechanism to bring
up and load the giant 12-inch shells from the magazine in the hold. This gun
turret had two gun barrels projecting, just like the main forward gun turret.
Chief Warrant Officer Teranishi Masujirō, together with eight men under
his command, ran everything in the gunhouse. After firing for thirty minutes,
however, the hoist had broken down, and shells were no longer appearing
from the magazine. Teranishi, who at the time was a young third class warrant
officer, promptly raced down to the machine room below decks to set about
repairing the hoist. For him, this was a stroke of luck.
“Above my head,” he said, recalling the moment when he reached the
machine room, “I heard an indescribable explosion so intense that it seemed
to bore through the pit of my stomach.” When he rushed up to see what had
happened, half of the gun turret had disappeared. The area was in flames,
and the floor in front of him was a sea of blood. Arms and legs had been
blown off, and bodies lay before him. With the exception of the commander,
who was severely wounded, all the men there were dead. The turret had
been struck by a 12-inch shell, which had ripped through the embrasure,
exploding inside the gunhouse and breaking off the right-hand gun at its
breech. Because the gunners had been in the process of loading a shell just
at that moment, their own gunpowder charge was ignited by the flames, and
the chamber was instantly turned into an inferno.
The situation on board the Nisshin, sixth in line, was equally horrific.
Since this ship was bringing up the rear, it was on the receiving end of more
Russian shells than any Japanese ship other than the Mikasa. Thirty minutes
after the battle started, a 12-inch shell came flying over and hit the main
forward gun turret. As a result, the right-hand gun barrel flew off and fell
into the sea, while shell fragments flew in all directions, one of them
smashing through the lower torso of Matsui Kenkichi, a staff officer on the
bridge, killing him instantly. Metal fragments flew around the upper, middle,
and main decks, killing and wounding seventeen men.
A 9-inch shell hit the already devastated area of the main forward gun
turret and exploded. Fragments flew inside the conning tower, wounding
Vice Admiral Suma Sōtarō and the chief of navigation. Around ninety men
including the cadet Takano Isoroku were covered in blood. (Takano would
one day become better known as Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, commander
in chief of the Combined Fleet during the Pacific War.) This one forward
262 sea of destiny
gun turret managed to draw enemy fire so many times that it seemed to
possess some kind of magnetic force. It was hit on three occasions, the third
time by a 12-inch shell, which smashed up the remaining left-hand gun.
A 6-inch shell also struck the main mast of the Nisshin. Nakashima Bunya,
a third class warrant officer with a booming voice, had climbed to the top
to report on the flight of the shells. To stop himself from falling, he had
strapped his body to the mast, and as he sat on the upper beam he was calling
out in a hale and hearty voice. When this shell struck, however, it blew off
his right leg from the top and blood from the gaping wound gushed onto the
deck below. Nakashima expired on the spot, strapped to the mast.

* * *
The Kasuga and Nisshin went through a rough time in their new role as
ships-of-the-line. Although they were armored cruisers weighing just 7,700
tons each, they had been incorporated into the First Division under the
Mikasa. As we’ve explained, this was to replace the two battleships Hatsuse
and Yashima, which had sunk after striking mines in Port Arthur the year
before.
A battleship has large main guns and thick armor plating. This combina-
tion of offensive and defensive power determines a battleship division’s
strategic maneuvers. Yet the Kasuga and the Nisshin, which seemed like
children by comparison, had to somehow keep up with the grown-ups. They
were equipped only with 8- and 10-inch main guns, although these did have
a high angle of elevation and an impressive range of 15,000 meters. Because
they also had six secondary guns on either side, they were thought to be
capable of serving as battleships themselves.
Before the start of the war, these two vessels had still been under
construction at a shipyard in Genoa. They had originally been ordered by
Argentina, not Japan. The British Navy had informed the Japanese that they
were nearing completion and suggested that they buy them instead. The
Russians learned of this and entered into a bidding war with Argentina. The
Japanese then secured both ships just before war broke out, though only
after trumping the Russians with a ludicrously high offer.
Suzuki Kantarō, serving in these waters as a destroyer commander, had
led the crews that brought these two ships from Italy to Japan. The Russian
battleship Oslyabya, now sailing at the head of the Baltic Fleet, had done
everything in its power to block their path during their passage through the
Mediterranean Sea.
Since the Japanese had not been involved at any stage in the design of
these two ships, the extremely high waves in the Sea of Japan had not been
taken into account. As a result, just like many of the Russian battleships
 clouds above the hill 263
present that day, the guns along their flanks were so close to the waterline
that they were frequently covered by incoming waves, making it difficult
for the gunners to set their sights.
The Kasuga was particularly bad. The covers of its secondary guns had
been opened outward just before the exchange of fire got underway. These
covers were held fast by chains to prevent them from flapping. The sea was
immediately below them. Raging waves raced toward the side. Because the
No.12 6-inch gun was constantly being hit by such waves, one of those sturdy
chains had been wrenched loose. The sailors had to repair this straight away.
But the cover was just too heavy to be hauled back into place from where
they were on board. Meanwhile, a high wave had washed over the gun as
well, making it impossible to get close. Just then Ikeda Sakugorō, a second
class marine who was proud of his strength, tied a rope around his body and
stepped out beyond the muzzle of the gun and over the side. There he grabbed
hold of the cover and tried to reattach it to the broken chain. Just as he at
last managed to do this, he was covered by a huge wave and the rope snapped.
He cried out a last banzai as he was swept away.
At the head of the fleet, the Mikasa endured damage that became more
ghastly by the minute. One shell hit the top part of the main mast, and
fragments scattered in all directions. When Saneyuki, who was on the bridge,
turned his head up, he saw that the admiral’s ensign and the battle flag—
the symbols of the fleet—were gone. But Kashiwamori Genjirō, a signal
flag officer who had been assigned to lookout duties there, fetched another
battle flag that he had hidden away beforehand and promptly hoisted this to
the top of the mast.
“What a curious fellow!” Saneyuki shouted out to no one in particular.
Tōgō, who happened to be within earshot, looked round for a second but
then returned his gaze to the enemy battleships in front of him. All those on
board the Japanese ships following on behind, from their commanders
downwards, were deeply moved to see this battle flag vanish and then
reappear shortly afterward. On the Mikasa, however, so preoccupied were
they with the tasks of steering, firing shells, and issuing orders that hardly
anyone noticed the mast had been broken or that another flag had been
hoisted.

* * *
“In combat, you never know how much damage you are inflicting on the
enemy. All you know is the damage your own side is receiving, so you always
imagine that you are losing the fight, even if the enemy is suffering more
than you are.” Tōgō always said this, describing a lesson he had learned
from experience.
264 sea of destiny
He had constantly drummed this message into his men, and so now in
the heat of battle they recalled those words to raise their flagging spirits.
Even Saneyuki remembered them during the fighting to steady his nerves.
After all, as a Satsuma officer in the last years of the shogunate, Tōgō had
experienced combat several times before Saneyuki was even born. Among
all the admirals in history, probably no one was ever so calm in the midst
of such carnage as Tōgō.
Chief of Artillery Abo on the bridge was busier than anyone. Without
taking his eyes off the enemy targets, he was giving out prompt and accurate
reports on the impact of the Japanese shells as he issued commands for firing
all the guns. At the same time, he was concerned about the morale of those
working in the hold. These were the men assigned to posts such as the engine
room, the powder magazine, and the boiler room. Since they could not
actually see the combat for themselves, they felt more unnerved than anyone.
Though it was beyond the call of duty, the perceptive Abo took advantage
of intervals between his firing commands to send out messages informing
those below decks on the progress of the battle.
On one occasion, he cried out, “A 12-inch shell from the Mikasa just hit
the Borodino!”
Tōgō, who was standing behind him at the time, chuckled and, in his
Satsuma accent, he said, “What’s that, Chief of Artillery? The shell missed!”
Abo knew this full well. Lowering his thick eyebrows, he laughed back.
“I just said it to lift their spirits!”
We keep coming back to the binoculars hanging around Tōgō’s neck.
This was the only example of Carl Zeiss binoculars used at the battle, and
they had a power of magnification superior to those of any other officer in
the fleet. In his work The History of Measuring Instruments, Katayama
Sampei has written, “In February 1904, at the start of the Russo-Japanese
War, a pair of Carl Zeiss binoculars was first used for military purposes in
Japan. Until then, French-made Lamier binoculars had been imported for
both military and civilian use.” He says “first used,” but, in fact, only Tōgō
and Tsukamoto Katsukuma, a young lieutenant junior grade serving on a
destroyer, had this particular make in their possession.
Incidentally, Katayama Sampei was born in the city of Okazaki in March
1885 and joined Tamaya, an optical supplies shop in Ginza, as an errand
boy in 1900. Later, he went on to serve as retail supervisor at Fuji Measuring
Instruments, where he became a pioneer in the sale of optical equipment.
Now, in 1972, as we write this, he is eighty-six years old, but he seemed to
be in good health when he recalled, “Back in those days, I was lodging at
the Tamaya shop. I was the one who went to Tōgō-san’s house to deliver
those binoculars.”
 clouds above the hill 265
* * *
“Use all your combined power to strike at just one section of the enemy.”
In saying this, Tōgō proclaimed a novel concept, and to implement it, he
also employed that unconventional fleet maneuver—the “turn in front of the
enemy.”
We might be repeating ourselves here, but there were broadly three
different responses to this maneuver among the staff officers on board the
Russian Suvorov. Some danced with joy thinking, “Tōgō has gone mad.”
Others were more dispassionate, explaining simply, “Tōgō has led his ships
in his customary alpha-movement.” Still others saw it as a tactical problem
and wondered, “What is the mystery behind this?”
Admiral Rozhestvensky was among those wondering about what was
happening, but no answer emerged. If he could not come up with an answer,
he could not just ponder the possibilities. He had to do something. A superior
commander would have struck at that moment while the enemy fleet was
still in the process of changing course. After all, by making this turn, Tōgō
had signaled his intent to fight.
Rozhestvensky did at any rate have newer battleships (the First Division)
than Tōgō’s Mikasa at his disposal. If he had charged on with these modern
vessels and struck with full speed at the tail of the Japanese fleet, perhaps
Tōgō’s miraculous maneuver would not have yielded such miraculous
results. His formation would have been thrown into confusion right at the
start of the battle.
But inside the Suvorov’s conning tower, Rozhestvensky made no attempt
to devise a suitable strategy to counter Tōgō’s ploy. He simply gave orders
for the guns to fire. We know that the battle itself commenced at eight minutes
past two in the afternoon when the Russian guns opened fire, but on every
warship, the Russian gunners were all operating individually and firing
away as independent units. Viewed overall, these gunners might be seen as
the limbs of the Baltic Fleet, while its brain, their commander, remained
paralyzed. Or perhaps this simply showed that Rozhestvensky was far
inferior to Tōgō in understanding the key to achieving victory at sea.
Traditionally, a sea battle was considered a simple exchange of gunfire
between battleships, and Rozhestvensky’s approach deviated only marginally
from this view. He differed fundamentally from Tōgō and Tōgō’s staff
officers in his thinking about the dynamics of such a confrontation.
If we were to try to describe Rozhestvensky’s tactics in this battle, we
should probably conclude that he entrusted everything to God, the com-
mander of each vessel, and the work of the Russian gunners. He was also
hampered by one preconceived notion, which distorted and clouded his
266 sea of destiny
normally clear thinking. This was his search to find a gap in Tōgō’s fleet,
in order to break through and escape to Vladivostok.
He simply had not planned to pit all his strength and courage against Tōgō
in those waters and had not conceived a strategy for the battle ahead. If he
had braced himself for such a do-or-die situation and fought to the last in
that combat zone, some of the ships on both sides would probably have been
sunk, but the Russian vessels that survived might indeed have made it through
to Vladivostok. Of course he expected at least some of his ships to succeed
in getting past the enemy. But he assumed that his own ship must be among
those to survive, and it was this that blunted his tactical thinking and dulled
his judgment, leaving him practically without any way to respond to Tōgō’s
brilliant tactics.

* * *
The Japanese concentrated incredibly intense fire on the Suvorov. Since the
bombardment started, something in the range of several hundred shells had
hit the Russian flagship in quick succession. There was just no comparison
between this and the number of Russian shells that struck the Mikasa.
Semenov, who was in charge of recording the action, wanted to see as
much of the combat as possible with his own eyes. At the start, he had been
standing on the aft bridge as a spectator. Next to him was Lieutenant Redkin,
who for the time being was at a loose end since he was in command of the
after starboard 6-inch guns. He had nothing to do as long as the fighting
was carried out on the port side. Through his binoculars, Semenov saw the
first smoke rising from the enemy guns just as the Mikasa settled on its new
course and the Shikishima, Fuji, and Asahi engaged on their sweeping turns.
The Japanese shells did not resemble the shells of any other navy in the
world. Long and thin, they were packed with Shimose powder and contained
Ijūin fuses.
The Russians of the Port Arthur Squadron, who had previously encoun-
tered these shells, nicknamed them chemodany— “suitcases.” From his own
time with this squadron, Semenov knew full well about their unusual shape
and fearsome power. Now, on seeing them again, he confirmed for himself
just how strange this weapon was. “It was just like launching firewood,” he
said.
With the naked eye, they could see these missiles spinning round and
round as they flew through the air toward them. The shells did not make
any great noise either. Compared with the Russian shells, which boomed
out like the roar of a train clattering over an iron bridge, this unique long
shell just softly whirred, with nothing thunderous at all.
 clouds above the hill 267
“So these are the famous chemodany,” remarked the astonished Redkin.
The first Japanese shell flew over the Suvorov and into the sea beyond.
Had this been a Russian shell, a long water spout would have been thrown
off, but due to the highly reactive Ijūin fuse, there was instead a loud
explosion as soon as the shell hit the water. As a result, even though the
shell had missed the ship, countless shell fragments flew on board. These
made short sharp sounds as they struck the side of the hull and other
structures on deck. The second shot fell too short. The third hit the area
around the forward funnel, and the fourth struck the after port side 6-inch
gun turret, which burst into flames. The distinctive feature of Shimose
powder was that it did not pierce a ship’s armor plating and then explode
inside, but instead burned up everything it touched on impact, both wood
and steel. A gigantic column of flames leaped up from the area around the
forward funnel. The stern area was also now on fire.
“They were like torpedoes flying toward us,” wrote Novikov-Priboy who
was watching this bombardment of Japanese shells on the battleship Oryol.
On the cruiser Oleg, the officer Sergei Posokhov wrote, “These so-called
shells were actually like mines. On exploding they scattered flames that could
not be put out, and even those that fell in the sea sent fragments flying in
our direction, which caused some damage as well.”

* * *
Several minutes after the onset of battle, Semenov on the aft bridge of the
Suvorov saw that a dozen or so signalmen toward the stern had been killed
by shell fragments scattered around a starboard 6-inch gun turret. He trembled
with fear to think that this had all happened in just a few minutes. He could
see that the Japanese were at least three times more accurate than the Russian
gunners. It was not a case of their having more guns at their disposal, but
their skill gave them the equivalent of three times as many guns as the
Russians.
Semenov felt that remaining any longer on the aft bridge was already too
dangerous. But he quickly realized that everywhere on board would be just
as dangerous, so he decided to make for the conning tower. He also wanted
to fulfill his duty as a reporter and observe Rozhestvensky and Captain
Ignatzius in action. With his thin legs bustling along and carrying his portly
frame, he ran toward the front part of the deck and saw several deaths along
the way. Among those fallen was the chief signalman, who had spoken to
him just ten minutes before and now had been blown to pieces across the
deck. This aroused no particular emotion in him. It was just that the deck
was so slippery from all the blood that he could hardly keep his balance.
268 sea of destiny
The conning tower was protected by an armor-plated wall and a steel
cover. Stooped down low, Rozhestvensky was peering at the scene outside
through a chink in the wall. Next to the ship’s wheel, two men had fallen.
One of them was a steering navigation officer; the other was Commander
Fyodor Bersenev, chief of artillery, who had been hit in the head. He must
have died instantly.
Captain Ignatzius, who was the best sailor in the fleet, had still not lost
his natural grace and good cheer. “How does it look?” he asked Rozh-
estvensky, who was peering through his binoculars. “I think we should
increase the space between our ships by a fraction. Too many of their shells
are finding their targets.”
But Rozhestvensky did not agree. He knew the Russian fleet would have
much difficulty adjusting its formation yet again.
“Our shells are also finding their targets,” he replied. It was true that in
many cases they could not really see all the smoke and flames from the
Russians’ armor-piercing shells as they punched through the walls of the
Japanese ships and exploded inside.
On this occasion, though, even Semenov, usually aglow with admiration
for Rozhestvensky, felt irritated by his admiral’s casual demeanor. He
believed that these men inside the conning tower had not taken in the truly
desperate situation consuming the ship. He emerged from the conning tower
and climbed up to the bridge. From there, he could see a panorama of the
whole battle. The Japanese fleet had only just completed its series of turns
in the course of fifteen minutes. The Suvorov had already suffered extensive
damage during those fifteen minutes, and this was before Tōgō even had a
chance to unleash a full-scale bombardment.

* * *
As Semenov climbed up onto the bridge and looked out over the battle,
Tōgō’s fleet had just finished firing ranging shots at the Russians. The
Alexander III and Borodino following on behind the flagship Suvorov—both
of them prestigious symbols of the might of the Russian Empire—were
already on fire and engulfed in pale-yellow smoke.
“What’s going on?” thought Semenov, but his mind was soon taken off
this question by several of those “firewood” shells flying toward him. He
could clearly see each and every shell, all seemingly aimed straight at him
as he stood up there on the bridge. He could no longer stay, and so he hastily
climbed down, but there was nowhere left for him to go. With his notes in
hand, Semenov started running back toward the stern. The deck was so
covered with debris and corpses that he could hardly find a place for his
feet. The signal area, the distance-measuring unit, and the impact observation
 clouds above the hill 269
unit had all been destroyed by Japanese shells. He realized that the Suvorov
had lost the mechanisms that served as a battleship’s eyes and ears.
On the bridge of the Mikasa, meanwhile, Akiyama Saneyuki was also
taking notes. This literary figure of the Japanese Navy was not, like Semenov,
under orders to write any tale of hero worship, but was simply recording
moment by moment each and every change in the battle scene for the
combat report that he would have to write up later.
At fifteen minutes past two, just five minutes after the Mikasa had begun
its bombardment, the Russian battleship Oslyabya caught fire. Tōgō’s fleet
was now at last within 5,000 meters of the enemy, close enough to approach
what Saneyuki had once described as “rubbing sides.” At this range, the
accuracy of the Japanese shells would be far higher.
Even at this stage, Saneyuki was not using his binoculars. The plight of
the Baltic Fleet was clear enough to see with the naked eye. The Oslyabya
had sustained severe damage, its mainmast broken, a funnel blown off, and
fires all over the ship. The hull had been pierced by shells all around the
waterline, and a large quantity of seawater was flooding into the hold. “The
Oslyabya is listing,” Saneyuki wrote in his notes.
The Suvorov was also shattered and engulfed in flames. Saneyuki could
not see them himself, but the firefighting units were rushing about on deck.
Through his binoculars, Katō Tomosaburō could see these units, which
seemed close enough to touch. The worst fires of all were on the Alexander
III. Raging smoke, billowing up from the fires and racing around each
Russian battleship, mixed with a silky sea mist to create a curtain of smoke
quite beyond imagining. The Japanese gunners had difficulty setting their
sights because of this, and for a short interval they even had to halt
their fire.

* * *
Tōgō’s orders during this period were practically flawless. While the
Japanese gunners kept up their bombardment, he adjusted the course of his
fleet from time to time. His objective throughout was to press the front line
of the enemy fleet back.
“The Mikasa always lay in front of us,” according to a Russian record.
But Tōgō had to make some nigh impossible maneuvers for the Japanese
flagship to stay ahead of the Baltic Fleet like that. By making his sweeping
turn, he had managed to check the Russian advance, but as long as the Baltic
Fleet was still moving, he had to maintain the same position in relation to
the enemy. At the start, the Japanese fleet had approached the combat zone
from the north. After a series of fleet maneuvers culminating in the “turn in
front of the enemy,” it was now heading east-northeast. The Baltic Fleet
270 sea of destiny
responded by changing its course to the east and opening fire from the port
side. Tōgō had hoped for this response.
He changed course again with the order: “Southeast—2 points and 1 point
east.” With this, he completed the formation needed to apply pressure on
the head of the enemy fleet. Due to this formation, the First Division under
Tōgō’s direct command and the Second Division under Kamimura were able
to fire their murderous broadside on the Russian ships.
In the conning tower of the Suvorov, Rozhestvensky did not know what
to do. His ship’s speed had not diminished, but it was now enveloped in
flames, and men were running about trying to put them out. But just as soon
as one fire was extinguished another shell would strike, and the ship caught
fire again.
At a quarter to three, when Tōgō gave the order to change course by
“southeast—2 points and 1 point east,” Semenov on the Suvorov had the
impression that “Tōgō again approached us on a new course. Leading a single
column in line ahead formation, the Mikasa turned to the right so as to cut
across the front of our fleet.”
If Rozhestvensky ever really intended to fight it out, the Baltic Fleet should
have responded with a turn to starboard. They must now turn right and engage
the enemy again with their port side guns. Semenov thought Rozhestvensky
would probably do this, but instead he just kept on going straight ahead. He
may have been trying to dodge past Tōgō on his right, and then break through
the enemy’s tail.
Given the condition of his own ships, however, Rozhestvensky no longer
had the capacity to engage in any tactical maneuver. Any intricate operation
should have been carried out either before or immediately after the start of
combat itself. For the time being, everything depended on the eyes, hands,
and spirit of the gunners, not the tactics of the commander.
Only the shortest distance lay between the two sides. The Russian gunners
just had to fire away and keep on hitting their targets whenever they caught
sight of the enemy. But many of the battleships in the Baltic Fleet were
already on fire, and many of their guns were damaged; even the gunners on
ships that were still unscathed were heavily impeded by all the flames and
smoke. On Tōgō’s side, by contrast, not a single ship was on fire, and the
Japanese gunners were becoming more accurate than ever, assisted
throughout by a following wind.

* * *
The flagship Suvorov was on fire. Only the exterior of the conning tower
still retained its original shape. The sturdy umbrella-shaped canopy roof and
round walls with their 10-inch-thick steel plates gave strong protection
 clouds above the hill 271
against enemy shells. The key personnel inside had to look through chinks
positioned at the height of a man’s eyes to view the outside world.
Rozhestvensky and his staff officers kept on peering through these during
the course of the fighting.
When the Mikasa changed course at a quarter to three, Captain Clapier
de Colongue, the chief of staff, ventured to draw Rozhestvensky’s attention
to a fact, which he pointed out with the typical deference of an aristocrat:
“Sir, the Mikasa is getting closer.”
“I know!” the admiral thundered, stooping down to peer through the slit.
But no order was forthcoming in response. This dictator thought of any
suggestions made by his staff as simply distracting noise. He trusted only
his own mind. But the mind played only a small part in taking command of
such an entangled battle scene. It was courage that should have dictated his
actions. This may have been what Rozhestvensky lacked.
Incredibly, the distance between the Suvorov and the Mikasa at this stage
was reduced to a mere 2,400 meters, the closest that Tōgō and Rozhestvensky
would ever get during the course of the battle and almost like hand-to-hand
combat between two leaders armed with swords. The Russians could even
see figures moving about on the bridge of the Mikasa. Rozhestvensky
became so fired up that he resolved to kill Tōgō. He became so agitated that
he took on the job of giving firing commands himself. He even specified
that they should use the forward port 6-inch guns. His target was Tōgō.
At some stage in the fighting, Rozhestvensky had hoisted signal flags
with the message “Sink the Mikasa.” Now was his chance. The forward port
guns gave out a thunderous boom, spewing out sparks of flame and raising
black smoke as they fired armor-piercing shells. All the battleships in the
Baltic Fleet followed suit. Countless water spouts shot up around the
Mikasa, and the entire ship was drenched in water. But unfortunately for
Rozhestvensky, the blade he was brandishing missed its mark. These shells
did not hit the Japanese flagship, a sure sign that the Russian Navy was way
behind Japan in its use of artillery. With nothing like the director firing
command system developed by Katō Kanji, the Russian guns fired
individually at will. As the forest of water spouts rose up around the Mikasa,
it was unclear which strike had come from which gun. Clueless as to how
close they really were, the gunners lacked the vital information they needed
to adjust their sights.
The guns of the Mikasa on the other hand had remained silent while the
ship was changing course. When the maneuver was complete, or, to be
precise, two minutes after being fired on by this hail of Russian shells, they
opened fire themselves with a deafening roar. They were using their own
system. In other words, just one of the Mikasa’s guns fired a ranging shot
272 sea of destiny
to start with. By observing the resulting water spout they could check the
point of impact, and Abo Kiyokazu on the bridge then notified every gun
on the ship of its distance. This rational procedure was followed in an orderly
fashion.
Once the Mikasa had worked out the firing range required, the whole
world was plunged into darkness. From every Japanese ship, a fierce
bombardment was unleashed. And it was not just any bombardment, for this
vast host of shells seemed to whip up a great storm. This tempest of fire and
smoke now rained down on the Suvorov alone.
 5
FIRING COMMANDS

“The Japanese fleet switched over to armor-piercing shells to smash through

the enemy’s armor,” writes Noel F. Bush about Tōgō’s brilliant tactic. These
few words evoke the orderly way that the maneuver was carried out, like a
performance by a well-drilled troupe of dancers. One could say the same
for the way that each Japanese ship carried out its “turn in front of the
enemy,” how each chief of artillery on the bridge of his ship took sole charge
of the firing commands, and how each ship, on approaching the enemy,
switched from forged steel howitzer shells to armor-piercing shells.
The Japanese beat the Russians, not because of the strength of their ships
nor the skill and morale of their gunners, but because of their brainpower.
We refer here, of course, not to the quality of their gray matter but to their
way of thinking. Japan, as the weaker party, was forced to think matters
through in order to overcome the might of Russia. They then did not just
leave these thoughts on the drawing board but used them to ready their entire
fleet.
“The key to winning a sea battle is to get more shells on target than the
enemy does”—this is the common maxim that Tōgō particularly emphasized
to his men. He concentrated all his strategy and tactics on this one point.
No other navy in the world at the time concentrated on this as thoroughly
as Tōgō.
And don’t forget that when the Japanese ships were waiting in Chinhae
Bay, Tōgō carried out firing drills with such intensity that the whole fleet
thought he had gone mad. But he knew from bitter personal experience about
the difficulty of getting a shell to strike its target. The first time Western-
style guns had been used at sea in Japan was at the battle of Awa on January
28, 1868. This was a contest between the shogunate ship Kaiyō and the
274 firing commands
Satsuma ship Kasuga. On board the Kaiyō was Enomoto Takeaki, recently
returned from Holland, while, on the Kasuga, Tōgō Heihachirō, still a fresh-
faced youth, was in charge of a 40-pounder rifled cannon on the port side.
The two ships opened fire at each other at a distance of 2,800 meters, and
the exchange reached its height when they were 1,200 meters apart.
Eventually, the clash ended when the Kasuga used its superior speed to break
free of the Kaiyō, but during the fighting not a single shot hit its target.
This illustrates just how difficult gunnery at sea can be. Not only are the
enemy ships moving, but due to the wind and waves the muzzle of your
own gun is constantly waving about as well. Back in the days of the Gempei
War in the twelfth century, Nasu no Yoichi faced difficult conditions when
he aimed his bow across the water at a fan placed atop the mast of a Heike
ship. Not just in the battle of Awa but right up to the Russo-Japanese War,
gunners were haunted by the same sorts of difficulties.
During the battle of the Yellow Sea the previous year, which was the first
full-scale confrontation between Tōgō’s fleet and Russia’s First Pacific
Squadron, both sides had displayed a similarly poor level of firing skills.
The Japanese had achieved their marginal victory because of the “single
fateful shot” of a 12-inch shell that exploded on impact near the conning
tower of the Russian flagship. This blew away Admiral Vitgeft and all his
staff, throwing the enemy command into chaos.
“I didn’t think we were going to win,” Saneyuki later said, reflecting upon
what had actually gone on. “You can only call it divine grace.”

* * *
During the time Tōgō’s fleet waited in Chinhae Bay, the Japanese gunners
by no means demonstrated superior skills. As Lieutenant Yamamoto Shinjirō,
who was in charge of a 12-inch gun and a 3.5-inch gun on the Mikasa, later
recalled, “On one occasion, we used a small island in Chinhae Bay for target
practice. Every time we fired, we really struggled to hit it. We thought this
was ludicrous, but no matter how much we tried, we still missed.”
The reason—as they later discovered—was not just their poor firing skills,
but because their gunpowder charges had deteriorated. Even so, they rarely
managed to hit the target in those early stages of training. When Yamamoto
Shinjirō made a trip to London some years later, Captain Pakenham, who
had been with them as a military observer, told him, “At one stage in Chinhae
Bay, I was so amazed at the Japanese gunners’ poor marksmanship that I
thought it was almost suicidal to go to war with this fleet. I even considered
writing a letter to Saitō Makoto, vice minister at the Naval Ministry in Tokyo,
asking to be withdrawn from the front. But when they actually fired in action,
I was astonished by their accuracy.”
 clouds above the hill 275
Pakenham said it was like watching a completely different fleet. This
transformation was largely the result of the training that Tōgō had so single-
mindedly carried out in Chinhae Bay. Also Tōgō, his staff, and the artillery
had studied the command system during their stay there and developed
their entirely original approach. This had a significant impact as well. They
realized that the skill of the gunners was important, but they saw that they
would make no significant progress until the system for giving out firing
orders was also improved.
This may be a bit of a tangent, but here we must discuss the Russian
gunners in Rozhestvensky’s fleet. According to conventional wisdom on both
the Russian and Japanese sides, the Russians’ skills were poor, but convinc-
ing proof of this is hard to find. We’ve told about the difficulties involved
in firing a battleship’s guns. But over and above the tough conditions they
all had to face, if Tōgō’s gunners really were superior to Rozhestvensky’s
(and indeed this is true) it was not by any significant margin. The command
system for issuing firing orders that Tōgō and his men developed probably
made the crucial difference.
Tōgō had already outlined the gist of the new approach to the commanders
and relevant officers on each battleship when he wrote the following in
“Flagship Confidential No. 497”: “There is no longer any room for doubt
that the command system is an important element in firing technique.” This
directive articulated the new concept of “uniform gunsights on one ship” with
the phrase “firing range to be coordinated from the bridge.” By coincidence,
the idea had also been developed at around the same time in Britain, where
it was called “broadside firing.” But because the British Navy had no
opportunity to try this out in battle, Tōgō’s fleet took the credit for it.
In his distinctive leadership style, Tōgō simply laid down the principles
and let the commander and chief of artillery on each battleship figure out
the method of implementation. “Wherever possible,” went Tōgō’s guiding
principle, “instructions on both firing and range should be controlled from
the bridge, so no adjustments need be made at the battery turret level at all.”
This was completely different from the Russian approach, where each gun
turret decided on its own range, and all fired independently of each other
even on the same battleship.
This was why Abo Kiyokazu, chief of artillery on the Mikasa, controlled
all his guns from the bridge. On the battleship Fuji, however, Chief of
Artillery Yamaoka Toyokazu climbed to the top of the foremast during
combat. From there, he determined the range and, with a penetrating cry,
yelled out his instructions directly to each gun turret through a megaphone.
“The top of the foremast is the best place for making observations,” Katō
276 firing commands
Kanji, the Mikasa’s former chief of artillery, had said, so the system adopted
on the Fuji may have been even more effective than that on the Mikasa.
Then again, Yamaoka did not use just a megaphone to convey his
instructions. He had a whole panoply of equipment at his disposal, including
a bugle to convey numbers, an indicator board, and signal lights. In the din
of gunfire from both sides, such meticulous preparation could make all the
difference.
Tōgō’s “Flagship Confidential No. 497” had laid down the principles but
also contained some practical details, including the idea that “Firing
instructions from the bridge must be prompt. If it takes more than twenty
seconds to reach the gun turrets on the lower deck, the order may no longer
be valid. Under combat conditions the firing distance can change by more
than 100 meters in a matter of just ten seconds.”
“The Japanese fleet switched from forged steel high-explosive shells to
armor-piercing shells,” Noel Bush had written, but, in fact, Tōgō had decided
on this tactical change right from the start. A forged steel high-explosive
shell simply explodes on impact, causing death and destruction to human
life and objects in the area. An armor-piercing shell does not kill as many
men, but as its name suggests, it punches through and opens up a large hole
in the enemy’s armored defenses. Even though high-explosive shells will
not usually sink a battleship, they were used initially by Tōgō’s crew, who
knew that armor-piercing shells were not so effective when fired from a
distance.
The fleet planned to wait until they were within 3,000 meters before
switching shells. Although the name armor-piercing shells may suggest that
they could penetrate steel, Japanese calculations had shown that these shells
could not punch through an enemy’s armor until within a range of 2,500
meters.
The Russians had not even considered such factors. The real issue,
therefore, was not the skill of the Japanese gunners, but rather the superior
thinking of Tōgō and his staff as compared to Rozhestvensky and his staff.
Here, we’ve relied heavily on the work of Mayuzumi Haruo and Shima
Ikichirō, two leading authorities on naval artillery history. Mayuzumi, who
once served as a naval captain, was too young to participate in the Russo-
Japanese War, but he was an artillery expert and used his expertise to develop
a compelling argument about Tōgō’s commands.
At the time, the “turn in front of the enemy” or so-called “Tōgō’s Turn”
that paved the way for Tōgō’s success seemed like an act of madness to
British military observer Pakenham, as well as to Rozhestvensky and his
staff. In the event, this decision, always portrayed as a “courageous move,”
would make Tōgō’s name forever. As, one after another, all the battleships
 clouds above the hill 277
executed an orderly turn to the left at designated intervals and within sight
of the enemy, each would be virtually motionless for a time right in front
of the Russian gunners. If only the gunners had the skill, they should have
been able to fire and destroy each warship in turn. That is why Tōgō’s
maneuver was so extremely daring.
Japan’s Naval Staff College also praised this as a “move of great bravery,”
making this description conventional wisdom in military lectures. Satō
Tetsutarō, staff officer of the Second Squadron, was at the time of this battle
considered a strategist on a par with Akiyama Saneyuki, and later he also
ranked this as a most hazardous enterprise.
But Mayuzumi disputes this: “From an artillery perspective, this was not
such a courageous move at all.” He has highlighted one simple yet crucial
detail. No navy of that time, Japanese, Russian, or any other, had the
technology to fire promptly and effectively on an enemy target already in
the process of making a sweeping turn. This was because at least several
minutes were needed to prepare and set the sights before being ready to fire.
“Research on the battle shows,” Mayuzumi further states,

that from the time Commander in Chief Tōgō gave the order, the Mikasa
took about two minutes to make the 145-degree turn. During that time not
one of the Russian guns, large, medium, or small, on the five modern
battleships under the Suvorov fired a single shot. Only when the second
Japanese battleship Shikishima embarked on its new course did they at last
open fire. . .During the first three minutes that elapsed after changing
course, the Mikasa did not come under any attack at all. A small shell from
a Russian 15-centimeter gun actually hit the flagship for the first time at
thirteen minutes past two, a full eight minutes after it had started its turn.
The first 12-inch shell to hit the target was a minute after that. . .So in those
days before the invention of the gyroscope, battleships could not bombard
an enemy target while it was turning.

In Mayuzumi’s view, Tōgō’s achievement lay not in having embarked on a

hazardous enterprise, but in “the great perception he showed in fearlessly
giving the order for this turn.”
Quite apart from the tactics involved, the authoritative Mayuzumi is
probably right purely in terms of artillery theory. We’ve quoted him here
not to evaluate the merits of Tōgō’s Turn in front of the enemy, as we’ve
already provided details about this. Rather, we wanted to refer to his analysis
to get a clearer sense of how hard it was for a battleship to hit an enemy
battleship in those days.
278 firing commands
Tōgō’s’ “Flagship Confidential No. 497” does not include any grand
expectation that every shot will hit its target. “If we can get seventy out of
every hundred shots on target,” the effect would be equivalent to adding
several battleships and armored cruisers to their existing fleet, and “This is
by no means an impossible goal.”

* * *
The defensive strength of a battleship’s armor was actually very strong in
those days; navies around the world generally believed that even the largest
12-inch shell could not sink a battleship. “A battleship does not sink,”
Rozhestvensky and his staff all believed. “This is especially true of the armor
of our five modern battleships, which is strong enough to withstand any
shell.”
Such views reflected conventional wisdom, and as Semenov raced about
from one part of the Suvorov to another recording his observations of the
battle, he too never for one moment imagined that the battleship would
actually sink.
Akiyama Saneyuki also thought that the enemy’s new battleships could
not be sunk just by using shells. That was why his plan involved pounding
the enemy with shells by day, and then sending out flotillas of destroyers
and torpedo boats by night to bring down these battered ships with torpedoes.
Japanese destroyers also carried torpedoes on board as they braved the high
waves to reach the combat zone, but they had to wait out at sea during the
day for the end of the daylight gunnery action.
And so even though the general belief was that not even a 12-inch shell
could sink a battleship, in this particular battle, Japanese shells sank one
Russian battleship after another. Various theories have sprung up to explain
this. “The Japanese Navy’s Shimose powder and Ijūin fuses were respon-
sible” was the explanation of many on the Russian side. The curious shell
created with these elements was indeed totally unlike anything the world at
the time had ever seen. With their ability to burn up even steel, they were
close to the incendiary bombs that were developed later.
But even if a battleship is set on fire, it still does not sink, and despite
their trademark Shimose powder and Ijūin fuses, the Japanese armor-piercing
shells did have one weakness. Even if they hit their target, their compressed
heat was so intense that they exploded on impact with the outer surface of
the enemy’s armor. As a result, hardly any of them had the power to punch
all the way through; a shell unable to do this cannot sink a battleship.
A battleship’s armor is especially thick in the area around the waterline.
Above and below the waterline, no protection exists. This is because seawater
 clouds above the hill 279
itself acts a defensive shield below the waterline in the same way that
earthworks protect a position in a field battle.
On the day of the battle, the waves were high, as Saneyuki had pointed
out in his telegram to Imperial Headquarters. The Russian battleships were
constantly rolling in the rough seas and exposing their unprotected
underbellies. Deprived of the sea’s protection, this area below the waterline
was hit by Japanese shells. Water then flooded into the hull, and, when the
high waves came rushing forth, they also came through the holes opened up
by shells in the less protected area above the waterline. The battleship would
then begin to list and eventually keel over, finally sinking to the bottom of
the sea.
Even if the waves had not been so high that day, the torpedo attacks at
night may have produced a similar result. But Tōgō kept his fleet facing
downwind to make it easier for his gunners to set their sights, and this ploy
of his, together with the impact of the fierce waves, magnified the destructive
power of the Japanese shells to surprising effect.
 6
MORTAL COMBAT

The battle of Tsushima was fought over the course of two days.
“It was largely decided in the first thirty minutes,” Akiyama Saneyuki
always said until the day he died. “All the money and hard work that had
gone into building a navy and training men during the half century or so
since the arrival of Perry was all for those thirty minutes.”
The Mikasa was still at the head of the line, a long tail of battleships
trailing behind. Because the surface of the sea was seething with falling
enemy shells, the bridge of the flagship seemed to be floating in midair above
a forest of water spouts. Still Tōgō had not moved from his customary spot.
Sea spray frequently spattered the glass on his binoculars, and each time he
took out a handkerchief and wiped it off. That was his only movement.
“We must concentrate our entire line of fire on the ships at the very front
of the enemy fleet.”
Even at the height of battle, when the relentless tension and pressure must
have tempted him to change tack, Tōgō was obstinate in his insistence on
sticking to his original plan. We have told about how he remained in this
same posture on the same spot for a full five hours, showing just how attached
to his Plan A he really was before, during, and after the combat.
By contrast, there was no strong sense of direction in the Russians’
strategy. Incredibly, only the five or six warships right at the very front
managed to play any part at all in the opening stages of this decisive contest,
which Russia had pinned all its hopes on.
“That tactic would have destroyed any enemy, no matter how stubborn
they may have been,” Saneyuki used to say whenever he discussed the battle
afterward, giving a dispassionate account of the statistics. Tōgō’s style also
was to do things by numbers. He kept on urging the fleet to make sure that
 clouds above the hill 281
all 127 main and secondary guns on one side of the First and Second
Divisions were always in a position to fire. As an anonymous Russian staff
officer wrote in his diary, “They concentrated a brutal rain of shellfire on
the Suvorov and Oslyabya.”
The Japanese guns were astonishingly accurate. “At the battle of the
Yellow Sea,” wrote Semenov on board the Suvorov, “I could count the large
shells that hit the Tsesarevich, but this time it was just beyond me. The
accuracy of the Japanese was something I had never seen or even dreamed
of. Not only did each shell hit its target one after the next, they fell like rain
as they struck their targets and exploded.”
The Suvorov was in a dreadful state, but the Oslyabya, in effect the
second flagship, was in a simply appalling condition. During the very first
concentrated Japanese bombardment, it burst into flames and was enveloped
in black smoke. When the second volley of shellfire thundered across the
sea, clouds of material exploded, flames leaped skyward, and the ship was
lost from view as black smoke covered the sea.
Although blessed with more speed than the four new Suvorov-class
battleships, the Oslyabya had defensive armor that was thin by comparison.
Nevertheless, it was clad throughout in Harveyized armor which was said
to be strong enough to withstand any shell, putting the ship on a par with
the Suvorov. In passing, I should say that Hayward Augustus Harvey was
an American engineer who used nickel steel to make rapid improvements
in the strength of armor plating. The Japanese battleships Mikasa, Asahi,
and Shikishima were fitted with this, but the Fuji had the relatively old-
fashioned compound steel armor. Unlike the Oslyabya or Shikishima, which
could make do with 9-inch-thick steel, the Fuji needed 18-inch-thick steel,
and even then it was not necessarily as strong as 9-inch Harveyized armor.
The Harveyized armor on the Oslyabya withstood the Japanese shellfire
effectively enough. But the highly incendiary Shimose powder set the whole
ship on fire. Before long, the battleship rolled over, exposing its underbelly
and sank to the bottom of the sea ahead of any of its companions. This was
a calamity, for a heavily armored battleship like this was held to be
impervious to shellfire. Remember, in that era, naval men everywhere
believed that battleships built with such great strength were unsinkable.
The Oslyabya had been plagued by ominous signs ever since setting out
from the port at Liepaja back in Russia. The morning after the Oslyabya’s
departure, the destroyer Bystry (350 tons), which had been following
immediately behind as if in attendance, suddenly approached too close, and
the two ships collided. The destroyer came off worse in terms of damage,
but for the superstitious Russians this event right at the outset of the voyage
was a disturbing accident.
282 mortal combat
During the months that followed, a number of men in the fleet died from
sickness, but none more so than on this one ship. “There are frequent deaths
on board the Oslyabya,” Engineer Politovsky noted in his diary. Since this
was the flagship of the Second Division, Rear Admiral Felkerzam was also
on board, with three battleships and one armored cruiser under his command.
But shortly after they put out to sea, his health deteriorated, and he spent
practically the entire voyage confined to his bed in the commander’s cabin.
After leaving Van Phong Bay, his condition took a turn for the worse, and
four days before the battle itself, he died just as the fleet was passing the
northeast coast of Taiwan. His body was placed in a coffin made of white
oak, but no funeral was held.
As we have described, Rozhestvensky concealed Felkerzam’s death for
fear that it might lower the fleet’s morale and insisted that the commander’s
ensign be kept flying high on the masthead of the Oslyabya. He did not
appoint a new commander. Odd though this may seem, the Oslyabya went
into this battle still operating as a “flagship” at the head of the fleet side by
side with the Suvorov even though the Second Division was without a
commander.
It was easy enough, moreover, for the Japanese to single out this ship as
a target. Unlike the other battleships, which had two funnels, the Oslyabya
had three. Within just ten minutes of Tōgō giving the first order to fire, at
ten minutes past two in the afternoon, it already presented a gruesome
spectacle.
First of all, the top of the mainmast flew off, leaving only half behind;
the aft funnel disappeared, leaving only two remaining. Countless holes
opened up in the ship’s side, the largest some 20 feet across. The forward
gun turret was also completely blown off the deck and lifted into the sea,
while the prow was smashed as well. With Japanese shells striking at these
already shattered areas, the gashes became even larger, and eventually
seawater rushed in. The ship leaned forward toward the prow, sinking right
up to the hawsehole. Before long, the hull began listing to the port side,
reaching an angle of 15 degrees, and, still enveloped in raging fires, it veered
out of line with the other Russian ships. Two or three remaining small guns
in the stern area still let off sparks as they kept up their fire.
At around ten to three in the afternoon, the Oslyabya finally lost any
remaining capacity to fight. The lower deck filled with water, the upper and
middle decks were engulfed in raging flames, and the crew raced around in
an effort to escape. At ten past three, the prow seemed to dip below the
surface, the stern lifted high in the air, and the whole ship was sucked down,
leaving smoke behind on the sea surface. On the bridge, Captain Vladimir
Ber went down with his ship, a cigarette in his mouth to the last. Two Russian
 clouds above the hill 283
destroyers in the area, including the Buiny, circled around picking up sailors
floating in the sea and saved about 400 men, but the crew had originally
numbered 850. During this relief operation, the Japanese fleet showed
compassion for their fellow combatants. No one fired so much as a single
shell at these destroyers.

* * *
It took less than thirty minutes for the Suvorov to lose control over its own
movements. When Tōgō’s fleet unleashed its first bombardment, the forward
funnel blew off, and during the second onslaught a 12-inch shell blasted
through the observation slit in the conning tower, instantly killing some of
the personnel inside and leaving most of the others wounded.
Rozhestvensky himself was lucky enough to escape with only a minor
wound. At this stage, he had to give up all hope of acting as commander in
chief. This was because the wireless system, his method of communicating
with other ships, was broken, and the radio operator Kanturov was a corpse
at the admiral’s feet. It thus became more difficult for him to convey any
instructions to each ship in the fleet. Tōgō made all possible use of the first-
class Japanese radio equipment, but Rozhestvensky never really liked the
Russian Slaby-Arco radio equipment anyway and relied almost entirely on
signal flags. He felt this way because the Slaby-Arco apparently broke down
quite frequently, although the true cause may just have been his conservative
nature. Right from the start, there were signs that he considered command
by radio ineffective.
In stark contrast to the Japanese, who selected their best officers to
improve the standard of their communications, the Russians entrusted this
to engineers rather than seamen. Pointing up the different approaches of the
two fleets, Akiyama Saneyuki went to see Kimura Shunkichi, the man who
had developed the Type 36 radiotelegraph equipment, as soon as the war
was over. “Much of our victory was because of the Type 36,” Saneyuki told
him in gratitude.
Rozhestvensky’s face was covered in blood. It was just a minor wound,
but his face was cut by small steel fragments. Just five or six minutes later,
another 12-inch shell struck the outside of the conning tower, and metal
shards flew into the interior through every crack. Hit in the leg, Rozh-
estvensky fell, while Captain Ignatzius was wounded all over both arms by
fine fragments that were like needles. The admiral was carried to the sick
bay. The captain continued to put up with his wounds for a while, but he
was then hit in the head as well. On his way back from the stern, Commander
Semenov approached the conning tower, and he saw Ignatzius climb down
holding onto the rail. Ignatzius was beloved by all for his jovial nature, and
284 mortal combat
his demeanor was unchanged as he said in a hearty voice, “It’s nothing,
really!” Flames rose up behind him. When Semenov went into the conning
tower, he found it transformed into a chamber filled only with corpses. The
ship’s wheel had been burned beyond recognition.
Around this time, two shells hit the stern main turret in quick succession,
and its left-hand gun was left twisted up from the breech. But the turret itself
kept rotating, and the right-hand gun still roared out from time to time as if
remembering to fight on.
At this stage, a large hole opened up around the Suvorov’s waterline,
seawater flooded in like a waterfall, and the ship began listing to the port
side. The sick bay on the middle deck had become filled with patients, but
this was hit as well, and the surrounding area set on fire. It is thought that
Engineer Politovsky, who was wearing white clothes and tending the
wounded in his role as surgeon’s assistant, probably died in this fire.
Rozhestvensky also had a narrow escape, having left the sick bay only
moments before and smashing his left ankle along the way. He fell over as
he tried to make his escape.

* * *
The Russian fleet somehow managed to keep its formation and was still
moving forward. Almost all of the big battleships were on fire, and they
were covered in black smoke. Although one ship had lurched out of line,
and others had effectively been reduced to floating hulks, the fleet itself sailed
on. Those guns still capable of firing unleashed gouts of flame and showed
no signs of stopping.
At one stage, Semenov, who had been rushing around from one place to
the next on board the Suvorov “to get it all down for the record,” returned
to take a look at the Japanese fleet. After clambering up to the upper deck,
he had to deal with the fires raging there. He also had to avoid the corpses
as he picked his way through the debris lying around and made his way
toward the prow. With the experience of a veteran officer, he surmised that
the Japanese fleet must have been badly hit as well. Approaching the prow,
he emerged between the 12-inch and 6-inch guns on the starboard side, where
he could see the sea out in front of him. There was the Japanese fleet.
“The enemy fleet that lay ahead of me looked exactly the same as when
I had first seen it. There were no fires, and none of the battleships was listing.
Not one of their bridges had been destroyed. This seemed to be not so much
real combat for them as just a firing exercise. The guns in our fleet had been
booming out for a good thirty minutes. During that time, we must have fired
a vast quantity of shells, but where had all those giant shells gone?”
 clouds above the hill 285
Semenov tried to explain this in terms of the shells’ destructive power.
According to him, the Russian shells were of inferior quality, and many had
failed to detonate properly. Japanese estimates also indicated that some
Russian shells had misfired. But these were not as numerous as Semenov
claimed. He also exaggerated the power of Japan’s newly developed shells.
“The Japanese shells did not use the usual guncotton but Shimose powder
instead. At a rough estimate, a single exploding Japanese shell had the
destructive power of twelve Russian shells.” Semenov tried to explain
everything in terms of Japan’s material strength, but since he was writing
an account that was intended to make Rozhestvensky look good, he was
also motivated by the desire to obscure the shortcomings in his admiral’s
tactics.
Tōgō, by contrast, surpassed himself. Both fleets were in motion. Given
that they were always on the move as they fought, there was the danger that
Tōgō might let the enemy slip past unless he maneuvered the Japanese ships
with supreme skill. Yet in spite of the various changes in direction made
by each fleet, he responded to every move by persisting throughout with his
policy of pressing the lead enemy ships. Borrowing a term used by the ancient
pirate fleets of yore, Akiyama Saneyuki called this the otsu—“zigzag”—
tactic. It meant that the whole fleet had to keep repeating zigzag maneuvers.
“The Mikasa always stayed in front of us,” a Russian officer lamented,
surveying the result as if he were watching a conjuror’s trick.

* * *
But the time had come at last for even Tōgō to commit an error. He was not
alone, however, since he was joined by Katō Tomosaburō and Akiyama
Saneyuki, meaning that the three key men on the bridge of the Mikasa all
seriously misread the enemy’s movements.
This was about ten to three in the afternoon. The Suvorov, now spouting
plumes of raging fire, suddenly turned to the north. Everyone on board the
Mikasa from Tōgō on down saw this change of course as an intentional move
by Rozhestvensky. At this stage, the two fleets were arranged in parallel
lines as they kept firing on each other. Both fleets were sailing east in their
respective lines when the Suvorov changed direction and turned north. The
men on the bridge of the Mikasa suspected that the Russian flagship might
be trying to lead the Baltic Fleet on an escape route to the north as the
Japanese fleet slipped past to the east.
The Suvorov, however, only made this turn because its steering equipment
was broken; it had not been Rozhestvensky’s decision at all. After receiving
treatment in the sick bay on the mess deck, the Russian commander in chief
had hauled himself to the “lower control room.” This was an auxiliary
286 mortal combat
command center installed below the waterline for use in just such an
emergency, since the conning tower had already lost all real purpose by this
stage. Also with the admiral were the severely wounded Captain Ignatzius
and the flag navigating officer Filippovsky, who was also wounded, although
not seriously.
“Stay on this course for as long as there is no change in the enemy’s
movements,” Rozhestvensky ordered Filippovsky, clearly having no
intention of making a turn to the north.
The admiral already knew that the steering equipment had been damaged.
“We may be able to fix it for the time being,” said Lieutenant Kryzhanovsky,
a staff officer, who went off to have a look. This raised Rozhestvensky’s
hopes, but when Kryzhanovsky reappeared he shook his head and said,
“Nothing we can do now.” Even if they did fix the steering equipment, they
had discovered that the communications equipment used for conveying
instructions to the gear steering compartment had been completely destroyed.
From the voice tubes to the engine room telegraph, nothing was working.
Captain Bukhvostov, in command of the battleship Alexander III, was
following on immediately behind, and he saw something strange in the
Suvorov’s shaky turn. Observing the flagship’s unsteady movement, he
knew that the steering must have broken. In his view, there was no longer
any need to follow, and so he decided that his own ship must lead the line.

* * *
On the bridge of the Mikasa, Katō Tomosaburō was constantly trying to
shift his weight. From time to time, his nervous stomach pains attacked him
as usual, so he moved around in an effort to ease the pain. All the while, he
was peering through his binoculars and was startled to see magnified through
his lens the prow of the Suvorov tilting slightly to the north.
Years afterward, Katō was described as a cold-blooded creature who never
changed his expression, but on this one occasion the color rushed to his
cheeks, and his small, narrow eyes lit up. He had been anticipating just such
a maneuver, having guessed that the enemy fleet might try to head north.
He had always assumed this would happen, and then, just as he thought, the
Suvorov turned north. Even someone like Katō jumped to his own conclusion
rather than coolly observing the situation as it developed.
Katō turned to Saneyuki as if he was going to tear him to pieces.
Unfortunately, Saneyuki had no binoculars. On this one occasion alone, the
blind faith he put in his own eyesight—“You can always judge better with
the naked eye”—proved to be useless. With the naked eye alone, there was
no way he could discern a very slight change in the direction of the Suvorov’s
prow.
 clouds above the hill 287
When Katō turned to him for his opinion, Saneyuki’s eyes were brimming
with light, but he just moved his jaw, crunching rapidly on the boiled beans
he kept in his jacket pocket.
“What a fool!” For a long time afterward, it made Katō’s blood boil to
think of that moment. Saneyuki was no doubt a gifted planner, but the flipside
of genius might be just such a blind spot as this unreliability in combat.
Planning was one thing, but commanding an operation was a different
matter altogether.
Katō glanced sideways at Tōgō. Through his prism binoculars, Tōgō could
see a still larger image of the Suvorov. He agreed with Katō. The enemy
must be turning in an attempt to skirt around their fleet and sail north. They
must put a stop to this.
“Shall we also make a full turn 8 points to port?” Katō cried out above
the roar of the gunfire. Still peering through his binoculars, Tōgō nodded.
“Eight points to port, full turn!” Katō let out with a piercing cry.
At even intervals, signal flags were raised on the mast of the Mikasa.
These gave the order for each battleship to make an immediate 90-degree
turn to the left. One by one, each vessel following on behind hoisted the
same message.

* * *
Only two men under Tōgō’s command realized that the Suvorov had not
made this turn on purpose but had simply lost control of its steering. There
may have been others, but only these two decided to take emergency action.
One of these was Commander Satō Tetsutarō, a staff officer on the bridge
of the Izumo, flagship of the Second Squadron. The other was Vice Admiral
Kamimura Hikonojō, commander of the Second Squadron, who was standing
beside him.
From early on in his career, Satō had been hailed as so gifted a tactician
that people said, “Take your pick, Akiyama or Satō.” If Saneyuki had not
been around, Satō would no doubt have been appointed vice chief of staff
of the Combined Fleet. Born in 1867 into the Hiraimukai samurai family of
the Shōnai domain, Dewa Province, Satō was subsequently adopted by the
Satō family there. Like Saneyuki’s own domain of Matsuyama, Shōnai had
sided with the pro-shogunate faction in the Boshin War and experienced the
bitterness of defeat.
In the Meiji period, the Japanese fleet had developed a reputation as
“Satsuma’s navy,” and both Tōgō and Kamimura had come through the ranks
as Satsuma men who had served on the winning side in the Boshin War.
The fact that both Saneyuki and Satō now served under these men showed
the unexpected turns of fortune.
288 mortal combat
In 1880, at the age of thirteen, Satō made the long walk all the way from
Tsuruoka to Tokyo, where he enrolled in the junior course at the Naval
Academy in Tsukiji. He might be called a swordsman, for as a junior officer
he studied the Shingyōtō-ryū style of swordsmanship under its master Iba
Sōtarō, a former shogunate official who ran his own school, the Bunyūkan
in Yotsuya.
When Iba first saw Satō’s slight physique, he did not allow him to train
with the others, deciding from the outset that he would never make it.
“Training with the others would only be like beating yourself over the head,”
he told him. “So I’ll teach you how to learn the secret by studying on your
own.” Iba went on to teach an unusual technique, telling Satō to first of all
prepare a horizontal length of thread stretched taut in midair at waist height.
He was to practice drawing his sword and holding it aloft for a few moments
before bringing it down suddenly with all his strength, but stopping just in
time to prevent the blade from cutting the thread. Satō did as he was told.
“Now that you’re a staff officer, I’ll teach you the secret of Shingyōtō-
ryū,” Iba told Satō when he became a lieutenant commander. “No matter
how well you have prepared,” Iba said after demonstrating some sword
moves, “there are certain moments in life when you find yourself in a fix,
and not only with the sword. At such times, you must take immediate,
aggressive action. I don’t care how reckless you are, but you must resort to
desperate measures. That’s the secret of Shingyōtō-ryū!”
Satō took these words to heart. So when his own Second Division was
placed in this quandary because the First Division had misread the enemy’s
movements, the secret that Iba had once taught him flitted across his mind
as he stood there on the bridge of the Izumo. Only Satō’s immediate and
outrageous response prevented the Combined Fleet from letting the enemy
fleet slip away. Curiously enough, what he did was kept a secret within the
Japanese Navy for a long time afterward.

* * *
Satō kept his gaze fixed steadily on the Suvorov. “The rudder’s broken!” he
thought when the prow of the Russian flagship turned north, differing from
the conclusions of Tōgō and the others on the Mikasa. He was so delighted
by this discovery that, without thinking, he stamped his heels on the deck
of the bridge. After all, no signal flags were hoisted on the half-broken mast
of the Suvorov, something he would have expected to see if this turn had
really been made on purpose.
“The rudder’s broken.” In his squeaky Dewa dialect, Satō told this to
Kamimura standing next to him.
 clouds above the hill 289
“I agree, no doubt about it!” Kamimura had also been gazing through his
telescope and promptly replied.
Kamimura was the very image of a brave admiral, but as we have related
already, at the start of this war, he had not been blessed with much luck. At
one stage, the Second Division, this flotilla of armored cruisers under his
command, had been charged with the task of blocking the enemy’s attempts
to cut off the Japanese marine supply line. The Rurik and other Russian
cruisers based at Vladivostok were always appearing just where he could
not find them, wreaking havoc with attacks such as the sinking of the army
transport ship Hitachi Maru. Kamimura’s stock had fallen low, and in a
session of the Diet one member of the assembly slammed his naval operations
as “incompetent.”
Eventually, however, at daybreak on August 14, 1904, Kamimura had
sighted three ships of the Vladivostok Squadron, under the Rurik, heading
south off the coast of Ulsan. Kamimura immediately gave chase with his
four ships under the Izumo. After pursuing them for well over an hour, they
fired their first shot. The enemy returned fire as they kept up their efforts
to break away, but at the end of a fierce exchange the Rurik was ultimately
sunk. The other two ships, the Gromoboy and the Rossiya, were also damaged
so severely that they would never see action again, but they did somehow
find their way back to Vladivostok where they took refuge safely inside the
port.
“Those two ships should never have been allowed to escape!” For long
afterward, Akiyama Saneyuki criticized Kamimura’s strategy for not having
been thorough enough. This, however, is a difficult subject. For whatever
reason, Kamimura had abandoned his pursuit of the Gromoboy and the
Rossiya halfway through and turned back, returning to the scene of the
sinking Rurik to pick up survivors. They saved as many as 627 Russian
sailors. Each Japanese ship became so packed with enemy prisoners that
they were even squeezed into the torpedo rooms.
In Saneyuki’s view, saving these enemy sailors at the expense of their
own strategic objective was an act of misplaced generosity. For Kamimura,
however, war was a way of expressing one’s humanity, and according to
his own headstrong philosophy a true military man must always show
compassion to a defeated foe. On one occasion during the First Sino-
Japanese War, he had been rounding up enemy prisoners on his ship, and
out of consideration for their dignity he ordered the Japanese sailors lined
up to receive them to turn right and face the other way.
During that battle of Ulsan in 1904, Kamimura had clearly seen the
moment at half past six in the morning when the Rurik’s steering equipment
had been damaged. That scene was identical to the appearance of the Suvorov
290 mortal combat
now. Realizing that the Suvorov’s turn was due to a broken rudder, Satō saw
a perfect opportunity for a pursuit at close quarters. He believed that Tōgō
was bound to take this course of action. But instead Tōgō gave his battleships
in the First Division the order: “Full turn 8 points to port!” and swung 90
degrees to the left.
Tōgō used signal flags to transmit the order, and, once these were
hoisted on the mast of the Mikasa, each ship following on behind ran up the
same flags in turn, so that the message was conveyed all the way down
the line to the Nisshin bringing up the rear. The same signal raised on the
Nisshin was hoisted up on the Izumo, which was following on behind. The
flag navigating officer on board the Izumo was Lieutenant Yamamoto
Hidesuke. Prompted by the signal from the Nisshin, he naturally ordered the
message “Full turn 8 points to port” to be hoisted on the mast of the Izumo.
Satō Tetsutarō, however, had not noticed this. But a signal order hoisted by
the flagship would only be put into action by the vessels following behind
once the flags were taken down from the mast. That was why Yamamoto
asked him, “Staff Officer Satō, permission to take down the signal flags?”
Looking around in response, Satō noticed the signal message for the first
time. The order that Tōgō had given came as a real shock to him. The ships
in the First Division out ahead of them were already in the process of
following this directive and turning their prows sharply to port.
“Wait! Don’t take them down!” replied an alarmed Satō.
As a result, the Second Division became the only unit not to implement
Tōgō’s order.
“Won’t this confuse the First Division?” asked Lieutenant Commander
Shimomura Entarō, a deputy staff officer, because they had not acted on the
command. For a moment, Satō was thrown into confusion, but he quickly
regained his composure and gave the order: “Run up a maneuver flag!”
To hoist a maneuver flag was to instruct the other vessels to follow
the flagship. For several seconds, that was all Satō could think of. In fact,
he was not really in a fit state to think at all. During those few seconds, the
Second Division just kept on sailing straight ahead on its previous course.
Out in front of them, the ships of the First Division were wheeling around
as they made their 90-degree turns to the left. The Second Division, heading
straight at them, was set on a collision course.
In fact, things were moving only slightly in that direction. Because of
Satō’s decision, the Japanese warships ended up pressing against each other
like dango dumplings on a skewer. The Second Division was in the way of
the First Division’s line of fire, making it much easier for the enemy to set
their sights. This state of affairs was the worst possible scenario for fleet
maneuvers in the middle of combat, and one to be avoided at all costs.
 clouds above the hill 291
Satō was filled with remorse. But it could not be helped because he had
driven himself into a corner through his own strategic decision. What he
recalled at this moment was the secret of Shingyōtō-ryū that he had once
learned from Iba Sōtarō. When you find yourself in a predicament, you must
take immediate aggressive action, whatever that may be.
“Admiral,” Satō said, coming up close to Kamimura, “we really don’t
have any choice. Let’s make a turn to starboard, and press the ships at the
very front of the enemy fleet.”
Turning to the right like this would mean increasing the distance between
themselves and the battleships of the First Division as they made their
sweeping turns to the left. This would at least save them from pushing into
each other like those dumplings on the skewer. But it also meant that their
division of armored cruisers would end up ahead of Tōgō’s battleship
division, breaking the convention that battleships should always take the lead
role in combat. Nothing could be more dangerous, since this also meant that
the enemy was fast approaching them.
Theirs was just a division of armored cruisers. The enemy was pressing
forward with its battleship divisions out in front. For a cruiser with weak
defenses and limited firepower to face up to a battleship was the equivalent
of a land battle where men with no protective armor hauled light artillery
pieces up to assault a fortress surrounded by thick parapets. This was nothing
but utter recklessness.
The Second Division pushed ahead with such a wild tactic partly as a
result of Kamimura’s and Satō’s courageous decision, but fundamentally
this had come about because of a mistake by the command of the Mikasa.
Neither Kamimura nor Satō ever commented on this after the war since by
that time Tōgō had been heralded as a flawless general for achieving this
most perfect victory in the annals of naval history. While he may indeed
have been practically flawless, Kamimura’s and Satō’s tact made him appear
all the more so.
Satō later alluded to this scene when he wrote up his Historical Account
of the Battle of Tsushima after becoming a vice admiral. He makes no
mention of Tōgō’s mistake but just discreetly mentions that if the Second
Division had followed the First Division and made a full turn to the left,
“The enemy might have been given a chance to sail out of range of our
shells.” Put more emphatically, this meant that the bulk of the Russian fleet
could have fled from the combat zone and escaped to the safety of
Vladivostok.
The topic of Tōgō’s error would crop up in conversation during the late
1920s when Yawata Ryōichi, who was working for the publisher Shinchōsha,
visited Satō in his quiet retreat. Yawata was amazed to hear this story, but
292 mortal combat
when he asked if he could write about it Satō waved his hand vigorously.
“No, I can’t permit that. If you really must write about it, please wait until
I am dead.” We heard this from Mr. Yawata himself.
Satō Tetsutarō died after an illness on March 4, 1942. If he and Kamimura
had not been on the bridge of the Izumo at this critical juncture, ten minutes
to three in the afternoon of May 27, 1905, the outcome of this sea battle
would no doubt have been somewhat different.

* * *
The adventure of Kamimura’s Second Division turned out to be a success.
The ships at the head of the enemy fleet, the Suvorov and Oslyabya, were
both on fire and in no position to counter the approach of Kamimura’s
division effectively. The Suvorov was turning sharply to the north and soon
just going round and round in tight circles. Observing this, Captain
Bukhvostov, in command of the Alexander III, the next battleship in the
line, promptly decided that his ship should take the lead.
But the Second Division soon nipped this new threat in the bud. Because
Kamimura had ordered a starboard turn to move in front of the enemy, the
distance between the two fleets was shrinking visibly. Soon they were only
2,500–2,600 meters apart, and they unleashed a ferocious volley of fire on
the Russians.
The Alexander III, which had only just taken up the lead, immediately
burst into flames and strayed out of line. The third battleship in line, the
Borodino, took over the lead instead, but by then the Russian formation had
been thrown into chaos. Caught up in the confusion, even this battleship,
which had proudly given its name to the world-famous new “Borodino class,”
had much difficulty countering the fierce onslaught from this flotilla of mere
armored cruisers.
One Russian combatant apparently expressed his admiration for this
independent action taken by Kamimura’s division, but even after much
searching we’ve been unable to locate this account. “It would be no
exaggeration to say,” wrote the German Frank Thiess in his novel Tsushima,
“that all the Japanese who fought at Tsushima were little Tōgōs.” For these
observers, the movements of Kamimura’s division in relation to the First
Division seemed like some highly choreographed dance performed according
to a prearranged script.
Having misread the enemy’s movements and made its “full turn 8 points
to port” at two minutes to three in the afternoon, the First Division under
the Mikasa had strayed far away from the actual combat zone. They had
disengaged once, and re-engagement was then the most difficult of
maneuvers. In order to recover its position, the Mikasa ordered the division
 clouds above the hill 293
to make another full turn to the left at five minutes past three. But this put
the rearmost ship, the Nisshin, way out in front, and so they performed
two further turns to allow the Mikasa to recover its place at the head of the
line, a most laborious exercise. Just because Tōgō had made the mistake of
ordering a “full turn to port 8 points” at two minutes to three, the First
Division had to perform the same maneuver three more times before being
able to regain its original formation, and during this time was in no position
to engage the enemy.
At the one critical moment in the heat of battle, the moment that would
decide whether they let the enemy escape or destroyed them, Tōgō was forced
to concentrate instead on this maneuvering. Already far away from the
enemy, they had difficulty hitting the target from what was becoming long
range. Kamimura’s Second Division was left to grapple with the Baltic Fleet.
As the Asama was undergoing some repairs on its steering equipment at sea,
only five of his armored cruisers sailed under the Izumo.
The success of this venture owed not so much to Kamimura and Satō as
to the training that allowed the Combined Fleet to operate with such smooth
teamwork that no words were required. Or perhaps men like Kamimura and
Satō had simply acquired the knack of winning sea battles. “Never mind
maneuvers,” Nelson is said to have frequently told his commanders, “go
straight at ‘em.” This key to victory was superbly exemplified in the action
taken by Kamimura’s division.
“Enemy shells continued to fall on the main deck,” wrote Novikov-
Priboy on board the sinking battleship Oslyabya. “The ship was being fired
on by at least six Japanese cruisers.” He was probably describing the efforts
of Kamimura’s division as it tried to deliver the finishing blow.
According to Novikov-Priboy, the sea around the Oslyabya was seething
with falling shells. On both the main and upper decks, the Russian sailors
were unable to carry on fighting; surrounded by roaring flames, exploding
shells, and countless metal fragments scattering in all directions, hardly any
of their guns were of any use at all. Lieutenant Vladimir Nidermiller, who
was in charge of a gun unit, for example, decided that fighting on was useless.
In an act unusual in the navy, he dismissed his men, stood next to the barrel
of his gun, put a pistol to his head, and shot himself. No matter how much
the firefighting units kept racing about, the raging flames showed no sign
of dying down. Before long, the prow plunged beneath the surface of the
sea, and between seven and ten minutes after three, the ship listed to the
port side and, churning up a giant whirlpool, sank beneath the waves.
Around the time that the Oslyabya sank, on the bridge of the Izumo, Satō
had another one of his hunches. “The enemy might be trying to escape to
the north,” he decided as he observed the Russian ships’ movements and
294 mortal combat
suggested they change their formation so that they could carry on pressing
against the very front of the enemy fleet.
“Go ahead,” Kamimura agreed. The Second Division promptly changed
direction with a full turn 16 points to port. One after another, each ship
performed an about-face turn to the left through 180 degrees, allowing them
to train all their port side guns on the enemy. They took up a new course
heading west-northwest.
At this stage, the Suvorov was left in a solitary, helpless state, on fire and
rudder broken. The Japanese dispatch boat Chihaya (1,238 tons), a small
ship working as Kamimura’s messenger, suddenly raced up close and fired
off two torpedoes at the enemy flagship. There was something comic about
the scene too.
The Russians were in a desperate state.
Satō’s decision to hurriedly change formation proved to be correct. He
had an eye for tactics, and although his rather eccentric disposition made
him no match for Saneyuki when it came to drawing up grand strategic plans,
in the heat of battle, he had the canny opportunism of a master swordsman.
The Russians were indeed trying to escape north from what had become
a complex situation. The Oslyabya, flagship of the Second Division, had
been sunk, and the Sisoy Veliky following on behind assumed command
instead, but this ship was soon consumed by giant flames as well and fell
out of line. The Suvorov, flagship of the First Division, was already reduced
to a floating hulk, and the Alexander III had taken the lead in its place, but
this too had veered out of line after coming under concentrated fire. The
third ship in line, the Borodino, took the lead in its place.
“There is nothing more we can do here,” Commander Pyotr Serebren-
nikov, captain of the Borodino, decided. “We must break through the tail
of the Japanese fleet and escape north.” For the first time, they were
abandoning the direct route for Vladivostok.
The Borodino suddenly changed direction by 8 points to port and locked
onto a course due north. As a result, the opposing sides changed their
shape in relation to each other. Kamimura’s division appeared in the sea to
the right of the Borodino division. The Russian ships began moving away
to the north, keeping up a constant report of fire from their starboard guns
as they went. This is just what Satō had predicted.
But Satō was smart. He had already changed direction 16 points to port
and was giving pursuit to the enemy as they headed north, like a small dog
chasing after a pack of leopards. But the leopards were wounded. They were
no longer in line, and they were all running at different speeds. Within four
minutes, Kamimura’s division had caught up, and the order was given to
open fire on the port side.
 clouds above the hill 295
“We’re a bit too far off,” said Kamimura on the bridge. The distance was
6,000 meters. But with their division of cruisers they had speed on their side
and were rapidly closing in, and just six minutes later they were only 3,100
meters away, a perfect range. But the enemy was lost from view with all
the rising smoke, and this apparently hampered the efforts of the gunners
on the Izumo. The ships under the Borodino were swathed in such a
tremendous blanket of smoke and flames that their movements were
completely concealed. Kamimura’s gunners could only see the flag fluttering
on the Borodino’s mast as they fired and could not make out the ship’s hull
at all. There was also dense cloud cover, and an increasingly thick milky
veil of mist was hanging over this white stretch of sea.
“This weather might allow the enemy to escape.” Satō felt uneasy. The
Japanese did, in fact, go on to lose sight of the main force of the Baltic Fleet
for half an hour. Fortunately for them, at two minutes to four, the First
Division under Tōgō, which had taken a detour far from the combat zone,
suddenly stumbled across the enemy fleet as it headed north.
“The Mikasa division is back!” The Russians felt they’d met up with the
devil.
A sea battle involves warships sailing at high speed across a large stretch
of water, and, in those days, awareness of one’s own and the other side’s
position was largely reliant on telescopes. To locate an enemy was no easy
task if the two sides became separated and the enemy’s ships were lost
beyond the horizon. Even worse was when mist obstructed the field of view.
The Russians were trying to break free and make their escape. A near miracle
was required to run into them again.
This was not just any encounter. Kamimura’s cruiser division was
hounding the Russians from the south, large waves breaking over the prows
of their ships as they charged forth. The First Division under Tōgō appeared
on the scene approaching from the west. The Russians were caught in a pincer
movement. Watching from the burning Suvorov, Semenov described the skill
of these Japanese strategic maneuvers with wonder.
“It was luck!” Satō Tetsutarō, who was on the bridge of the Izumo at the
time, coolly recalled after the war. It was when he was a lecturer at the Naval
Staff College that he discussed this with Rear Admiral Nashiha Tokioki.
Nashiha had also taken part in this battle, but he still was having trouble
comprehending what had really happened that day.
“Satō!” Nashiha asked, “How did we manage to win like that?”
It was all too puzzling. Any number of factors can be pieced together
scientifically to explain the reasons for a particular victory. Ultimately, there
is always a conspicuous gray area that still defies explanation. But never in
296 mortal combat
the course of mankind’s experience of warfare had such a perfect victory
been executed so flawlessly as at the battle of Tsushima.
“Sixty percent of it was probably luck,” Satō said. Nashiha nodded,
saying he felt the same, but next he asked about the remaining forty percent.
“That was probably luck as well!” Nashiha laughed, saying that it must have
all been luck. Whereupon Satō told him that the first sixty percent was pure
luck, whereas the remaining forty percent was the kind of luck that was
created through human effort.
Satō did not claim any of the credit for Saneyuki or himself. Saneyuki
himself said, “We had a run of good luck.”
“Admiral Tōgō was blessed with so much good fortune it was uncanny,”
Satō once declared during a lecture at the Naval Staff College as he tried to
understand the unexplained sixty percent luck. “In warfare, the choice of
commander is always important. Oddly, however, no matter how much talent
a general may have, he cannot do anything without luck.”
If we had to produce just one name from the countless people who
brought about this victory, it would have to be Yamamoto Gombei, and he
was not even there at the time. “Tōgō has always been blessed with good
luck” was how Yamamoto had explained his choice to Emperor Meiji, who
had questioned this choice of commander in chief. Curiously enough, he
must also have been aware that the course of history can be changed by the
inner subtleties that Satō was referring to when he spoke of these different
shades of fortune.

* * *
Largely by coincidence, Tōgō and Kamimura managed to join together in
a linked formation at two minutes to four in the afternoon.
“They’re 7,000 meters off,” said Abo, chief of artillery, on the bridge of
the Mikasa. Just three minutes later, this distance had been reduced by 500
meters. At a range of 6,500 meters, the starboard guns of all the ships under
the Mikasa discharged a deafening volley of fire.
Kamimura’s cruiser division, ahead on Tōgō’s left and seeming to be about
to envelop the enemy, also opened fire. The assembled Russian battleships
were scattered and no longer retained the shape of a fleet.
The Mikasa approached still closer until, unbelievably, it was less than
2,000 meters off, firing not just shells but torpedoes as well. Soon, the
Russians were unable to bear the barrage any longer and again made as if
to escape north. They took this ruse in their desperation to escape from this
scene of carnage.
Tōgō had been charged with the strategic task of sinking them all, but
little time remained before sunset. Staking all on the approach of nightfall,
 clouds above the hill 297
the Russians changed course again and again in a bid just to survive until
dusk. Tōgō had to prevent this at all costs. He went on to carry out a
bewildering array of fleet maneuvers much like a circus performance. At
twenty-five minutes to five, for example, he had a signal flag message hoisted
ordering the fleet to make a full turn 8 points to port, and his ships made a
splendid show of drawing up side by side. Tōgō kept on heading north.
In a bid to outflank the enemy, the Russians headed south instead. Tōgō
responded immediately with a full turn 8 points to starboard and returned
to sailing in a single column. The Japanese fleet was heading south as well.
Or, more precisely, it took up a course southeast by east. The sun was low
in the sky.
Conveniently for the enemy, the fog was becoming increasingly thick.
Each warship in the Russian fleet began to disappear in the light-gray vapor,
at sometime past twenty to five in the afternoon.
“Let’s use torpedoes,” Saneyuki whispered to Chief of Staff Katō. His
battle plan after all was first to damage the main force of the Russian fleet
and destroy their capacity to fight, and then summon the flotillas of Japanese
destroyers to sink them at close quarters with torpedoes. This offensive
would, of course, begin after dark and continue through the night. Katō
nodded in agreement.
“Destroyer and boat divisions, attack enemy with all force!” was the signal
hoisted from the mast of the Mikasa.
Japan had dispatched twenty-one destroyers and about forty torpedo boats
to this stretch of sea for combat at close quarters. While the main battle was
being waged, these ships had to stand by on the fringes of the combat zone,
and simply battle the wind and waves. They moved into action. Of course,
these flotillas of assassin-like ships and boats did not engage at close quarters
while the sun was still in the sky. With the arrival of sunset, they located
their targets and moved in as if to embrace the enemy. They next fired off
their torpedoes. Sinking a heavily armored battleship with a shell was
extremely difficult even if fired right on target, but torpedoes could do the
job by striking below the waterline.
The old-style armored vessels and small cruisers of the Third Squadron
kept up their bombardment, targeting enemy ships of approximately their
own class. Tōgō and Kamimura subsequently fought a succession of
skirmishes, losing sight of the enemy on a number of occasions before
discovering them again. They finally stopped firing as sunset approached at
ten minutes past seven. The daytime battle waged by the main force of the
fleet gave way to the nighttime battle to be fought by destroyers and torpedo
boats. In every respect, the fighting was unfolding according to plan.
* * *
298 mortal combat
After five o’clock in the afternoon, the battleship Suvorov, no longer remotely
resembling the magnificent modern flagship that had proudly flown the flag
of St. Andrew and the fleet commander’s ensign as the appointed represen-
tative of the tsar, was lying low in the water. The deck was a mountain of
scrap iron. Gun turrets were smashed, the bridge was in flames, and the masts
had been blown away. The hull was leaning to the port side, but it had not
yet sunk, and this was a reflection of current technology in an age when the
aim was to build unsinkable battleships.
At this stage, Rozhestvensky was lying inside the middle starboard turret,
stretched out like a champion felled in a sword fight. His body was covered
in countless scratches, and his legs were not moving. His head was wrapped
in an improvised bandage, stained red with blood pouring from his dented
skull. He was conscious. But at times he drifted away.
The Suvorov was isolated. Only the repair ship Kamchatka was close in
attendance. This ship just happened to have passed close by but did not know
what to do, so this was simply a case of looking on with arms folded. The
Kamchatka itself had a funnel blown off and was billowing thick black
smoke.
No end of loyalty, courage, cowardice, and betrayal had been revealed
in this stretch of water, but in the end Rozhestvensky was to be betrayed by
a fifty-year-old man whom he had always trusted as his most faithful servant.
This was Baranov, commander of the destroyer Bedovy.
Why Admiral Rozhestvensky, representative of the tsar of Russia, should
look with favor on only this one man among all his destroyer commanders
is a riddle featured in several lines of the epic poem about this great sea
battle. Rozhestvensky had decided that the Bedovy should serve as his
dispatch ship. The commander of a dispatch vessel had to have some talent
as a messenger or a secretary, and also considerable reserves of courage given
that his duty was to stay by the flagship, which was bound to come under
intense fire during the fighting. Eguchi Rinroku, captain of Kamimura’s
dispatch boat Chihaya, performed his duties admirably. But Baranov, on
Rozhestvensky’s destroyer Bedovy, just disappeared without a trace.
Baranov had the worst reputation of any man among the fleet’s high
command, but with Rozhestvensky alone he adopted the ingratiating attitude
of a merchant selling his wares. He was the only captain in the fleet praised
by Rozhestvensky, who used to tell his men, “All the captains should learn
from Baranov.” But, in fact, Baranov was a novice in the technology of a
warship and, unusually for a commander, he had not even graduated from
the Naval Academy. He knew nothing of gunnery or torpedoes and,
astonishingly, was poor at conning his ship, which was the principal duty
 clouds above the hill 299
of a ship’s captain after all. He was even said to require as much as twenty
or thirty minutes just to moor his ship.
Perhaps Rozhestvensky chose this kind of man in the hope that he would
come along and pick him up if the flagship was hit during the sea battle.
Such an expectation, of course, was not misplaced. Stuck to the tail of the
flagship like a lady-in-waiting, the Bedovy was naturally charged with
nursing duties as well.
Certainly, the battle had been a theater where Rozhestvensky could
express himself, but even a dramatist would probably have shrunk from
devising the coincidental turn of events that was visited upon him. There
was one destroyer commander he loathed above all others. This was Nikolai
Kolomeitsev of the Buiny, a commander still in his thirties who was
considered without equal in the fleet as a seaman on a destroyer. Some
claimed that even the British Navy would have ranked him as a first-class
sailor since he possessed much knowledge and skill. But he also had the
arrogance of a man full of confidence in his own abilities, particularly with
regard to his superior officers. He may have been one of the most popular
commanders in the eyes of his men, but during the course of that long
voyage, Rozhestvensky had frequently singled him out for abuse. The
admiral used signal flags to denounce him for his incompetence, unsettling
influence, and insubordination. For Rozhestvensky, Kolomeitsev of the
Buiny was as bad as Baranov of the Bedovy was good, but in the eyes of the
officers and men their reputations were the exact reverse. Here was a plot
so foolish that it could hardly have been dreamed up for the silliest
pantomime.
Under the command of Kolomeitsev, the destroyer Buiny performed
really well, although not so much in the fighting. Rozhestvensky had not
employed his destroyers for their intended purpose of engaging at close
quarters and firing off torpedoes, but rather for rescue operations. In the chaos
of the battle, the Buiny performed well as a rescue ship.
The Buiny braved a hail of shells to sail straight to the rescue of the sinking
Oslyabya, saving 204 men bobbing on the sea surface and squeezing them
on board this small 350-ton warship. Filled to the brim with its own crew
and rescued sailors, the Buiny spotted a flotilla of Russian cruisers and was
just sailing after the rearmost vessel when it came across the drifting hulk
of the Suvorov, which already looked like a wreck. But there was still yet
some life left in this battleship, since it was moving slowly on a southerly
course.
Joy erupted on board the Suvorov. Semenov had been leaning next to the
ruined shell of the central 6-inch turret, his right leg smashed to the bone,
but, in an effort to convey his joy to Rozhestvensky, he hopped across the
300 mortal combat
deck and eventually reached the mid-starboard turret. On entry, he found
Rozhestvensky sitting up with his head bowed. He looked more like a
crumpled old rag than a man.
“Admiral! A destroyer is here,” Semenov yelled, as if to embrace him.
Rozhestvensky wanted to escape from this flagship and the combat zone
altogether. But if he fled by himself, he might face criticism later on at the
hands of some court-martial or other tribunal. He would look better if it
appeared he was transferring command of the fleet from the Suvorov to the
Buiny. Even Semenov, whose role was to portray Rozhestvensky as a hero,
could not help but mention this.
“Bring Filippovsky here” was all that Rozhestvensky actually said.
Filippovsky was the flag navigating officer and held the rank of captain.
As long as Rozhestvensky took a navigation staff officer along with him,
he would have evidence for future reference that he still intended to command
the fleet. As Semenov put it, “The admiral must command the fleet, even if
only in name!”

* * *
In the course of this great sea battle fought on a scale never seen before,
Rozhestvensky took barely any actions that really showed the stamp of
leadership. Tōgō also gave him precious little room to perform, and he was
reduced to no more than an object being transported from one place to the
next.
Given his large frame, transporting him was no easy matter. By the time
he had been carried through the broken door of the gun turret, the men
assigned to this task were exhausted. The officer who took charge of this
operation was not the ship’s captain. That jovial commander was already
dead. Neither was it the vice captain, and, although there were two or three
lieutenants crouching in the vicinity, none of them took over. Either their
wounds prevented them from helping out, or perhaps they disapproved of
the commander and his staff officers abandoning their ship and taking flight.
Instead, the fresh-faced young midshipman Werner von Kursel came
forward and took charge. This mischievous, astute, and slightly eccentric
youth was something of a mascot among the officers on the flagship. For
the most part, he was not much use because, although he had been sailing
on merchant ships since his childhood, he had not taken the regular training
course for naval officers. As the fighting grew ever more intense, however,
he became amazingly calm and collected, darting around like a swallow from
one corner of the ship to the next as he took command of the firefighting
efforts.
 clouds above the hill 301
Semenov was not the most affable of characters, but von Kursel had
become quite attached to him, cracking endless jokes and getting up to his
usual tricks whenever they met. At one stage during the fighting, when the
ship had just been heavily pounded, Semenov decided to go and take a look
at the state of his own cabin, and he bumped into von Kursel on the way.
“Let me show you the way,” the midshipman laughed as he led him
through an area so totally devastated that it was almost impossible to find
one’s bearings. He took Semenov right up to the door of his cabin.
“Why don’t you take a short rest?” he suggested as he gestured with his
hand for Semenov to go inside. But the cabin was so completely destroyed
that a single step forward was impossible. Semenov yelled at him, annoyed
that he was still up to his mischief even at such a moment, but as he tried
to move away, the young man chased after him and pressed a cigar in his
palm.
“This is good stuff, sir!” von Kursel called over his shoulder as he moved
off. Yet it was this von Kursel who ended up taking charge of moving
Rozhestvensky. Like an angel with wings, he flapped about on all sides of
the admiral and ushered the operation forward.
Von Kursel laid the admiral on a charred hammock and tied him fast with
a rope. Just in case he accidentally slipped into the sea, he also strapped him
to a makeshift raft. He dragged this raft, admiral and all, toward the stern
of the ship and set him down by a gangway, actually an exposed ledge in
front of the after 6-inch turret. There, he waited for the approach of the Buiny.
The destroyer was so small that reaching the battleship’s starboard side was
impossible until a large wave came to carry it forward.
At last, they managed to transfer Rozhestvensky. The surviving staff
officers joined him (among them the chief of staff, chief of navigation, and
Semenov). Several officers and sailors also took this opportunity to jump
onto the Buiny, but more than 800 members of the crew were still left on
board. Hardly any of them even knew that their admiral had abandoned the
vessel because they themselves were still among the flames, in the sick bay,
or at their stations. Von Kursel did not leave the ship either.
Before long, the destroyer Buiny pulled back with a lurch and drew away
from the Suvorov. “This was at half past five in the afternoon,” Semenov
recorded after checking his watch. Once the prow was pointing northeast,
the Buiny went off at full speed heading toward Vladivostok. The Suvorov
was left alone in the combat zone, drifting and leaning over the water on its
port side. Several hundred souls were still on board. Several hundred dead
men were there as well. Among them was Engineer Politovsky. But he left
behind a valuable record of Rozhestvensky’s voyage in the voluminous series
of letters that he had written to his young wife back in Russia.
302 mortal combat
During the fighting, Politovsky’s assigned role had been to act as a
surgeon’s assistant. According to Semenov’s observations, Politovsky was
wearing a white coat and holding a Red Cross bandage in his hand. It would
appear that this was how he died in or around the sick bay.
After the war, however, Politovsky’s widow claimed, although it is
unclear who told her this, that her husband had gone down to the ship’s hold
and taken charge of efforts to repair a hole that had been opened up in the
hull. When Rozhestvensky was transferred to the Buiny, the surviving staff
officers all followed him, but the call did not reach as far as this staff officer
engineer. If his wife’s information was correct, he went down with the ship
trying to save the vessel. In his letters, Politovsky repeatedly told her what
a coldhearted admiral Rozhestvensky was, and ultimately the harsh treatment
that he received would seem to support this view, even as he went to his
death. Nevertheless, when his wife had all these letters published, this young
marine engineer posthumously emerged as a critical witness of the admiral’s
actions.
As dusk approached, the Japanese destroyers and torpedo boats loaded
with missiles started to race around the combat zone. The Japanese Navy
had recently devised and implemented a special new system for fighting with
torpedoes. Vessels would operate in groups of four or more. According to
the thinking behind this plan, one torpedo boat was weak on its own, much
like a single finger on one hand, but if all the fingers were clenched together
in a punch, striking power would be increased.
Lieutenant Commander Fujimoto Umejirō was on board the number 73
torpedo boat and in command of four tiny vessels. Before they could even
think of fighting the enemy, they first of all had to contend with the danger
of capsizing and sinking in the fierce wind and heavy seas. Nevertheless,
after seven o’clock in the evening, they caught sight of the Suvorov. Some
small cruisers in the Third Division had already spotted the enemy flagship
and were bombarding the stricken vessel with small and medium shells.
Missiles such as these had already destroyed the Kamchatka, which had been
sunk by torpedoes. Drifting wreck that it had become, the battleship Suvorov
would not sink so easily.
Fujimoto’s four torpedo boats plowed through the waves, making directly
for the enemy flagship, and advanced to within 300 meters before firing off
several torpedoes. Two of these were on target.
The single remaining gun on the Suvorov, the stern 3-inch gun, was firing
its last shots. It was the navy cadet von Kursel who was doing the firing,
and, with the final report, the port side of the ship slipped beneath the waves,
and just as the red underbelly seemed about to be exposed, the whole ship
 clouds above the hill 303
disappeared beneath a giant whirlpool. In his report, Fujimoto wrote a
striking line about “the Suvorov’s last shot.”
Tōgō on the Mikasa called a halt to daytime fighting at ten minutes past
seven. The Mikasa ceased firing first of all. One after another, the other
battleships followed suit, and just as planned, at twenty past seven, the fleet
shifted course to the north to make way for the nighttime fighting. Just before
this change of direction, a 12-inch shell fired from the Fuji struck the
Borodino. The boiler exploded and the powder magazine was engulfed in
flames until, with one gigantic explosion, the Russian ship sank almost
instantaneously. By this stage, most of the officers on board had died in
combat, and there was no one left in charge. The Borodino sank so rapidly
that both the living and the dead went down with it, and Japanese destroyers
looking for survivors only managed to pick up a single sailor.
The battleship Alexander III had been in constant agony all day after being
set on fire and listing to port. It had also sunk about twenty minutes before
the Borodino. As a result, four of the five modern battleships that were the
main strength of the Baltic Fleet had been sunk, for only the Oryol, with
Novikov-Priboy on board, managed to escape under cover of darkness. With
the exception of two small guns, this ship’s firepower had also been totally
destroyed, and it was now virtually a toothless wolf.
Meanwhile, the Third Division under Rear Admiral Nebogatov had been
fortunate enough to make good its escape from the combat zone with one
old battleship and three armored coast defense ships.
“Follow the flag. Course north 23 degrees east” was the signal message
Nebogatov had hoisted on his flagship. His plan was to sail at full steam
through the night and escape to Vladivostok. The ships under his command
may have been slow and weakly armored, but if God looked kindly on them
it might yet be possible for them to reach Vladivostok. But during the daytime
on May 25, Tōgō rather than God had been the one meting out the favors.
These ships in Nebogatov’s division were so old-fashioned that Tōgō’s main
force simply took no notice of them, concentrating all their attacks on the
First and Second Divisions instead.
At twenty past seven, Tōgō for the very first time lifted the heels of his
shoes away from the position on the bridge that he had been occupying all
day. Saneyuki also moved off, as did Katō, glancing sideways with a drawn
face at the sea on the port side before he descended from the bridge as if to
lead the way for Tōgō.
Already the sea was too dark for a sea battle, and the evening twilight
was deepening. The Mikasa was still cutting fiercely through the waves, and
the whitecaps being kicked up from the prow of the battleship following on
304 mortal combat
behind were visible through the gloom. The ship behind was totally invisible.
They were set on a course for the north.
The first stage of their seven-stage plan had been completed. The second
stage was the night attack. This was an assignment for about fifty Japanese
destroyers and torpedo boats. They would not catch a moment’s sleep until
dawn.
At first light, these small flotillas would withdraw, and the main force of
the fleet would once again take the stage for the second day of battle. Tōgō’s
main force therefore had to spend the whole night sailing at high speed on
a northern course toward Vladivostok in order to bar the way in front of the
surviving ships of the enemy fleet. This was the third stage.
“Looks as though it will all be over by the third stage,” Saneyuki thought
as he climbed down from the bridge.

* * *
Rear Admiral Suzuki Shigemichi, chief surgeon on board the Mikasa, was
up to his neck in work as he treated the wounded men packed into the sick
bay rigged up in the mess deck. The Mikasa, as the flagship, had sustained
much heavier casualties than any other Japanese warship, with as many as
111 dead and wounded. Next was the Nisshin at the rear of the line with
ninety-six.
According to the account that Suzuki gave years afterward, Tōgō came
straight to this area immediately after descending from the bridge. Since
wounded men laid out on either side filled up the space, it took some time
to clear a path for him to pass through. Tōgō had stopped by on his way
back to the commander’s cabin. Remarkably, his expression had not changed
in the slightest throughout the fighting and did not do so even as he made
his way through this crowd of wounded men.
“We have a lot of wounded,” said Suzuki, who had been squatting down
by a patient but now stood up.
“I meant there to be more!” Tōgō muttered under his breath, at last
stopping in his tracks. It was unclear whether he was saying this to Suzuki
or just to himself, but probably this was his honest appraisal. The tactics he
had employed during the day ensured that the Mikasa had drawn much of
the fire from the enemy’s main guns. Tōgō himself had been intent on
meeting his death standing on the bridge, and in the worst-case scenario he
was prepared to go down with the Mikasa.
Suzuki spoke of how at that moment he became aware for the first time
of the extraordinary resolve of the commander in chief. On entering his own
cabin, Tōgō drank a cup of green tea. This was the only gesture he made to
mark their survival through this titanic sea battle.
 clouds above the hill 305
Saneyuki went into the wardroom and began compiling a general report
of the combat. The other young staff officers set about drafting the telegram
to be sent to Tokyo. Chief of Staff Katō looked down over the sea chart.
The atmosphere in the room was as hushed as the inside of a bank, each
man businesslike in his movements. No one raised his voice or expressed
any muddled impressions about his activities in battle that day. They were
all totally exhausted. Usually, Saneyuki would stretch out his legs and curl
up on a sofa, but now he sat at his desk and just kept on dragging his pencil
down the page. Already that mighty battle seemed no more than a daydream
and did not appear to have affected any of them at all.
This oddly subdued atmosphere could not be attributed simply to the usual
sense of discipline that had been drilled into these men. It was probably
because their work had only just begun. They had indeed managed to sink
four of those five intimidating enemy battleships. Several other lesser ships
had also been either sunk or practically destroyed. They did not yet know
the details. Altogether, the enemy had some forty ships, but the only clear
result was that these had been thrown into such a chaotic state that they no
longer maintained the shape of a fleet. They were probably scattering in
every direction across the broad expanse of the Sea of Japan. Apprehending
each and every one of these vessels would depend on the result of tonight’s
torpedo attacks and the second day of battle tomorrow.

* * *
“What a strange fellow he is!” Chief of Staff Katō Tomosaburō could not
help but think as he looked with some disgust at Saneyuki’s demeanor.
No matter how you looked at it, Saneyuki’s behavior was not that of a
military man. First, he did not so much as utter a single word to Katō at the
close of combat. Although making straight for his desk and writing away at
something might have been considered acceptable behavior, when an orderly
brought him some food, he just dragged the plate next to his papers and
continued to write as he ate. When he had finished his work, he gave Katō
no salute but made straight for his own cabin.
Saneyuki lay down face up. As usual, he kept his boots on, but even though
he was quite exhausted, his nerves were so on edge that he had no chance
of catching any sleep. At this moment, he may have ceased being a strategist
or military man.
“As soon as this war is over. . .” he kept on telling himself in an effort
to soothe his worked-up nerves, promising himself that he would give up
his military career. In this sort of state, he was not at all confident that he
would even be fit enough to stand up on the bridge again for the battle
tomorrow.
306 mortal combat
After climbing down from the bridge that day, Saneyuki had taken a turn
around the ship. Everywhere he looked, there were shell marks, and the sides
of the vessel that had once been painted such a graceful, deep gray now
looked horribly drab, having been scorched by fire and explosions.
The upper deck was packed with dead and wounded, the very picture
of hell that his mother Sada had once told him about as a boy. Each man
had been struck by large fragments of enemy shells so they were not just
wounded but smashed up altogether. One man had both legs torn off, another
had lost his arm at the shoulder, and another had been gashed deeply across
his back. These images were even more horrific than those terrifying
descriptions of the dead in hell he had heard from his mother.
At the same time, Saneyuki remembered the ghastly scene he had observed
from the bridge earlier that day when the whole of the Oslyabya was
consumed in flames and writhing in agony. This was the one thing that he
could tell no one, but it made such a deep impression on him that he shivered
in every bone in his body.
“I’ll give it all up and become a priest,” he kept telling himself, trying to
soothe his overwrought nerves as he repeated this mantra over and over.
That night, he lay in bed with tears in his eyes as he decided he was not cut
out for a military career after all. At that moment, he thought, Yoshifuru
must be somewhere around Mukden in Manchuria. A resentment he felt
toward his brother for inducing him to join the navy flickered on and off in
this small dark space confined by steel.
In a way, Akiyama Saneyuki, the man whom the Japanese Navy would
hail for long afterward as a genius, had a certain delicate streak. Following
the war, he did indeed set about becoming a priest. Ogasawara Naganari
and some other friends did their level best to talk him out of it and eventually
managed to dissuade him. In the end, Saneyuki raised his eldest son Hiroshi,
who was born after the war, to train as a priest. In 1918, as he lay ill on his
deathbed, he pressed the boy to honor his dying wish that he should go on
to take his vows. When he grew up, Hiroshi became a priest of no particular
denomination.
So the victims of this sea battle were not just the dead and wounded on
both sides, but also Saneyuki himself. And his unborn eldest son embarked
on his career that day as well.
 7
UTSURYŌTŌ

“All warship divisions to rendezvous at Utsuryōtō!”

“Destroyer and torpedo boat divisions—night attacks!”
This was the program Tōgō imposed on all his commanders.
Here are just some of the impressions left by the various men who found
themselves scattered in various places on this stretch of sea from May 27
through to May 28.
“I was exhausted from the fighting that day [twenty-seventh],” recalled
Ishihara Kiyomatsu, a fourth-grade seaman who was assigned to a 3-inch
gun on the Mikasa, “and went to bed early. The following morning, the
cleaning of the upper deck got underway with the order: ‘All hands on deck.’
Again I was amazed at just how terrible the damage was everywhere. The
wind had dropped, and the sea was calm, in stark contrast to the day before.”
In Ishihara’s memory, the atmosphere on board the Mikasa during the
night and into the morning was disappointingly mundane.
Bandsman Kawai Tarō, who had been acting as a runner during the
fighting, recalls that when the fighting stopped during the evening of May
27, he stood on the upper deck of the Mikasa and called out, “Mom. I’m
safe!” When he looked into the petty officers’ bathroom, he saw that it had
turned into a morgue. Bodies were piled on top of each other, and the tub
was filled with bright-red water, rocking from side to side with the swaying
movement of the ship.
It was not just the waves that were making the Mikasa move like that,
but also the vibrations of the ship’s engines. A battleship fitted with steam
piston engines does not normally shudder in that fashion. Baba Yoshifumi,
who had enrolled at the Naval Academy in 1915, had long experience of
such warships, even though he took no part in the Russo-Japanese War.
308 utsuryōtō
“When there is a change in direction or speed,” he believed, “the engines
make a hissing sound as steam is discharged, but the engines themselves do
not vibrate at all unless you are sailing at top speed.”
As the Mikasa headed for the island of Utsuryōtō that night, Kawai later
remembered, “The ship was creaking in a weird way.” The boilers therefore
must have been stoked full, and they must have been sailing at full speed.
Charged with the task of hunting down fugitives, fifty-odd small vessels
were racing around that night, running the risk of the enemy fleet’s
searchlights and shells as they fired off their torpedoes. Here is a good place
to tell the story of Tokuda Inosuke, who was involved in this mission. Born
in 1880 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Tokuda enrolled at the Naval Academy
in 1899 and was a lieutenant junior grade on board the destroyer Yūgiri.
Their division consisted of four destroyers under the command of Hirose
Juntarō—the Shiranui, Murakumo, Yūgiri, and Kagerō, all small vessels of
247 tons. Together with some other Japanese vessels, they had sighted the
wreck of the Suvorov and were approaching the enemy at full speed.
Tokuda’s recollections suggest that this may have been around the time that
Rozhestvensky was transferring to a Russian destroyer. “I did not notice
since this was happening on the other side of the ship.” He did see a flash
of light as the naval cadet von Kursel fired from the small gun at the port
stern. Black smoke immediately rose from the Shiranui, but this was just
rising coal dust and not a direct hit. “The rigging of the Suvorov,” Tokuda
recalls, “was crammed with sailors hanging on for all they were worth as
they cried out for help over and over again. Even now I can see their faces,
but it was impossible to help them in the middle of combat. As we left the
Suvorov for others to save, I heard the voices of those floating on the waves,
asking for help. All we could do was close our eyes and keep on going. I
also saw an enemy ship that had turned turtle, its red bottom floating on the
water.”

* * *
Throughout the night of May 27 and into May 28, there were various
unthinkable incidents and an equal number of curious twists here in this
stretch of sea, churned up by shells, mines, and propellers. But one train of
events on May 28, the day after the main battle, was so improbable that it
could not have been contrived even by the combined forces of heaven and
hell. Across the broad expanse of the Sea of Japan, the Russian admiral
Rozhestvensky and his entire staff officer corps were all taken prisoner. It
was an event unparalleled in the history of naval warfare.
The lead role in this drama fell to a small destroyer of 305 tons, the
Sazanami under Lieutenant Commander Aiba Tsunezō. Together with the
 clouds above the hill 309
Shinonome, Usugumo, and Kasumi, this was one of four ships in the Third
Destroyer Division under the command of Yoshijima Jūtarō.
There were no stars in the sky on the night of May 27, and the sea was
shrouded in darkness. They sailed along, every now and then catching
glimpses of Russian searchlights.
“The sea was terrifyingly still,” Aiba wrote, describing his state of mind
at the time, “and the only sound was the wind striking the masts and the
hum of the engines. Constantly buffeted by the waves, I just forgot about
my own safety in the end. I had no appetite for glory either. All I wanted
was to destroy the enemy threatening Japan. Looking back, it seems strange
that even I was filled with such noble sentiments.”
This destroyer division discovered four enemy ships sailing in a single
line. After circling them for an hour, they eventually took the risk of cutting
across the prow of the leading vessel, considered the most effective angle
of attack, and firing off torpedoes at a distance of less than 400 meters. The
Russians took notice and responded by firing rapidly from their small guns,
but they were so close that these shells just flew over the destroyers’ masts,
and the Japanese division suffered no damage.
During this operation, the Sazanami became detached from the other ships.
Now they found themselves accompanied by four destroyers on the port side,
which they assumed to be Japanese, so they just sailed along with them.
These ships did not appear to notice at all, but on realizing that they were
actually Russian, the Sazanami then charged off in search of support until,
again on the port side, the shadows of three more vessels loomed into view.
“That’s the Akashi,” someone said, referring to a small Japanese protected
cruiser, but they soon discovered that the ship was Russian. Moreover, the
enemy destroyer was at a perfect distance for a torpedo attack, but Aiba
hesitated, and they missed this opportunity as it managed to escape.
No matter what the Sazanami did, its luck seemed to have run out. While
out looking for support, the ship then broke down. Aiba decided to undergo
emergency repairs at Ulsan, and so they left the combat zone. On entering
port, they found that the destroyer Kagerō had also arrived under similar
circumstances. This ship was from another unit, the Fifth Destroyer Division.
“We’re down on our luck,” Lieutenant Commander Aiba told the Kagerō.
The commander was Lieutenant Yoshikawa Yasuhira, who simply shook
his head in disbelief. The pair of them seemed like two idiots, for he did not
even have the strength to reply.
The repairs on the two vessels were not finished until after daybreak on
May 28. Deciding to form their own makeshift unit with the higher-ranking
Aiba in charge, they then set off, the Sazanami leading the way, into a sea
glistening in the light of dawn. Gentle undulations from the swells of the
310 utsuryōtō
night before lingered on the sea surface, but in contrast to the previous day
the weather was fine and clear, and visibility good.
* * *
In accordance with Tōgō’s orders, they set a course for Utsuryōtō. The
Sazanami and Kagerō churned up waves as they sailed on for all they were
worth, but they did not spot any enemy ships, let alone any from their own
fleet.
By then, it was past noon. On board the Sazanami was Tsukamoto
Katsukuma, a young lieutenant junior grade. Born in Hiroshima in 1880, he
was still a bachelor but had a fiancée called Masu, whom he wrote to
whenever he had a spare moment. Tsukamoto was a talented artist,
particularly skilled in oils, and he would often make sketches during breaks
from his duties. In his youth, he had wanted to go to the Tokyo School of
Fine Arts to become an artist. On the spur of the moment, he decided to take
the Naval Academy entrance examination, and when he passed he ended
up becoming a naval officer instead. But his eldest son Tsukamoto Haruo
has now become an artist, so we can perhaps say that he has fulfilled his
father’s lost dream. But if Tsukamoto Katsukuma had become an artist,
Rozhestvensky would probably never have been taken prisoner.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Tsukamoto was hardly given the most glamorous
posting on the outbreak of war. He was assigned to the Kaimon, an old coastal
defense ship put to work sweeping for mines, but when it sank after striking
a mine the crew took shelter on board the Mikasa.
It was then that Tsukamoto met Tōgō. He had heard that the admiral was
the sole owner of a pair of prism binoculars developed by Carl Zeiss with
amazing powers of magnification. He pleaded with Tōgō to let him have a
look, and when he took them in his hands and peered through the lens they
turned out to be quite beyond his expectations.
“I want binoculars like this for myself!”
He was determined to have a pair of his own. He promptly placed an
order with Tamaya in Ginza. This shop served as an agent of J. Colomb &
Co., based at No.10 in the Yokohama foreign settlement. As it happened,
the shop seemed to have had one or two pairs of these binoculars still in
stock. Amazingly, one set was delivered to Tsukamoto at his destroyer base
in Tsushima; the price was three hundred fifty yen.
“That was a whole year’s wages for a lieutenant junior grade at the time,”
his widow Masu recalls. Born in 1886, she was eighty-six years old at the
time of this writing.
On board the Sazanami, Tsukamoto was now peering in all directions
through his precious new pair of binoculars, while the other officers looked
about them using the ship’s telescope.
 clouds above the hill 311
Approaching Utsuryōtō at a quarter past two in the afternoon, Tsukamoto
could see through his prism binoculars two faint plumes of smoke staining
the sky above the sea ahead.
“What’s that?” he cried out impatiently, handing his binoculars over to
Aiba. Looking through the lens, Aiba could see what looked like two
destroyers.
Rozhestvensky was on board the destroyer in front. Without Tsukamoto’s
binoculars, the defeated admiral might have escaped to Vladivostok after all.

* * *
There is some mystery about how Rozhestvensky arrived in this particular
stretch of sea. Abandoning the Suvorov shortly after half past five in the
afternoon on May 27, Rozhestvensky had, as we’ve seen, boarded the
destroyer Buiny under the command of Kolomeitsev, a man he had always
viewed with enmity. It must have been especially galling for the admiral to
entrust his fate to a ship under the command of this particular officer.
The admiral was carried to the small captain’s cabin, where he received
treatment from the ship’s surgeon. Rozhestvensky raised his eyes toward
Semenov, who was at his side, and whispered in a voice almost too soft to
hear, “Command to Nebogatov.” This was the first time he had intimated
his intention to cede control of the fleet. The problem was that no one knew
the whereabouts of Nebogatov, who was in charge of the Third Division.
The Buiny sent a signal message to a Russian vessel it passed along the
way, “Search for Rear Admiral Nebogatov on the flagship Nicholas I and
give him the following order.”
Rozhestvensky also gave orders not to take the admiral’s flag down from
the Suvorov, the ship that he had abandoned. But by this stage, there was
no mast on board the Suvorov still capable of flying such a flag. When Chief
of Staff Clapier de Colongue pointed this out, Rozhestvensky just snapped
back, “Well, tie it to an oar then!”
There was something hard to understand about his frame of mind. If they
were going to fly the admiral’s flag, it should really be where he was, on
the mast of the Buiny. Rozhestvensky had left numerous crew members
to their fate on the flagship, and his insistence that they keep on flying the
admiral’s flag there may have been intended to focus Japanese attention on
the Suvorov, thus allowing himself to escape to safety on board this
inconspicuous destroyer.
With its four black funnels and two masts, the Buiny sailed on for all it
was worth. Halfway through the night, however, the engine suddenly began
losing power.
312 utsuryōtō
Since giving up his cabin to Rozhestvensky, Kolomeitsev had spent all
the time up on the bridge, but he was concerned there might be some problem
so he went down to the engine room to have a look. There, he found that
the steam power had dropped sharply; the boiler was clogged with sediment
from the seawater they had been using, and, no matter how much coal they
burned, it would never be enough. Some engine parts were not functioning
properly. At this rate, they would run out of coal sooner than previously
thought.
The captain had no option but to report to the staff officers’ quarters and
return to the engine room. Among the staff officers, there was talk of
surrender. Sail to some Japanese coast, put the admiral ashore on a boat,
and scuttle the ship. This was the course of action Chief of Staff Clapier de
Colongue had in mind as he made his way to inform the admiral.
“Pay no special attention to me,” Rozhestvensky responded, adding, “Do
whatever you think is necessary.” The meaning of this comment was unclear,
but in effect he left the decision up to Clapier de Colongue.
Deliberately ignoring Kolomeitsev, Clapier de Colongue then caught
hold of Lieutenant Vurm and told him, “Get a white flag ready!” He said a
sheet would do, so the lieutenant obeyed and found one.
But when Kolomeitsev heard what was going on, he tore up the sheet
and threw the pieces into the sea, yelling, “Here in the middle of this tragedy
you act out a comedy? I am a commander in the Russian Navy! I cannot
hand over the commander in chief of the Russian Navy as a prisoner of war!”
And he then marched back up to the bridge.

* * *
“That man is useless,” thought Rozhestvensky, who seems to have viewed
Kolomeitsev’s principled stance with displeasure.
To the staff officers, at the very least, Kolomeitsev’s words came as
something of a disappointment.
At daybreak, a shred of good fortune came their way. Three Russian ships
were spotted on the horizon, smoke rising above them as they sailed forth.
These were the converted cruiser Dmitri Donskoi, together with two
destroyers, the Grozny, and as luck would have it, the Bedovy under the
command of Baranov, the officer the admiral loved most of all.
Communication was soon established using signals, and the four ships
came together at sea. Semenov was not present at a rather dubious meeting
held in the meantime in the wardroom, since he is thought to have been
taking a nap. As a result, the few lines in his record gloss over the train of
events, letting them float in sea and mist.
 clouds above the hill 313
The issue at hand was which ship to choose for the admiral. Common
sense would suggest the Dmitri Donskoi, a 6,200-ton cruiser with a top speed
of 17 knots. It being loaded with plenty of coal, there was no concern about
having enough fuel to make it to Vladivostok. And, even if there was an
exchange of fire along the way, the ship’s armor protection made it safer
than the two destroyers.
“Shouldn’t we move you to the Dmitri Donskoi?” As a professional navy
man, Kolomeitsev naturally put this question to the admiral.
“I will go to the Bedovy,” Rozhestvensky clearly stated. Choosing a
destroyer was a strange decision. Moreover, the admiral should really have
been admonishing Baranov, its commander, for having broken away from
the Suvorov in the confusion of the moment, even though he was supposed
to accompany the flagship throughout. Baranov was limited in his technical
expertise, but as has often been supposed, he was as skilled at flattery as a
salesman who shuttles from one government office to another, and so he
may have also taken in Rozhestvensky.
Even so, to what end had Rozhestvensky led this grand fleet to the Far
East? According to his own strategic objective, they could do much to restrict
Japan’s tactics even if only a few ships made it through to Vladivostok. It
was quite a sound judgment, and indeed they might yet reach Vladivostok
in a day and a half if only they could get away from this place without a
hitch. In the end, rather than follow his own strategy, Rozhestvensky gave
more thought to his own survival. These four ships were tied down for over
an hour while a boat was lowered from the Dmitri Donskoi to transfer him.
One story holds that when Rozhestvensky arrived on board the Bedovy,
he asked, “Is there a white flag on this ship?” Some say that a staff officer
asked this vital question, while others—a signalman and an orderly—testified
that it was the admiral. In either case, if it came to the crunch, Rozhestvensky
and his staff officers intended to surrender.

* * *
The drama unfolded like a carefully constructed plot. It was after four
o’clock in the afternoon when, through those prism binoculars he treasured
so much, Tsukamoto Katsukuma on board the Sazanami realized that the
smoke he could see on the horizon came from some enemy destroyers.
There were now just two Russian vessels, as the Dmitri Donskoi and the
Buiny had become separated along the way. The ship out in front was the
Bedovy, with the Grozny following behind.
“Four funnels, two masts—it’s an enemy destroyer, and no mistake!”
muttered Aiba Tsunezō, before yelling out, “Battle stations!” Men ran about
314 utsuryōtō
in all directions as they rushed to their posts. The ship accelerated to an
amazing speed of nearly 30 knots. A mere 2.5 meters above the waterline,
waves were soon flooding over the deck as it plowed on.
Aiba decided to allocate targets. He would take care of the Bedovy, leaving
the Kagerō following on behind to attack the Grozny. For their part, the
Russians had also noticed the threat. Commander K.K. Andrzheyevsky, the
captain of the Grozny, was naturally prepared to fight. After all, there were
two destroyers on each side, and every military man in the world, whether
an officer or a sailor, would want to fight under such circumstances. That’s
how they had been trained. International law, moreover, held that as
commander of this vessel he was representing his country, and so any honor
his ship might win or lose in combat hinged on his own conduct.
Making the Grozny increase speed and draw up along the starboard side
of the Bedovy, Andrzheyevsky used hand signals to request orders.
“Proceed to Vladivostok” was the only answer he received. The instruction
to fight that he was naturally expecting simply did not appear. And there
was nothing even along the lines of “Follow behind” that he might have
expected if they really were heading for Vladivostok.
“Can’t be helped!” thought Andrzheyevsky, feeling a pang of apprehen-
sion as he wondered what was really going on. Deciding to fight on alone,
he gave the order to prepare for combat, and the four boilers gave off steam
as the Grozny gathered speed.
The Kagerō gave chase in response. Closing in on the enemy, it opened
fire, but these shells missed their target. The Grozny fired back as it made
its escape, and an exchange of fire continued for two hours at distances
ranging from 4,000 to 6,000 meters. Both sides missed their targets, for
destroyers everywhere had a poor level of accuracy. Not only was it hard
to set your sights on board a ship rolling heavily at full speed, but the best
shots in the navy were always posted on the battleships anyway.
As a result, the Kagerō let its target slip away. The only vessels in the
whole Baltic Fleet to slip through Tōgō’s fingers and make it through to
Vladivostok were two destroyers (including this one) and the Almaz, formerly
the personal yacht of the governor general of the Far East, which had been
fitted with light guns and converted into a cruiser. Compared with the
Grozny, which had a top speed of only 26 knots, the Kagerō could reach
nearly 30. No documents make any comment at all about how this ship
managed to escape.

* * *
The Sazanami was approaching ever closer, its single mast cutting through
the wind. The island of Utsuryōtō was now visible away to the right. At a
 clouds above the hill 315
quarter to five in the afternoon, the ship opened fire on the Bedovy at a
distance of 4,000 meters. These shells missed, and although the enemy took
evasive action, they made no attempt to return fire.
“They seem very cool!” Aiba, who was in command, exclaimed in
amazement. He simply assumed the enemy must know that shells fired from
a destroyer would miss unless fired from a much closer range. He had
overlooked one point— the fact that the enemy guns remained covered. But
they were not really being careless, for why would a destroyer ever leave
its guns covered in the middle of combat anyway?
On board the destroyer Bedovy, a commotion was in full swing. No order
had been given to prepare for combat, and unable to wait any longer, the
sailors had gone to their guns and started taking off the covers, only to receive
orders to stop. The sailors made a great fuss about it, one man taking out a
pistol, while another began loading his gun. If nothing had been done then,
a mutiny would have started. At this crucial juncture, these sailors were
showing more patriotic spirit than their officers.
Imperial Russia’s complexity was summed up in this moment, for in
contrast to the situation in Japan, which had emerged as a modern nation-
state, these officers were very much part of the imperial court, unlike the
sailors who were just part of the general population. Without a political
structure that allowed people to engage in politics and share in the nation’s
destiny, no nation would be capable of waging a modern war in this new
modern age.
The officers ran about in all directions in an effort to calm the sailors.
“We will take full responsibility,” said one. “It’s the admiral’s orders,”
said another. It was indeed the admiral who had given this order. The most
intriguing explanation came from another officer: “This is not a destroyer
but a hospital ship!”
Evidence of this could be found in the fact that there were wounded men
on board—the admiral and his staff officers—but this was by no means
unique to the Bedovy, as there were numerous casualties on board all the
vessels. In order to be treated as a hospital ship, they had to observe the
protocol of disarming their weapons, and this was the reason why the guns
were left covered up.
In the end, they turned off the Bedovy’s engines. Under international law,
this was one way of signaling your intention to surrender. An internationally
recognized signal flag was also hoisted declaring, “We have wounded on
board.”
On board the Sazanami, Lieutenant Commander Aiba was thrown into
confusion when he saw this flag. For the first time, he realized that the enemy
might have surrendered already. He had failed to recognize what he assumed
316 utsuryōtō
to be just a combat flag flying from the mast. On closer inspection, he could
now see that this was actually a white tablecloth.
Aiba ordered the guns to stop firing, and he dispatched his vice chief of
staff, Lieutenant Junior Grade Itō, to pay the enemy ship a visit. Itō went
on his way but was unable to communicate with the Russians. The gifted
artist Tsukamoto, on the other hand, was also skilled at English, so Aiba
decided to send him instead. Even at this stage, it never occurred to him that
the admiral of the enemy fleet might be aboard this tiny destroyer.

* * *
The mission required a great deal of courage. Four Russian officers were
sent over to the Sazanami as hostages to allow Tsukamoto to board the
Bedovy. Yet there was no way of knowing how the enemy sailors might
react on the spur of the moment once he was on board.
Tsukamoto took with him an escort of ten sailors bearing side arms. The
task of disarming the enemy passed surprisingly smoothly. This was easy
enough on the upper deck, but they also had to inspect the interior so they
then climbed below decks.
A large Russian sailor tried to block their way, gesturing to them to stop,
but Tsukamoto took no notice and climbed down anyway. At the door of
one cabin stood several Russian sailors, who made pleading gestures, begging
him not to enter. They were talking rapidly to him as well, but of course
Tsukamoto could not understand what they were saying.
There was one word, though, that stuck in his ears. The way they kept
saying “Amiral, amiral” in Russian sounded close to the English for
“admiral,” and when Tsukamoto opened the door and went inside, there under
a dim light lay a man on a bed with his head bandaged.
Still unable to quite believe it, Tsukamoto ventured in English, “Is this
Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky?”
Several men in gold-braided uniforms standing around him nodded in
reply, making Tsukamoto’s heart race faster than at any time throughout
this campaign. He then used flags to convey the message back to his ship.
“At first, I just could not believe it,” Aiba was later recorded as saying.
He had always assumed that the admiral would remain on board the Suvorov.
“Bring him here,” he signaled back.
When Tsukamoto conveyed this order, one of the staff officers in gold-
braided uniform begged him to desist. The admiral was too seriously
wounded, he explained.
In the end, they decided to tow the ship. It was close to dusk by the time
a rope had been attached, and they set off. They sailed on through the night.
 clouds above the hill 317
“In an emergency, we’ll just have to sink the ship,” Tsukamoto told
himself. It certainly felt a bit sinister, for if an enemy cruiser should suddenly
appear, a destroyer like his could be overwhelmed in an instant.
Around dawn on May 29, a single cruiser could be seen in the sea behind,
smoke from its funnels rising into the air. This turned out to be the small
cruiser Akashi (2,755 tons), which, under the command of Captain Ushiki
Kōtarō, had been working tirelessly since the night of May 27, protecting
Japanese destroyers and torpedo boats.
Aiba later said that he felt like a lost child who had run into his mother.
He immediately reported everything to the Akashi, and the amazed Ushiki
used his radiotelegraph equipment to forward the news to the Mikasa.
Saneyuki twisted his head in disbelief as he read this telegram, wondering
if it could really be true. Even the most creative novelist might have hesitated
to write such an implausible story. Capturing the enemy commander in chief
at sea right in the middle of a battle was simply unheard of. In the end, they
towed the Bedovy as far as Sasebo, where Admiral Rozhestvensky was
admitted to the naval hospital.
 8
NEBOGATOV

Rear Admiral Nebogatov had taken a different route from Rozhestvensky’s,

sailing through the Mediterranean Sea before joining up with the Baltic Fleet
at Van Phong Bay in Vietnam. The old ships under his command, described
as “floating iron,” were then incorporated into the main force as the Third
Pacific Squadron and headed on toward the Far East.
As the Baltic Fleet divided into two lines and set a course for Tsushima
Strait, Nebogatov’s squadron formed the column on the left-hand side. His
flagship was the Nicholas I (9,594 tons). With its squat shape, this warship
could only manage a speed of 15 knots and seemed out of place next to the
powerful new Suvorov or the Mikasa. The chubby hull of the Nicholas I
made its guns look even shorter. The Nicholas I was accompanied by three
armored coastal defense ships: the General Admiral Apraxin (4,126 tons),
Admiral Senyavin (4,960 tons), and Admiral Ushakov (4,126 tons). The
flagship was named after the bellicose tsar who had fought the Crimean War,
while the others were all named after illustrious admirals who had once raised
the glory of the Russian Empire.
The Japanese Navy had done their homework on Nebogatov’s squadron.
They decided that in a major battle they should concentrate all their firepower
on the enemy’s powerful new warships instead. And so throughout the fierce
engagements on May 27, the Third Pacific Squadron alone was, so to speak,
overlooked.
Even after nightfall, Nebogatov was able to keep on sailing. The Nicholas
I only sustained damage when hit by thirty shells on the port side. The damage
to the Apraxin was also light, with the left-hand gun of the stern turret
smashed, and the port side beneath the fore bridge shot through. The Senyavin
was in a similar state. In the heat of battle, the Ushakov became detached
 clouds above the hill 319
from the other ships, and the next day at ten past six in the evening it was
sunk by the Iwate and Yakumo from the Second Division under the command
of Shimamura Hayao.
During the fighting on May 27, the Baltic Fleet, which had previously
been accorded many accolades, was scattered as easily as dust in the wind,
dispersed so far and wide that no single ship had any idea what had become
of the others. Nebogatov had no way of knowing what had happened to
Rozhestvensky; but he had witnessed such an intense hail of shells that he
felt it pointless to hope that the commander in chief had survived. He
thought that Rozhestvensky must have been sent to the bottom of the sea
on board the Suvorov.
Nebogatov felt himself responsible for gathering together their defeated
forces. Just before sunset, he hoisted signal flags on his flagship with the
order: “Follow me. Course 23 degrees north.” His flagship happened to sail
past the stricken Oryol, the only one of the five modern Russian battleships
to have survived. The ship was covered with about three hundred holes from
enemy shells, seawater was pouring in, and 300 tons of water had been taken
on board. Although the ship was practically a wreck, its engines and rudder
alone were unharmed, and so the Oryol fell in behind the Nicholas I.

* * *
Until just yesterday, the Oryol had been hailed as the world’s very latest
and most powerful warship, but Novikov-Priboy was appalled as he went
about his customary duties on board as pay officer. “My ship now looked
just like a raft.”
The third ship in line was the Apraxin, while the Senyavin brought up the
rear. There was also another ship, the cruiser Izumrud, which was noted for
speed and took on the role of the flagship’s dispatch vessel. It sailed alongside
the Nicholas I.
Rear Admiral Nebogatov was in his late fifties. Unlike Rozhestvensky,
he was no bureaucratic animal from the Naval Ministry but had a reputa-
tion as a seasoned sailor. With his white uniform and black pants covering
his short, stocky frame, and his snow-white hair, whiskers, and large eyes,
he had a curious personal charm that made him seem more like an old
shopkeeper than a military man.
There was still some fading light on the surface of the sea when a Russian
destroyer sailed past his flagship to convey Rozhestvensky’s order that
Nebogatov take command and set a course for Vladivostok. Rozhestvensky
had issued this order, which had been relayed throughout the fleet, upon
abandoning the Suvorov.
320 nebogatov
With nightfall, the Japanese torpedo attacks got underway. That night,
Nebogatov and his squadron were lucky. Or rather, because he had drilled
into his ships the habit of sailing with all their lights turned out, they
managed to sail under cover of darkness and slip past several close calls.
They were under orders not to turn on the searchlights or open fire even if
a Japanese destroyer or flotilla approached.
Nebogatov himself was in charge of steering the flagship since the captain
of the Nicholas I had fallen in combat. Even when a torpedo approached,
he remained incredibly calm, simply giving out orders to turn to port or
starboard as he took evasive action. On board the flagship, the pervading
feeling among the crew was that they would be safe as long as Nebogatov
was there. Nobody could have imagined that when Tōgō appeared the next
day, this calm, seasoned veteran would surrender there at sea without a fight,
and they would never have dreamed, of course, that their own warship would
end up registered in the Japanese Navy under the name Iki.
Nebogatov never said a word on the subject, but he bitterly resented the
decision taken by the Naval Ministry for him to lead this motley collection
of old ships and join up with Rozhestvensky’s fleet. There was no way he
could win. Even the sailors mocked their own vessels as a “sinking
squadron.” The French Navy, which provided assistance during the voyage,
secretly described them as a “sacrificial fleet.” Having embarked on a war
with the aim of conquering the Far East, the Russian Empire should at least
have prepared a force capable of victory. If they were not going to reach
Vladivostok anyway, Nebogatov believed he should save the lives of his
men and surrender, even though he risked the death penalty.

* * *
“I see these five ships, but I wonder what has happened to all the rest?”
Nebogatov mumbled without thinking to his staff officers. Of course, nobody
could give him an accurate reply. In fact, there were at least three other ships
following on close behind, chasing after their squadron. These were the Sisoy
Veliky (10,400 tons) and the Navarin (10,206 tons), the second and third
battleships in line in the Second Division, together with the armored cruiser
Admiral Nakhimov (8,524 tons).
Commander Suzuki Kantarō was in charge of the four ships in the Fourth
Destroyer Division that were racing around this stretch of sea that night, and
he happened to be in a position to see those three Russian vessels linked
together.
As we’ve said, on Nebogatov’s orders, the ships in the Third Pacific
Squadron had kept their lights turned off throughout the long voyage from
Russia. He had trained them to do so in preparation for just such a test, so
 clouds above the hill 321
throughout the night of May 27, all the ships under his direct command
managed to keep their lights turned out and sail in an orderly formation.
They had to depend upon their skill in evading the Japanese torpedoes and
making their way stealthily through the darkness.
Those ships that had been under Rozhestvensky’s direct command, on
the other hand, had no such discipline. From this perspective as well,
Rozhestvensky’s leadership skills fell short. Not only did the ships from the
Second Division fall out of formation one after the other, but they were
startled into action when Japanese destroyers and torpedo boats approached,
tunneling through the waves.
“We had a clear idea of our targets because the enemy turned on their
searchlights and opened fire,” Suzuki Kantarō later said. Many years later
at the very end of the Pacific War, he would be pressed into service as prime
minister, but at this stage of his career, he was a world expert on conducting
torpedo attacks. First of all, he sank the battleship Navarin. In Suzuki’s view,
“the trick to a torpedo attack is to steal up close before the enemy notices
you.” For this, a keen eye for seeking out the target is essential.
About halfway through the night, at around half past two o’clock in the
morning, Suzuki and his crew discovered the Navarin. With a crescent moon
in the sky, the shadows of two ships came into view on the starboard side.
The ship in front, the Sisoy Veliky, looked incredibly like the Mikasa.
“Isn’t that the Mikasa?” On the bridge of the destroyer Asagiri, a puzzled
Suzuki racked his brains. The Mikasa could have veered out of position as
a result of the many hits taken from enemy shells during the battle that day.
He decided to send a signal light, but there was no response. Just then, the
Navarin also loomed into view, and Suzuki gave orders to open fire on both
vessels.

* * *
The battleship Navarin had sustained terrible damage during the course of
the fighting that day. Although this ship had been built in Russia, Fukui
Shizuo said that the design showed signs of British influence. In one curious
feature, the four funnels were arranged in pairs like two columns, making
identification easy. Before sunset, around the time the main battle finished,
seawater began pouring through a hole blasted open by an enemy shell, and
the ship dragged its half-sunk stern along, but by around nine o’clock, the
water had at last reached the upper deck. The Navarin, just drifting along,
fell behind the other ships, and the engines were shut down for the time
being. From time to time, the crew tried to drain the water pouring through
the holes opened up by enemy shells, but at that point the Navarin was
discovered by Suzuki’s Fourth Destroyer Division.
322 nebogatov
Suzuki said that the enemy did not fire so much as a single shot, although
the circumstances are not altogether clear. After all, the ship sank in just
five minutes, leaving only three survivors. As the Asagiri fired a torpedo
from 600 meters, the Shirakumo approached and fired from as close as 400
meters. The Navarin sank instantly.
Meanwhile, the Sisoy Veliky had also been sighted at the same time, but
this was just a coincidence since it was not sailing in formation together
with the Navarin. The ship was ten years old, and its design was based on
the British battleship HMS Royal Sovereign. During the main battle, the Sisoy
Veliky had been smashed up beyond recognition, and the prow dipped
forward. The ship sailed on at a dead slow pace and had just approached
the Navarin, when it was attacked by the Fourth Destroyer Division and hit
in the stern by two torpedoes. With the rudder broken, the Sisoy Veliky
managed to continue steering by adjusting the power in the two engines on
either side. The ship did not sink, and after the Fourth Division had gone,
continued to show the power of a warship by firing randomly at the sea
around.
The Japanese called this ship that was so reminiscent of the Mikasa the
“Shisoi.” Even after being so badly damaged, the ship did not sink, proving
that the defensive strength of ships in those days greatly outweighed their
firepower. The Sisoy continued sailing at a gentle pace all through the night.
Captain Manuil Ozerov, the ship’s commander, did not believe they would
be able to get to Vladivostok, so he headed instead for Tsushima to save his
crew. Around daybreak, the cruiser Vladimir Monomakh passed close by
together with a destroyer, but when they called for help, they were met only
with a cool response.
“We are on the verge of sinking too!”
With that, the Monomakh left, later sinking off the east coast of Tsushima.
The crew was saved by the Sado Maru. The armored cruiser Nakhimov sank
in the area at around the same time. The destroyer accompanying the
Monomakh was the Gromky, but after being chased and then seized by the
destroyer Shiranui, this soon sank as well. As for the fate of all the other
Russian warships, each met fates too varied to relate one by one.
The five ships under the command of Rear Admiral Nebogatov were the
only ones that somehow managed to form a fleet and stay on course for
Vladivostok.

* * *
After sailing at full steam through the night, nearly all of Tōgō’s warship
divisions reached the waters off the island of Utsuryōtō by daybreak on
May 28. Tōgō’s strategy was to wait there and then seek out the enemy.
 clouds above the hill 323
This pursuit action, rather than the main battle of the day before, earned
him the most praise. The strategy itself had been decided in advance. His
mission was to make sure that not a single enemy ship got through to
Vladivostok, and all the ships under Tōgō’s command acted accordingly.
All the sailors knew what they were supposed to do. Even if all the officers
on board a single vessel had perished—it never happened, but just
supposing—the helmsmen and engineers would doubtless have brought
their ship to Utsuryōtō by themselves.
They had to search out the enemy over a wide stretch of sea, and catching
them all was practically impossible. Tōgō was fortunate that at first light on
May 28, the day got underway with a beautifully clear dawn. Traces of the
heavy swells of the previous day still lingered, but there was almost no mist,
and visibility was excellent.
At dawn, the Mikasa led the First and Second Divisions to a point about
30 nautical miles south by west of Utsuryōtō. As the sun rose, the sea was
transformed into an astonishing deep-blue hue.
“I can’t see them,” grumbled Katō Tomosaburō, the ill-tempered chief
of staff.
“They’ll fall into the net somewhere along the line,” Saneyuki replied.
He had total faith in his own sums. He had calculated the permutations
minutely and scattered the Japanese divisions in their path.
At five o’clock in the morning, the location of each fleet division,
apart from the aforementioned First and Second Divisions, was as follows:
the Fourth Division (Naniwa, Takachiho, Akashi, Tsushima, and, joining
temporarily from the Third Division, the Otowa and Niitaka) was about 60
nautical miles to the south by west of Utsuryōtō; the Fifth Division
(Itsukushima, Chin’en, Matsushima, Hashidate, Yaeyama) was about 43
nautical miles east of Homigot on the Korean coast; the Sixth Division (Suma,
Chiyoda, Akitsushima, Izumi) was about 52 nautical miles northeast by east
of Homigot.
Shortly after daybreak, the Fifth Division spotted smoke in the sky to the
east. Immediately alerting the other divisions, they put on speed and, drawing
closer, could see several plumes of smoke. On board the Itsukushima,
Kataoka Shichirō, commander of the Third Squadron, promptly sent a
wireless message to the whole fleet and then concentrated on staying in touch
with the enemy. There were two battleships, two coastal security ships, and
one cruiser.
Nebogatov had been found.
* * *
Around the same time, Rear Admiral Nebogatov, on the bridge of the
Nicholas I, also spotted smoke from the five ships of the Fifth Division under
324 nebogatov
the Itsukushima. Actually, this was slightly later, as the Japanese were using
lighter-colored, high-grade British coal.
“That smoke is not from our ships, is it?” Nebogatov asked Lieutenant
I.M. Sergeyev, the vice chief of staff. He was hoping it might be the Sisoy
Veliky, Navarin, or some other Russian vessel puffing and blowing to catch
up with them. He had no way of knowing, of course, what had become of
those ships.
“They’re Japanese!” the tall lieutenant Sergeyev replied in a soft voice
as if resigned to their fate.
“None of ours at all?” Nebogatov looked round at his other staff officers.
His usual gentle expression had not changed in the slightest. The question
implied that he might decide to fight it out if only there were some other
Russian ships in the area for him to command.
“They’re all Japanese!” Even as his staff officers were telling him this,
the Sixth Division joined the enemy ships already in view. These were all
small-scale vessels, however, whose main role was reconnaissance, and, if
they dared to attack, Nebogatov’s squadron could brush them aside with a
single stroke. They did not venture to stray from their lookout duties, and
just took care to stay beyond range of the Russian battleships’ main guns,
trailing them like wolves in pursuit.
After receiving the wireless message from the Fifth Division, the Mikasa
immediately raced off in their direction. Several radio messages came in,
and as they sailed on, they received detailed intelligence on the enemy. Five
vessels, including two battleships, had been spotted sailing on a northeasterly
course at a speed of 12 or 13 knots.
“It’s probably the last surviving remnants of the enemy’s main fleet,”
Katō remarked, and Tōgō nodded. The Mikasa was on a course to head off
the enemy’s advance, followed in line by the unscathed ships of the First
and Second Divisions.
The time was twenty minutes to nine in the morning. The plan was to
head off the enemy, but there was still no sign of them, and those on the
bridge of the Mikasa worried that they might have set a course too far ahead.
They knew the enemy’s location from the radio messages being sent out
by the Fifth Division on lookout duty. Tōgō decided to split his force into
two groups. He gave orders for the Second Division under Kamimura
Hikonojō to advance at full speed on the enemy’s current location. They
were not to fight, but just to stay in touch. The fighting would be left to
the First Division under Tōgō’s own command—any other plan would
have run the risk of letting the enemy slip away. That was just how cautious
Tōgō was.
 clouds above the hill 325
The ships under Kamimura’s armored cruiser Izumo changed course.
Kicking up waves, they raced in the direction of their target. This was more
like trapping prey than combat.

* * *
Nebogatov moved into the conning tower of the Nicholas I to direct the
fighting. Vladimir Smirnov, the captain of his flagship, had been wounded
in combat the day before, but nonetheless he was standing on the bridge.
As a result, Commander V.A. Kross, who was chief of staff, had to shuttle
back and forth between them twice.
Smirnov despaired of fighting. As he looked in all directions through his
telescope, the number of Japanese ships was steadily increasing. “They’re
unscathed!” he sighed when Kamimura’s Second Division appeared. The
Asama was the one ship nowhere to be seen, and Smirnov wondered if it
had been sunk by the Russians’ ferocious bombardment. At this juncture,
however, the Asama had temporarily joined the First Division under Tōgō’s
direct command. When the First Division appeared as well in a single line
to the north, Smirnov lost all desire to carry on the fight. He could not stop
himself from staring, as he took in the fact that Tōgō’s fleet was unblemished.
As ever, the Mikasa was in the lead, followed by the Shikishima and then
in turn the Fuji, Asahi, Kasuga, and Nisshin. This was the same formation
the Russians had seen many times, and so they were sick of the sight of it.
As far as Smirnov could tell from that distance, the exterior of each ship
was, incredibly, unchanged, and they approached full of vigor for all the
world as if they were setting out for a review of the fleet.
“And this after such a fierce battle yesterday. What the hell is going on?”
Smirnov thought. Some Russian battleships and armored cruisers had fired
probably more than a thousand shells at the enemy. Even though he could
see that there was not a mark on them, just in terms of mathematical
probability, those shells must have made at least some impression on Tōgō’s
fleet.
The Japanese force surrounding Nebogatov’s fleet consisted of twenty-
seven ships, not including torpedo boats. The Russian Nicholas I, in contrast,
was an old-fashioned battleship with limited firepower and defensive
strength. The powerful new Oryol following behind had become just a pile
of floating iron. Even so, the ship had some life left, having spent the whole
night undergoing repairs, and more than twenty-five guns large and small
were still capable of firing.
Altogether, there were two thousand five hundred men still alive on these
five Russian warships. They seemed to be there just so that they could be
killed.
326 nebogatov
“There’s no point in fighting on,” muttered the captain as he faced
Commander Kross. Without a word, Kross just nodded his assent. He then
went off to tell Nebogatov and requested his instructions. Over and above
the opinion of the captain or the chief of staff, everything rested on
Nebogatov’s decision. If they surrendered, Nebogatov himself would be the
one sentenced to death by court-martial.
Nebogatov seemed to have already foreseen such a situation, and there
was no hint of agitation in his demeanor. Realizing that there was no point
in wasting two thousand five hundred lives on a battle they could not win,
he just said with an air of total calm, “Let’s surrender!”

* * *
Nebogatov’s action as the commander would merit the death penalty in the
naval law of most countries. Giving in after putting up a fight would count
as an “honorable surrender,” but to do so without fighting, and to hand over
your ships and weapons to the enemy warranted the death penalty.
In this respect, the Russian Navy had a particularly strict tradition. During
the Crimean War, a Russian battleship was captured by the Turkish Navy
and went on to make frequent appearances in the war zone under Turkish
colors. Seeing this as an insult to Russia, the tsar insisted that his entire navy
seek out and destroy this one battleship. Ironically, this tsar was Nicholas
I, who had also given his name to Nebogatov’s flagship.
An admiral who had taken much the same action as Nebogatov was Ding
Ruchang, commander in chief of the Chinese Beiyang Fleet during the First
Sino-Japanese War. As we know, he had been pursued back to his base and
surrounded, and, after exhausting all other possibilities, he eventually
surrendered and handed over his ships to Itō Sukeyuki, commander in chief
of the Japanese Combined Fleet. Just as in the case of Nebogatov, this was
to save the lives of the men under his command. The difference was that
Ding Ruchang also took poison and died after he made this decision. Even
though the Beijing government in these last years of the Qing dynasty was
already rotten to the core, and despite Ding Ruchang’s reputation as an
illustrious admiral, he was never exonerated or even granted a state funeral.
In Russia, people generally expected honor and passion from their military,
not a rational decision to surrender. Even if a surrender saved a few lives at
the time, it was felt that this would have a bad effect on future generations,
who would feel their sense of national pride wounded when looking back
at such events.
To Nebogatov’s further disadvantage, Rozhestvensky had given out
various orders before the fighting began and among these was an instruction
for commanders to sink their own ships if they were surrounded by a
 clouds above the hill 327
superior force and unable to escape. Then again, there was talk that
Rozhestvensky had dispatched patently less than urgent directives on the
very eve of battle, and they were not taken so seriously as a result. Whatever
the case, Nebogatov was clearly disobeying this order.
The Russian cruiser Oleg managed to escape far to the south of the combat
zone and holed up in Manila, where it was then disarmed by a United States
warship in accordance with international law. “The action we took was
correct,” the Oleg’s vice captain Posokhov wrote in his notebook, launching
a curious attack, “but Nebogatov’s surrender was inexplicable and
inexcusable.” What he meant was that his ship had been captured by a third
party—a United States warship—whereas Nebogatov made the mistake of
handing his ships over to the enemy.
* * *
After the war, Nebogatov was sentenced to death by a military court
at Kronstadt’s naval base. Before the trial, he received a dishonorable
discharge from the Russian Admiralty. Tsar Nicholas II was generous with
Rozhestvensky, who had been taken prisoner after losing the capacity to
fight, but with Nebogatov he was severe, even going so far as to attend his
court-martial. In the end, Nebogatov was spared the death penalty, and his
sentence was commuted to ten years’ imprisonment. The commanders of
all the ships were also jailed.
Nebogatov was not meek in court. He railed against the decline in the
Russian Navy, claiming that the fleet had been as good as thrown away by
the failure to make the preparations necessary for victory. In court, he was
taken to task for not opening the Kingston valves and sinking his own ship.
In fact, he had no such opportunity. Tōgō was deploying the main force of
his fleet and in the process of surrounding him. If they opened the Kingston
valves, they would have been pounded by Tōgō’s guns even as the ship was
gradually sinking, which would have defeated Nebogatov’s sole objective
of saving the crew.
After he decided to surrender in the conning tower, the message was
transmitted to the other ships. The officers on board the flagship then
assembled around the bridge.
“Let’s sink the ship,” two or three of them said, but Nebogatov tried to
pacify them. He raised both arms and was on the verge of tears as he told
them there was no time. They all knew what he meant. Tōgō’s Mikasa was
already less than 10,000 meters away.
Meanwhile, three colored signal flags were raised with the message “X.
G. E.” meaning, “We surrender.” They also rushed up a makeshift white
flag made out of a tablecloth. Each Russian warship following on behind
did the same.
328 nebogatov
On board the Mikasa, however, Tōgō did not see these flags. This was
partly because he was still too far away, but he also did not believe that the
enemy would surrender without a fight. The tactic he employed at this
juncture says much about his character. Now that the enemy was surrounded,
he expected them to self-destruct. He made his fleet move forward cautiously,
taking care that none of his ships suffered any damage by some reckless
advance within range of the enemy’s guns. The ship with the longest range
under his command was the Kasuga, so he gave instructions for this vessel
to fire the first shots.
Keeping to a leisurely pace, the First and Second Divisions opened fire
at half past ten in the morning, when they were within 8,000 meters of the
enemy.

* * *
The bombardment lasted for more than ten minutes. During that time,
Nebogatov’s fleet did not fire a single shot in response. Akiyama Saneyuki
was the first to notice that something was odd. A firm believer in relying
on the naked eye, he did not have his own binoculars, so he asked Chief of
Staff Katō Tomosaburō to check for any signal flags.
Katō could not make out the X. G. E. messages, but he could see the
white flag.
“They’ve surrendered!” Lieutenant Kiyokawa Sumikazu told Saneyuki.
Tōgō could hear this conversation, but he remained silent and gave no
order to stop firing, allowing the bombardment to continue.
“Commander, the enemy has surrendered!” yelled Saneyuki. Even then,
Tōgō said nothing as he kept peering through his binoculars, his right arm
raised as he gripped the hilt of his sword with his left. Throughout the course
of the fighting over the past two days, his expression had barely altered.
There had only been a change in his demeanor just before battle had been
joined the day before, when he had performed his “turn before the enemy.”
He had moved his left arm in a sweeping half-circle and ordered a full turn
to port; he had breathed in, puffed out his cheeks, and as he completed his
sweeping movement, he breathed out again. Apparently, this response was
a holdover from his childhood and appeared whenever he made some
important decision.
But Tōgō, his temper fraying somewhat, remained impassive in his
confrontation with Nebogatov. Smoke rose up each time a shell struck one
of the five enemy ships.
“Commander!” Saneyuki yelled at Tōgō on one such occasion, his usual
piercing glare on his face. “Show a samurai’s mercy! Please stop firing.”
 clouds above the hill 329
Years later, Lieutenant Commander Abo Kiyokazu, the chief of artillery
who was standing beside, described the change that came over Saneyuki
and mimicked his expression as he repeated those words over again.
According to Abo, Tōgō remained unmoved and just retorted in his Satsuma
dialect, “Only if they actually surrender! Even as we speak, the enemy ships
are still moving forward, aren’t they?”
Tōgō had a reputation for his accurate knowledge of international law.
Apart from raising a white flag when surrendering, the enemy was definitely
supposed to turn off their engines to make their intentions clear.
“Akiyama-san had no reply to that,” Abo recalled. Yet Saneyuki was a
man of unusual sensibility, and, as he kept looking at the scene before him,
he could hardly suppress emotions that mixed anger and sadness. The enemy
was certainly being idiotic. Not only were the Russian ships still going
forward, but all their guns were trained on the Mikasa even if there was no
gun smoke.
The Russian ship soon realized their mistake and turned off the engines.
Only then did Tōgō order the bombardment to stop.

* * *
Something strange occurred after hoisting the flag of surrender, just as
Nebogatov was ordering his ships to turn off their engines. Until then, the
role of dispatch boat had been filled by the light cruiser Izumrud (3,103 tons),
snuggled up close to the starboard side of the Nicholas I. Visibly fast, this
vessel would have been classified as a “third-class” cruiser in the Japanese
Navy. The nearest Japanese equivalent might be the Akashi or the Niitaka,
but in terms of speed there was no comparison. Whereas the Izumrud could
reach speeds of 24 knots, the Akashi’s top speed was only 19 knots, and the
Niitaka’s, 20. A Japanese battleship, moreover, had a speed of about 18 knots
and a “first-class” or armored cruiser, 20, although “second-class” or
protected cruisers like the Kasagi and Chitose in the Third Division could
reach 22 knots. Then again, a destroyer could reach speeds of 29 or 30 knots,
but in terms of firepower and defensive strength, a destroyer was nothing
like a cruiser. In short, the Izumrud was the fastest warship in either fleet.
Appropriately for such a swift vessel, Vasily Ferzen, the captain, was a
man of sharp reactions. When he saw the flag of surrender on the flagship,
he followed procedure and ran up the same flag. But when he peered out in
three directions through a crack in the conning tower, he spotted a gap to
the east between the Japanese divisions closing the net around them. As a
result, he did not turn off the engines and promptly changed course to the
east.
330 nebogatov
“That’s the Izumrud. Do we go after them?” yelled Kawashima Reijirō,
commander of the Iwate, the last ship in the Second Division, which lay
southwest of the Russian vessel.
Shimamura Hayao was commander of the Second Division and known
for his generous spirit. Throughout his life, Kawashima held Shimamura in
the highest esteem. Until the battle of the Yellow Sea, Shimamura had served
as Tōgō’s chief of staff, but he never discussed his own achievements, saying
only in public and private, “Akiyama Saneyuki gets all the credit.” He had
played an active part in the main battle on May 27 as divisional commander
on board the Iwate, but on this occasion too, he subsequently spoke only of
Kawashima’s exploits.
As Kawashima was urging him to give pursuit, Shimamura, with his large
frame, just soothed him by saying, “This is the mercy of a samurai!”
In later years, Kawashima would repeat these words as if reciting a line
from the famous scene of a classical drama.
A similar scene was unfolding around the same time on the bridge of the
Izumo. Kamimura Hikonojō, the commander, shouted orders to fire at once
at the Izumrud, but his staff officer Suzuki Tetsutarō remonstrated with him.
According to Suzuki’s own account, he said, “Commander, hasn’t Admiral
Nebogatov dispatched that ship to deliver his last message to the tsar? Surely
we can afford to let a single vessel get away. Show the mercy of a samurai!”
On hearing this, an expression of remorse floated across Kamimura’s face
as he said in a loud voice, “I hadn’t realized. Cease fire!”
Some of the ships in the Sixth Division did give chase to the Izumrud,
but they were too slow to catch up. The Russian cruiser nearly reached
Vladivostok before running aground off the coast. The captain then scuttled
the ship and led his crew into Vladivostok overland.
* * *
Nebogatov’s squadron had now turned off its engines, and the ships were
drifting.
“Akiyama-san,” said Tōgō, “off you go!” He had chosen him as the officer
to take the surrender. This meant boarding the flagship Nicholas I and
negotiating terms with the Russian admiral. To get to the enemy warship,
they needed a boat, and the torpedo boat Kiji happened to be approaching
alongside the Mikasa.
“Seki,” Saneyuki cried out from the bridge, beckoning to its captain,
Lieutenant Seki Saiuemon.
Saneyuki boarded the Kiji. He had dispensed with his customary “loincloth
look” (a sword belt worn over his tunic) that always made Tōgō knit his
brow. The only weapon he had at his side was a dagger that much like a
fruit knife, for he had no handgun.
 clouds above the hill 331
“I’m not sure we’ll make it back.” This was the thought going through
the mind of Lieutenant Yamamoto Shinjirō who accompanied him. A squad
captain on the Mikasa, Yamamoto had been chosen to go with Saneyuki as
his interpreter because he was fluent in French.
Yamamoto later said that he was prepared for death. “I boarded the torpedo
boat Kiji together with Staff Officer Akiyama,” he recalled, “and drawing
away from the ship, we headed toward the enemy flagship. The waves were
choppy that day. The sides of the Nicholas I were also at a steep angle so
that we could not climb up.”
Looking up from their torpedo boat, which was like a leaf on the water,
the sides of the battleship rose up like the ramparts of a large fortress.
A rope ladder descended from above, and, when it came just in front of
Yamamoto, he said, “Allow me,” and began climbing up. Even as he did
so, he was aware that some rebellion against the surrender might be breaking
out on board the ship, or that the shock may have caused some men to lose
their heads, so he needed to be a step ahead of Saneyuki because, if anyone
was going to get shot, he as the junior officer should be the first.
Saneyuki followed just behind him.
“As expected, on board the ship there was a strange mood of excitement.”
Sailors and officers were rushing around, yelling what sounded like cries of
abuse. Yamamoto called it an “indescribably charged atmosphere,” but in
fact, there was no panic about it at all. They were making preparations for
funerals at sea. The many men who had died in combat were being laid out
on the deck; various different shouts were ringing out as some carried
corpses or wrapped them in shrouds, while others gave out orders. There
were men also on bended knee chanting prayers in loud tones, but, in
Yamamoto’s anxious frame of mind, he perhaps saw this as a state of panic.
It was only when they passed by a mound of corpses, and Saneyuki went
over to their side to kneel down and pay his respects that Yamamoto realized
he was watching the scene of a funeral at sea. “Even at a time like this,
Akiyama was brimming with courage. He just stepped right up.”
Saneyuki was not doing this just to win over enemy hearts. He had decided
to become a priest once the war was over, so he was profoundly shocked to
see the fatal damage that his own fleet’s guns had just inflicted upon these
corpses, and his natural response was to pray for the repose of their souls.
“There was genuine emotion in his attitude of silent respect,” Yamamoto
reported. “The enemy sailors were watching him intently, and in their eyes
as well was a sense of real gratitude. With that, the rebellious mood subsided,
and you could even see a touch of friendship.”

* * *
332 nebogatov
Commander Kross, the chief of staff, greeted Saneyuki on the deck. Still in
his thirties, he cut quite a dashing figure, but to Saneyuki’s eyes he gave the
impression of a bedraggled shaggy dog. This was partly because the whiskers
he wore too long were drooping, disheveled by the saltwater and all the gun
smoke.
Saneyuki and Yamamoto were shown to the commander’s cabin. No one
else was present. From far off, they could hear the echo of someone’s
screams. Nothing about the scene could be considered ordinary.
“What did I do to deserve this?” thought Saneyuki, not referring so much
to the enemy but to himself. In a glossy picture book, this would have made
an exhilarating spectacle, the depiction of an emissary sent to the surrendering
enemy’s castle, but Saneyuki played this role in real life, and what stood
out for him was the gloom of it all. He expected Nebogatov to appear but
felt unsure about what sort of attitude he should strike up when he arrived.
As they waited, shouts frequently rang out down the corridor.
Yamamoto’s face was stiff with tension. He was trying to calm down by
repeating over to himself that, if necessary, he could at least die a true
warrior’s death. Saneyuki was not thinking along these lines, since he
probably understood the real nature of the shouts he could hear down the
corridor. As they were being ushered into the commander’s cabin, he had
glanced around at the sailors and officers, wondering what they were up to.
He saw that they were yelling out orders and warnings to throw their signal
books and confidential papers into the sea. In disposing of these, they
showed that they had given up and really meant to surrender. If anything,
this commotion served as a reassuring sign that they themselves were safe.
Presently, Rear Admiral Nebogatov came in. Saneyuki and Yamamoto
stood up. Nebogatov may have been the enemy commander, but they still
had to salute him according to his naval rank. Afterward, Saneyuki always
used respectful language whenever he wrote about Nebogatov. Saneyuki’s
behavior at this moment may be more accurately described as just the
customary etiquette among men of his generation rather than a manifestation
of navy discipline.
Nebogatov did not seem anything like the defeated admiral that Saneyuki
had feared. With his white beard and hair, this portly man in his fifties smiled
and made a sweeping gesture as he entered, and then he suddenly hit himself.
“I apologize for this uniform,” he said in French as he held out his hand.
As he shook it, Saneyuki saw what he meant.
“Appearing in a dirty uniform, the rear admiral shook hands politely,”
Saneyuki wrote in his account of the meeting.
According to Yamamoto, “He was wearing a boilerman’s filthy flannels.
It was only then that I realized the Russians wore flannels in combat. In our
 clouds above the hill 333
navy, we went into combat wearing clean uniforms in readiness for death.”
Both he and Saneyuki got the impression that Nebogatov was “an extremely
good-natured man.”

* * *
Nebogatov and Chief of Staff Kross sat across the table. Also seated,
Saneyuki first of all announced in English that he would receive their
surrender. Nebogatov, however, did not understand him. As arranged,
Lieutenant Yamamoto translated his words into French.
“Admiral Tōgō is, like yourself, delighted to call an end to this fierce sea
battle. He has sent me as his emissary to receive your honorable surrender,
and as such you may keep wearing your swords.” Saneyuki went on to report
a number of other items.
“We accept.” Nebogatov nodded at each turn and smiled. “Only,” he said,
opening both hands. He wondered if they could they have a little time to
convey this message to their ships.
Saneyuki and Yamamoto were kept waiting for thirty minutes after
Nebogatov and his chief of staff left. During this interval, Nebogatov held
a meeting with his staff officers in the wardroom and communicated with
each vessel.
Presently, he returned, and told them, “Please wait a little longer.” This
was to allow them to hold services for the burials at sea and to enable the
staff officers who would be going to the Mikasa to change their uniforms.
The rear admiral also abjectly requested a favor. The boat they would
normally have used for such a trip was completely wrecked, so he asked if
they might possibly accompany them on their Japanese torpedo boat.
“Of course.” Saneyuki nodded.
After that, the rear admiral just sat there chatting away on sundry topics
like a talkative merchant neglecting his trade. He was concerned for the fate
of the Russian ships that had been scattered in all directions. Saneyuki told
him only the confirmed reports that he had received. Even then, Nebogatov
pressed him about each Russian ship in minute detail, and after he received
replies to each question, his eyes suddenly clouded over as he muttered,
“Total destruction!”
At this stage, no one present knew that Rozhestvensky had been captured
at sea, so Saneyuki thought he had gone down with the Suvorov, whereas
Nebogatov believed he might have escaped on a destroyer. The defeated
admiral wanted to know about all the events from the previous day, but for
Saneyuki this miscellaneous talk was a bit annoying. Tōgō was waiting
for him on board the Mikasa. Saneyuki, who could bear it no longer, let
Nebogatov know about this.
334 nebogatov
“O-Oh!” the rather casual Nebogatov exclaimed, as if only realizing then
that he had actually surrendered.
“He bustled around,” Saneyuki reports, “as if he had only just noticed
and went off to his cabin, calling to an orderly to bring him a uniform to
wear.”
Nebogatov and all the staff officers then assembled in their uniforms on
the rear deck, and he gave them their instructions. Saneyuki could not
understand Russian, but as he reported, “It was a touching scene, and I saw
how earnestly he addressed them with tears in his eyes.”

* * *
Lieutenant Commander Abo Kiyokazu, chief of artillery, who was waiting
on the deck, would never forget the sight of Rear Admiral Nebogatov and
his staff officers, in full ceremonial dress, climbing up the gangway on the
side of the Mikasa. “As I looked at their crestfallen figures, they seemed so
pitiful that I could not hold back tears. Truly, I thought, war is about winning
or dying, and there is nothing else in between.”
At that moment, the Mikasa was as silent as a forest, and there was not
a sound on deck. Tōgō was still standing on the bridge. His following moves
suggested that he felt much the same way as Abo.
The four ships of the Second Destroyer Division, which was attached to
the First Division, barged into this scene. The vessel in command was the
Oboro, followed by the Inazuma, Ikazuchi, and Akebono. The deck of each
ship was packed with crew members who, as they looked up toward Tōgō
on the bridge of the Mikasa, were yelling out, “Banzai! Banzai!”
“Tell them to clear off!” Tōgō cried out, his expression darkening.
When someone on the bridge gave a signal for silence, the four ships slid
past the side of the Mikasa and retreated to the rear.
Tōgō then held an interview with Nebogatov and his officers in the
commander’s cabin. In attendance as translator was Captain Yashiro Rokurō,
commander of the armored cruiser Asama. Among all his superiors, Saneyuki
felt closest to this man. From 1895 onward, Yashiro had spent four years
as a military attaché at the Japanese legation in St. Petersburg and was fluent
in Russian.
Once the two admirals had gone through the formalities of offering and
accepting the surrender, champagne glasses were handed round to everyone
there. Saneyuki was not present as he was giving instructions to the officers
charged with taking possession of the enemy ships.
“A toast to the end of the sea battle,” Tōgō said in Japanese, raising his
glass.
 clouds above the hill 335
In a loud voice, Yashiro repeated these words to their guests in Russian.
Nebogatov raised his glass, and they all drained their glasses.
The Japanese staff officers had been restraining their feelings out of
sympathy for their Russian counterparts, but they soon realized that this was
not necessary. Nebogatov appeared to be most adaptable and chatted away
with Tōgō in an extremely lighthearted mood.
Saneyuki came upon this scene when he entered. According to the notes
he wrote down some years later, Nebogatov was saying to Tōgō, “May I
ask the admiral some questions? How did you know that we would come
through the Tsushima Strait?”
“I did not know. I assumed you would,” Tōgō replied.
“And on what grounds did you make that assumption?” Nebogatov asked
next.
“I simply believed it was inevitable based on geography, weather, and
some other factors.”
Soon, the party came to an end. Nebogatov then left the ship and returned
to his former flagship, already a battleship in the Japanese Navy.

* * *
The tasks were assigned for taking possession of each ship in Nebogatov’s
former fleet; the ships were then towed off to the port at Sasebo. The flagship
Nicholas I and Oryol, for example, were in the custody of the First Division.
The coast defense ships Apraxin and Senyavin were placed in the care of
the Second Division.
Many of the crew on board the battleship Oryol, including Novikov-
Priboy, were transferred to the battleship Asahi. Novikov-Priboy recorded
that the Japanese sailors greeted him with smiles when he arrived on the
deck. Lunch was soon served, and a pouch of tobacco was distributed to
each prisoner. The lunch consisted of corned beef and white bread. The
Russians had braced themselves for some sort of reprisal, and not one had
expected to receive such a reception.
“This Japanese battleship, which had come under such intense fire,”
Novikov-Priboy wrote about his initial impression of the Asahi shortly after
his arrival, did not have so much as a single scratch of damage. The interior
showed that meticulous care had been taken in its upkeep, and all the
equipment was in such good order that no one could utter a word of criticism
. . . All those shells we had fired seemed to have disappeared, and I wondered
where on earth had they gone.”
Their own commander, Captain Nikolai Yung, had been badly wounded
and could not be moved, so he was still lying on an iron bed in a small
336 nebogatov
rectangular cabin on the Oryol. Practically unconscious, he was not aware
that Nebogatov had surrendered the entire fleet. A surgeon and a handful of
men remained with him on board, but they too did not inform the unfortunate
commander about the fate of his ship. Many of his men had already been
transferred to the Asahi. Captain Yung was a military man of uncommonly
fierce pride, and if he had known about this he might have gone mad and
died.
At the very least, Yung would have been at a loss for words at a chance
encounter that could not have occurred anywhere else but in a St. Petersburg
theater. As it turned out, the commander of the Asahi, Captain Nomoto
Tsunaakira, happened to be his good friend. Nomoto had previously served
in the military attaché’s office at the Japanese legation in Russia. He came
to know the men in the Russian Naval Ministry when they exchanged
courtesy visits. On several occasions, Yung invited Nomoto to be a guest
at his house in the Slavianka district of St. Petersburg. Yung, however, did
not know that Nomoto had become the commander of the Asahi, and Nomoto
himself did not know which ship Yung was on. All they knew was that for
the sake of their homelands they must both exchange gunfire in the same
stretch of sea.
Only after taking possession of the Oryol did Nomoto discover that Yung
was the commander. He could not go and visit him in his sickbed, however.
After all, Yung had not yet even been told about the surrender.
The Oryol was the only ship so badly damaged that it could not accompany
the others as far as Sasebo, and instead they headed for the port at Maizuru.
During the night of May 29, Yung died en route. He was buried at sea the
following morning, and both Russian and Japanese sailors stood in line at
the funeral service held on board the Oryol. Nomoto witnessed the service
from a distance and remained standing at the stern of the Asahi until the
very last bugle call died away.

* * *
In the course of a single day, May 28, the remaining Russian ships were
discovered by the Japanese divisions in various different locations. All were
in terrible shape, some of them so close to sinking that they were plowing
low as they made their way through the water. With one or two exceptions,
these ships did not surrender but fought resolutely on and were sunk. The
Japanese did all they could to save their crews. The Amerika Maru and Sado
Maru, steamships converted into cruisers and fitted with small- and medium-
sized guns, raced around in this relief effort as if trained for this specialized
work.
 clouds above the hill 337
The largest of these surviving Russian ships was probably the armored
cruiser Dmitri Donskoi (6,200 tons). This vessel was sailing northwest for
all it was worth when discovered by the four small cruisers of the Fourth
Division under the Naniwa.
The Naniwa first sent a radio message: “Dmitri Donskoi. Your commander
in chief Nebogatov has surrendered!”
The Dmitri Donskoi ignored this, making no response and just
accelerating. The Japanese ships gave pursuit, but these little old cruisers
from the First Sino-Japanese War had no chance of catching up. At this stage,
two warships from the Third Division happened to appear, having picked
up a radio message. These were the small protected cruisers Otowa and the
Niitaka. The Otowa had been completed just recently, after the outbreak of
the war, at the Yokosuka Shipyard and boasted a speed of 21 knots. Even
at full steam, the Dmitri Donskoi could manage only 17 knots. The Otowa
and Niitaka were accompanied by two destroyers, the Asagiri and Shirakumo.
Not only did the Dmitri Donskoi have armor protection, it also had
enough firepower to sink these small Japanese protected cruisers with ease.
Captain Ivan Lebedev, the commander, apparently had no intention of
surrendering. He turned the prow in the direction of Utsuryōtō, intending to
crash into the island and sink his own ship. In the meantime, he decided to
wreak as much damage as he could on the smaller Japanese ships swarming
around him.
The Japanese surrounded the ship. The four ships of the Fourth Division
approached on the starboard side, while the Otowa and Niitaka came from
the left. At twelve past seven in the evening, Arima Ryōkitsu, the commander
of the Otowa, gave the order to open fire at a distance of 8,000 meters.
The Dmitri Donskoi was consumed in flames but did not stop firing back,
and the fighting continued into the night, a number of its shells striking the
Japanese ships as it tried to make its escape. Amazingly, this Russian war-
ship was still fighting on at seven o’clock in the morning of May 29 until,
strength exhausted, the Dmitri Donskoi crashed into the coast of Utsuryōtō.
After putting the crew ashore, the commander opened the Kingston valves
to sink his ship. He was then taken prisoner.
 9
HILL IN THE RAIN

Here on the desk before us are several different sea charts, probably the same
ones that Saneyuki pored over on board the Mikasa.

29th. Weather fine. The armored cruiser Dmitri Donskoi was scuttled after
clashing with a flotilla of small Japanese vessels off Utsuryōtō, and the
more than seven hundred seventy survivors who went ashore were taken
prisoner.

As he wrote this on his sea chart, the curtain fell on the battle these two
empires had waged on this broad stretch of sea since May 27.
The Dmitri Donskoi had very strong armor. Countless shells had rained
down on this warship from the small Japanese cruisers and destroyers, but
the only damage they inflicted was to the boiler and the rudder, while the
protective sheet of armor remained untouched as if merely assailed by
pebbles. The ship had fought on for forty hours since the battle had started
at two o’clock in the afternoon on May 27, but in the end the Kingston valves
were opened, and the ship sank.
When he received a telegram with the news, Saneyuki wrote down the
ship’s full name Dmitri Donskoi on his sea chart, marking a cross at the
location where the ship was scuttled and recording the time and date. He
lifted his head.
“I guess it’s all over now,” Saneyuki said to Chief of Staff Katō.
Katō did not reply since he was a man who disliked dramatic outbursts,
even over this sea battle, which had been fought on a scale unprecedented
in naval history. Katō ran the ship’s operations just like a bank clerk going
about his duties. On his return to Tokyo, he adopted the same approach and
 clouds above the hill 339
avoided people’s company. He refused guests who came to his house to toast
the victory, and, on the rare occasion that he did see someone, he embarrassed
them by demanding, “Tell me, why are you here?”
When it came to being unsociable, Saneyuki was even worse.
“This is an amazing victory!” Lieutenant Kiyokawa was excited as he
sorted through the telegrams arriving from each vessel. Even then, Saneyuki
just briefly stopped working on his summary of the combat, looked up at
Kiyokawa for a moment, and then, without so much as a reply, returned to
dragging his pencil across the page. As a result, the wardroom felt a bit like
a club of eccentrics. With Katō Tomosaburō and Akiyama Saneyuki in this
sort of mood, the other staff officers could hardly raise their voices or show
much good cheer, so the general atmosphere was as quiet as a hospital
operating theater.
Tōgō was in his commander’s cabin. Practically expressionless, he was
listening to the reports of the combat results that were coming in by telegram.
All the while, he said nothing of note, and the most remarkable thing his
orderly saw him do was change his soaking wet socks for dry ones.
“Our losses amount to three torpedo boats.” The damage was so slight
that they had survived practically unscathed.
Even at the battle of Trafalgar, the greatest example of a triumph held up
to navies around the world, the British Navy had won only an incomplete
victory, losing a tenth of its men in the process. The commander in chief
Admiral Nelson also lay dying on the deck of his flagship HMS Victory and,
moreover, they had let thirty-three enemy vessels of the combined Franco-
Spanish fleet get away. In this battle of Tsushima, those who took part had
not yet learned the full details, but even they had difficulty accepting the
unbelievable miracle: the main ships of the Baltic Fleet had all been sunk,
scuttled, or captured.

* * *
Can a vague word like “victory” express what had really happened? The
enemy had been totally wiped out. Dispatched with all the might of the
Russian Empire to rule the waves in the Far East, the great fleet that had
borne down on them had vanished at the battle of Tsushima on May 27 as
if evaporating in the sea mist.
Even in Britain, Japan’s ally, the reaction of the newspapers was one of
utter disbelief. When the news arrived that the Baltic Fleet had been
annihilated and that Tōgō’s fleet had lost just three torpedo boats, only one
newspaper reported this as a matter of fact, while all the others were
convinced that there must be some mistake.
340 hill in the rain
“The Japanese Navy must be concealing its casualties” went one comment.
Another was adamant that ironclad warships could not possibly have sunk
so easily from exchange of fire alone. This was the prevailing view in the
minds of the specialists, and some even suggested that the Japanese must
have been using submarine boats if what they claimed was true.
Then again, the announcements by both sides eventually revealed the true
circumstances, and Herbert Wrigley Wilson, a British naval historian, wrote
in Ironclads in Action, his book on ironclad ships in modern warfare, “What
a mighty triumph! Whether on land or at sea, never has there been such a
complete victory as this.” He went on to say that this would change the course
of history. “This sea battle marks the onset of a new century which already
finds the white race no longer supreme. The era of inequality between
Europeans and Asians is a thing of the past. In the future white people must
stand on the same footing as the yellow race.”
Many Asian people did not respond right away, though the victory filled
them with new confidence. Chinese and Koreans, together with Filipinos
and others in Southeast Asia who were living under white rule, were slow
to react to the first reports on the battle; their sense of their own ethnicity
had not yet developed enough to provoke them to respond as Asians.
Only those people of Asiatic heritage in Europe (such as descendants of
the Finns and the descendants of the Magyars in Hungary) reacted
immediately, taking pride in this victory as if it were their own. Poles and
Turks, struggling under the yoke of the Russian Empire, also rejoiced. The
always pro-Japanese people of Chile and Argentina in South America were
so delighted that from then on newly appointed ambassadors from Argentina
and the like have always visited the memorial ship Mikasa in Yokosuka on
their arrival in Tokyo.
Six battleships, four cruisers, one coast defense ship, four destroyers, one
converted cruiser, and four auxiliary ships in the Baltic Fleet had been sunk,
while two battleships, two coast defense ships, and one destroyer had been
captured, and two hospital ships detained. Another Russian cruiser and
destroyer had also sunk while making their escape, and the remaining six
vessels (three cruisers, a destroyer, and two auxiliary vessels) found refuge
in neutral ports such as Manila and Shanghai, where they were disarmed.
The only ships that barely managed to get away were a cruiser converted
from a yacht, two destroyers, and a transport ship.

* * *
The sea became calm.
Led by the Mikasa, the First and Second Divisions were on their voyage
back home. From time to time, Saneyuki took a turn around the deck. To
 clouds above the hill 341
him, the calmness of the sea felt strangely deceptive. The heavens had moved,
and the sea had raged in the heat of battle. Shells from both sides had ripped
through the air, making eerie hissing noises as they flew. The sea had seethed
with falling shells, and warships racing about spat out flames from their guns
in a frenzy of fire.
Now that the battle was all over, even the behavior of the sea seemed
unbelievably transformed as the ships sailed gently on. In places, the paint
on the sides of the ships had peeled slightly due to the damage from shells,
but still this dark-gray pack shone brilliantly in the water and against the
sky. The only way this differed from the scene before the battle was
the addition of some warships painted black. These were Nebogatov’s
surrendered squadron.
Tōgō and his ships came into port at Sasebo on May 30 when the sun
was already low in the sky. Saneyuki was standing on the deck, and, with
his keen eyes, he spotted the Bedovy. This destroyer, with the Russian admiral
Rozhestvensky on board, had arrived in port slightly earlier. Saneyuki’s mood
changed briefly when he spotted the ship. The mood only lasted a minute
or two, but tears welled in his eyes and came streaming down his cheeks.
This emotional reaction does not seem to have arisen out of any pity for the
enemy or relief at the Japanese victory. Judging from his words and deeds
in later years, he seems to have been struck by the tragedy of war itself.
Here, in this scene of steel on water, he may also have had a strong sense
of the superhuman power that he came around to believing in later on in his
life.
On this day, the sky was clear in the morning, but clouds gathered during
the afternoon. With the deep, small bay enclosed by headlands and islands
of all sizes, the natural harbor of Sasebo was of a beauty surpassing even
Nagasaki. This particular afternoon did not seem suitable for a triumphal
return, since the heavy cloud cover shrouded the pine-clad islands and
headlands in black and gave a leaden cast to the sea. Saneyuki’s sense of
gloom grew even deeper.
A fine drizzle had even begun to fall. By the time the Mikasa came into
port, the wounded men on board the Bedovy had all been taken ashore and
transferred to the Sasebo Naval Hospital. To shield himself against the rain,
Commander Semenov had a blanket put over his head as he was laid out on
a stretcher and taken ashore in a steam launch.
Among the wounded, only Rozhestvensky was not moved at this time
due to the severity of his head wound, and he remained lying in the captain’s
cabin. Chief of Staff Clapier de Colongue and the other staff officers stayed
with him on board. From the Bedovy, they watched the ships in Tōgō’s fleet
342 hill in the rain
as one by one they came into the port at Sasebo, the very same vessels that
they had so definitively failed to sink themselves.

* * *
Tōgō knew that the enemy commander was severely wounded and decided
against paying a visit himself. “He might need to change his nightclothes”
was all Tōgō said as he handed over a fresh set to Lieutenant Yamamoto
Shinjirō. Yamamoto, who spoke French, was sent over to the Russian
destroyer.
Chief of Staff Clapier de Colongue and his officers met Yamamoto in
the wardroom of the Bedovy. With an expression of total dismay, Clapier
de Colongue told Yamamoto that he could not possibly see Rozhestvensky
as he did not have his wits about him. A groan could be heard from the
captain’s cabin just next door. Yamamoto decided not to intrude and later
said this decision was an expression of a samurai’s merciful heart. He just
put the fresh nightclothes down and departed without seeing him.
Yamamoto was subsequently required to visit the Bedovy once more. This
was when Lieutenant Commander Katō, a naval surgeon, went to the ship
to supervise a doctor and some men from the medical corps in transferring
Rozhestvensky over to the hospital. Yamamoto accompanied them as their
interpreter.
The admiral was moved to a stretcher. Barring the way of the men from
the Japanese medical corps, Captain Clapier de Colongue and the other
officers said they would manage by themselves. They each took hold of the
stretcher.
Rozhestvensky had been seriously wounded halfway through the fighting
and was no longer conscious. As a fighting man, he was already of less use
than any sailor, but nevertheless twenty staff officers had abandoned the
Suvorov just to save him. With the exception of these twenty men, everyone
on board had gone down with the ship. After the war, the Japanese Navy
did not condemn this action by the Russian command and avoided all discus-
sion on the topic. Only Captain Mizuno Hirotoku mentioned it in his book,
and while refraining from any moral attack against the Russians for not saving
their men, he did include this observation: “You cannot help but cry out—
Ah, those soldiers were just lethal weapons to them, nothing more.” He meant
that war was really a tragic business, not to be undertaken lightly.
As he was lowered onto a steam launch, Rozhestvensky seemed to dimly
regain consciousness. When Yamamoto conveyed Tōgō’s message to him
in French, he responded with surprising vigor as he stretched out an arm
from beneath his blanket and grasped Yamamoto’s hand. Yamamoto said
he was weeping.
 clouds above the hill 343
A few days later, Tōgō visited Rozhestvensky at the Sasebo Naval
Hospital. The only men with him were Akiyama Saneyuki and Yamamoto
Shinjirō. Their guide was General Totsuka Kankai, a naval surgeon. Because
of the hospital’s long corridors, the walk to the ward was exhausting.
Along the way, Tōgō said not so much as a word. As they entered the
ward, Rozhestvensky inclined his head slightly from his hospital bed and
looked at Tōgō. It was the first time the two commanders had ever met.
Rozhestvensky lay quietly there as if this bed in the Sasebo Naval Hospital
had been the intended destination of his epic voyage all along. This was a
somewhat comical way of looking at the situation, but fundamentally war
amounted to just this. Despite the vast amounts of manpower consumed,
human life lost, and the gigantic capital expended in the pursuit of war, there
always follows a kind of emptiness regardless of whether the conflict ends
in victory or defeat.
“Once a war is over, life can seem dull. A military man must be able to
cope.” Kuroki Tamemoto, commander of the First Army and a man
considered one of Japan’s most intrepid generals, said something to this effect
to the British military observer Ian Hamilton.
Rozhestvensky’s fate at that moment epitomized the mood Kuroki
described. As he approached Rozhestvensky’s bedside, Tōgō was more
keenly aware of what Rozhestvensky was going through than anyone. He
felt a deep sympathy for his counterpart’s listless state and summoned what
little acting ability he had to convey, to the best of his ability, that nothing
was more important now than to comfort him. Tōgō, who was wearing a
white summer uniform, held out his arm to shake hands with Rozhestvensky
on the bed. Then, so as not to intimidate the patient, Tōgō sat down on the
chair by the bed and looked at his face.
Although he had a reputation as a man of few words, on this one occasion,
Tōgō talked at great length. His interpreter Lieutenant Yamamoto recalled
that he said something like this:
“Sir,” Tōgō addressed Rozhestvensky in a low voice. “You have come
on a long voyage all the way from Russia, yet you have had no luck in
combat, and the bitter fighting has come to naught. You have also suffered
a severe wound. I have come here today to express my deepest sympathy
to you. We military men chance our lives for the sake of our respective
ancestral lands, but there must be no personal enmity between us. I hope
you rest well enough to be restored to full health as soon as possible. If you
should wish for anything, please do not hesitate to let me know. I will do
whatever I can to help.”
Rozhestvensky seemed to comprehend the sincerity of this message even
before Yamamoto translated Tōgō’s words and, his eyes brimming with tears,
344 hill in the rain
he replied, “My only consolation is to have suffered defeat at the hands of
a man such as you.” He also asked for arrangements to be made so that he
could submit a general report on the battle to the tsar. Tōgō did not actually
have the authority to grant this, but he promptly agreed to the request.

* * *
During his stay in Sasebo, Saneyuki tried to find out about the army’s
situation in Manchuria. He managed to get a general picture from an
operations officer at Imperial Headquarters, who had come over from Tokyo.
At that time attached to the left wing of Nogi’s army, his brother Yoshifuru
had pushed back the advance of Mishchenko’s cavalry brigade from the north
and after some fighting, was managing to hold his own. General Linevich,
who had replaced Kuropatkin as commander in chief of the Russian Army,
had set up his headquarters on the high ground at Gongzhuling and was
boasting, “Once this rain stops, we will smash the Japanese Army.”
Linevich expected that the reinforcements of troops and equipment he
needed to launch a fresh offensive would arrive by the Trans-Siberian
Railway during Manchuria’s brief fall season. Until then, he was
concentrating on defending his positions. Lacking the strength to destroy
the Russians in the field, the Japanese meanwhile had made plans on paper
about forcing decisive battles at Gongzhuling and then Harbin, but the harsh
reality was that replenishing the current shortages of capable lower-ranked
officers and shells would take over a year.
In short, due to circumstances on both sides, the front line was now
deadlocked, and there was action only when the Russians unleashed the
remarkable Cossacks on frequent attacks against the Japanese positions.
Yoshifuru’s cavalry corps was forced to deal with all these raids.
Even though the Baltic Fleet had been totally destroyed between May 27
and 28, on the front line in Manchuria, Yoshifuru engaged in some fierce
fighting with Mishchenko’s cavalry brigade. He had started out from his
base on June 15, and his troops encountered heavy rain along the way. Over
the course of two days, they somehow managed to repel the Cossacks, but
they did not have enough manpower to hold on to their newly won territory,
and so they had to abandon this ground and fall back. Mishchenko attacked
once more, and the struggle for the area continued, with both sides pushed
back and forth.
During this battle, Yoshifuru received the news that his mother Sada had
died following an illness. Saneyuki was in Sasebo when he heard. As a boy,
his mother had once been so exasperated by his naughty antics that she had
thrust a knife in front of him and said, “Jun, you and I will die together!”
 clouds above the hill 345
On hearing of her death, Saneyuki wailed through the night in his room at
an inn.
Yoshifuru was quartered in a village called Huayangshu when he received
the news, and he imagined the reaction of his deceased parents in a postcard
he sent to his friend Ide Masao back in Matsuyama: “Saneyuki has done a
marvelous job, and so I think Mother will be happy to take the special extra
edition of the newspaper to show to Father. Only an adult can appreciate
the true irony of this postcard.” Yoshifuru knew that Jun’s naughty behavior
had driven their mother mad, and throughout his life he was aware that she
loved Saneyuki best of all. When he used the word “irony,” he meant that
their mother must have felt vindicated when she heard about the outcome
of the battle of Tsushima: making that little devil grow up had been
worthwhile after all.

* * *
As the fighting dragged on, various neutral countries hinted that they were
prepared to mediate a peace settlement, but each time Russia stubbornly
refused. Even after the world learned about the defeat at Mukden, the
Russian court showed no sign of changing its stance at all.
After the battle of Tsushima, when Japan recorded the most complete
victory in history, the Russians lost the will to fight on for the first time. Or,
rather, they lost the means to fight.
At this juncture, President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States
approached the Russians. He could not have been more delighted about the
destruction of the Baltic Fleet if it had been his own country’s victory. Nine
days after the battle ended, he sent a telegram to George Meyer, the United
States ambassador in St. Petersburg, with instructions for him to meet Tsar
Nicholas II and persuade him to negotiate a peace. In the words of
Roosevelt’s friend Kaneko Kentarō, “Washington founded the United States,
and Lincoln freed the slaves. These were both tremendous achievements,
but they both happened at home. This is the first time that a United States
president has taken the initiative in international affairs.” He told Roosevelt,
“It will make your reputation around the world.”
Prior to this, Kaiser Wilhelm II had sent a telegram to Tsar Nicholas II
urging him to hold peace talks, and at the same time he sent another to
Roosevelt: “If the truth about this grave defeat becomes known in St.
Petersburg, the tsar’s own life could be in danger.”
There was indeed such a risk. Witte himself had said that the Russian
Empire had survived, and managed to maintain peace and order only through
its vast military power. With that power destroyed, the Russian nation would
346 hill in the rain
sustain a great shock, but more importantly, the war was pushing the Russian
court to the brink of destruction.
As an autocracy, Russia was ruled by the will of just one man. That man
was the tsar. That was why Roosevelt told Ambassador Meyer to meet him
and press for peace.
Meyer followed his instructions. On June 6, he sat down with Nicholas
at two o’clock in the afternoon, and for an hour he talked with him, urging
him to make up his mind. The tsar complied with his recommendation. The
Japanese, who had been hoping that Roosevelt might initiate a peace, made
no objection.
The venue for the peace talks was to be Portsmouth in the United States.
Starting August 10, the two countries entered into formal negotiations, and
on September 5 a treaty was signed; by September 13, the armies had agreed
to an armistice, and the navies followed suit on September 18. The peace
treaty was then ratified on October 14.

* * *
Tōgō and the bulk of his Combined Fleet remained at Sasebo until they
received the order for their triumphal return. During this waiting period,
something strange happened. There was an explosion on board the Mikasa,
and the ship sank to the seabed six fathoms deep sometime after one o’clock
in the morning on September 11.
Tōgō was on his way to Tokyo by land, along with Saneyuki. As soon
as they heard the news, Saneyuki turned back, and by the time he walked
into headquarters at the Sasebo Navy Yard the commotion surrounding
the incident had already begun to die down. The strained expressions on the
faces of the officers walking along the corridors of headquarters were
the only remaining sign that something had happened. On the night of this
disaster, 339 men died.
The other half of the crew were ashore on shore leave at the time and
escaped with their lives. The explosive magazine had blown up. But the
reason for the explosion was unclear, and there were no clues to help them
hazard a guess why. How Shimose powder would react to storage under
different conditions was also unknown, as it had only just been developed,
and there had not been enough time for tests. According to one story, a
discontented sailor with some grievance had ignited the explosive, but this
was unthinkable given that this was after a victory, and everyone’s morale
was high. In the end, the general view at Sasebo was simply that the Shimose
powder must have exploded spontaneously after degenerating naturally on
board.
 clouds above the hill 347
“Do you want to see the scene for yourself?” a young officer asked
Saneyuki, but he could not bear to look. Those 339 comrades who had fought
with him in the Sea of Japan had not been felled by any enemy shells but
died all at once in an accident following their victory. He had started to
embrace a more religious outlook at that time, and so more than any sense
of bad luck, the uncanny nature of the accident made it simply too much for
him to bear.
For the Russians, who were the aggressors, there were five thousand dead
and six thousand one hundred men captured at the battle of Tsushima. Japan,
on the defending side, had only a hundred or so men killed in combat. The
deaths of so many Russians during this battle were a burden that Saneyuki
would carry with him for the rest of his life, but he drew some comfort from
the surprisingly low number of Japanese casualties. When he thought about
the catastrophe with the explosives, however, he felt himself becoming
almost convinced of heaven’s involvement, since so many men had died not
in combat but due to such a ridiculous accident.
During the course of that battle at sea, the protection bestowed on them
by divine grace had been too good to be true. Now that the curtain had
dropped on the battle, Saneyuki’s outlook was beginning to undergo a
gradual shift, and he had come around to thinking that such boundless good
fortune could only have been due to providence. Or rather, he was gripped
by a sense of awe as he began to look on the sinking of the Mikasa as a
portent that, having previously bestowed so much divine favor on Japan,
heaven was now moving to redress the balance.
On the morning of Saneyuki’s arrival, there was an order from Imperial
Headquarters. The Shikishima was to take over as the flagship. On this day
of triumph when the fleet was due to receive the recognition it so richly
deserved, the Mikasa would not be there to lead the way.

* * *
Saneyuki had earned a reputation as a writer. He certainly had a concise
style that was imbued with a rhythm like gunfire flashing on the high seas,
and he also had the ability to coin crisp new expressions. Since his writing
appeared in public documents, he was not really a man of letters as such,
but nevertheless he exerted some influence on the Japanese written language
during this period.
The nature of his writing style can be seen clearly in the combat report
that Tōgō, as commander in chief of the Combined Fleet, sent to Itō
Sukeyuki, chief of the Navy General Staff. This extensive factual report gives
us accurate insight into how the battle of Tsushima unfolded. The opening
line contains a single judgment: “With the help of heavenly fortune and divine
348 hill in the rain
assistance, on May 27 and 28 our Combined Fleet fought the enemy’s Second
and Third Pacific Squadrons and finally succeeded in practically annihilating
them.” The document then goes straight into the facts: “When the enemy
fleet first appeared in the southern seas, our fleet obeyed the imperial
command and adopted a strategy of attacking them in our home waters. We
concentrated our entire strength in the Korea Strait and lay in wait while the
enemy gradually proceeded north.”
By contrast, the report that Rozhestvensky sent by telegram to the tsar
simply describes the train of events and offers no conclusion. Much of the
text is devoted to his own fate, his own wound, how he fainted, and how it
was the destroyer he was on that surrendered while he was still unconscious.
The overall description of the battle is glossed over, and there is no mention
at all of the outcome. In the general composition of his telegram also, the
admiral was far inferior to his Japanese counterpart.
The Combined Fleet made its triumphal return to Tokyo Bay on October
12. On this day, the flagship Shikishima flew the admiral’s ensign as it entered
the bay at Yokohama and dropped anchor, sending up a cloud of spray. Two
days later, Tōgō was required to attend at the Imperial Palace to report on
his victory to the emperor.
After the First Sino-Japanese War, this victory report took the form of a
verbal address, and Chief of Staff Katō Tomosaburō assumed that the same
procedure would be followed this time around. He was taken aback when
he learned that the army had written up a full text for the occasion. This was
the day before Tōgō was due to go ashore.
Lieutenant Kiyokawa remembers that Katō came into the wardroom in a
flurry. At the time, Kiyokawa was listening to nagauta ballads on the
gramophone, along with Saneyuki, who was lying down on the sofa.
“Akiyama-san promptly got up,” Kiyokawa recalled. He grabbed a brush,
chewing on it as he thought things over, and then suddenly wrote out his
text in one go. This was the navy’s victory report, and it began with these
words:

Since early in the second month of last year, when the imperial order was
issued, and the Combined Fleet set out for war, a year and a half has passed.
. . . Today as we greet this peaceful autumn, we your servants, having
rendered such meager service as we have within our power, make our
triumphal return beneath the imperial standard.

* * *
At the start of the Meiji period, not only were the Japanese nation and society
transformed, the written language too was thrown into confusion because
 clouds above the hill 349
of the influx of foreign ideas. By the end of the century, some literary works
of genius were needed to lay down new markers and help reconfigure the
language. Sōseki and Shiki were both men who provided such models,
creating almost entirely original works (which had little parallel with anything
in the Edo period) and formulating a written language that possessed its own
power of expression.
Saneyuki’s style can also be thought of as providing a model in this period.
In his reports, he coined numerous new words. Actually, he was forced to
do so because Japanese did not yet have a written language common to all.
He had to devise his own turns of phrase, and in that sense, the work that
stood out from all his others was the “Address on the Dissolution of the
Combined Fleet.”
Formed to wage war, the Combined Fleet was dispersed on December
20, and the dissolution ceremony was held the next day on board the flagship.
This was now the Asahi, which had taken over from the Shikishima. The
commanders of various ranks all came on board one by one from a flotilla
of small boats packed around the Asahi that day.
“This is my farewell address,” Tōgō announced in a low voice as the
dissolution ceremony got underway.
He began reading out the celebrated “Address on the Dissolution of the
Combined Fleet.” As this is very long, I will not quote it in its entirety here,
other than some lines that went on to have a profound effect on the outlook
of Japanese military men for long afterward.

Our strength in war is not only dependent on such concrete assets as the
number of ships and weapons in our possession. . . . If we as military men
realize that a gun able to fire a hundred shots on target is a match for a
hundred enemy guns that hit the target once in a hundred shots, it is clear
that we must seek the source of our fighting strength mostly from beyond
the physical world.
. . . A warrior’s life is one long and endless battle, and there is no reason
why his responsibilities should become heavier or lighter, depending on
whether it is a time of war or peace. From first to last he must do all he
can to do his duty, for in times of crisis he must display his might, and in
peacetime he must gather his strength. Over the last year and a half, it has
not been an easy task struggling to survive the heat and cold in the midst
of all those winds and waves, and engaging a stubborn enemy over and
over again in a life and death struggle. Yet on reflection this all seems to
have been one long, grand training exercise, and nothing can compare to
the happiness of those warriors who have taken part and learned something
along the way.
350 hill in the rain
The speech then goes on to cite some examples from military history around
the world and finishes off with the phrase: “Heaven gives the crown of victory
only to those who are always prepared and can win without having to fight,
but it takes the crown away from those who, content with one success, settle
for the ease of peace. As the ancients said, tighten your helmet strings in
the hour of victory!”
These lines have been translated into other languages in various forms,
and President Theodore Roosevelt in particular was so moved by these words
that he had them translated in their entirety and distributed to his army and
navy. The text was not so difficult to translate, for as we can see from these
lines Saneyuki mixed a tone found in classical Chinese literature with
infusions of Western logic.

* * *
For the army in Manchuria the outcome was not as clear cut as it had been
for the navy. The Combined Fleet was already laid up in the port at Sasebo,
and peace talks were underway in Portsmouth, but on the front line in
Manchuria, there were incessant clashes between cavalry patrols. In these
skirmishes, which involved just a handful of cavalrymen, the odds were
stacked against the Japanese because of their inferior horses. On numerous
occasions, Yoshifuru sent out a small patrol only to find that none of the
men returned. They were either killed or unable to escape, and then captured.
As the fighting drew to a close, such incidents became more frequent.
Yoshifuru had no staff officers to assist him so he drew up his tactics and
commanded the unit by himself. Toward the end of the fighting, General
Headquarters at last assigned two staff officers to help, but even then
Yoshifuru would think over his combat plans deep into the night as he peered
over his candlelit map. “It really does look as if the enemy knows our
positions.” His orderly would hear him muttering these words to himself.
The capture of a cavalryman caused serious problems. Due to the nature
of this branch of the service, even the rank and file were often familiar with
their side’s positions, and, if captured, they would apparently reveal these
to the enemy.
After the Meiji Restoration, prisoners were thought of as dishonorable
men in the Japanese Army, and so naturally no education was provided on
how a soldier should conduct himself if captured. In the West, being taken
prisoner was not considered such a disgrace as long as the soldier had fought
well and done everything possible, so the rules regarding the proper behavior
for a prisoner were firmly in place. All the soldiers knew that talking to the
enemy about their own side’s position would be harmful, but as capture was
 clouds above the hill 351
unthinkable, many of the Japanese soldiers who were taken prisoner
responded readily to questions under interrogation.
This caused no end of trouble for Yoshifuru. “Even if you cannot avoid
capture,” he instructed each of his unit commanders, “you have no obligation
to respond to any questions. Make sure the men know that.” He issued these
instructions on September 2, more than three months after the battle of
Tsushima. The text of the order went something like this:

As every officer is aware, there has recently been a rise in the number of
missing men (who have been taken prisoner) from our cavalry units. Just
in the last couple of months there have been more than ten such cases.
Most of these may have been unavoidable, but even so something about
these cases goes quite against the traditional Bushidō warrior code of
conduct. Recently our army’s secrets have become quite clearly known to
the enemy. Amazingly, this information has been obtained from the
confessions of our own men after they were taken prisoner. Therefore, every
unit commander is to caution his men. In the unfortunate event that a man
is unavoidably taken prisoner as a result of being wounded and not in his
right mind at the time, he must not reveal anything about our situation.
Everyone must commit to heart the fact that they have no obligation to
answer questions under enemy interrogation.

At a time when Saneyuki was writing his celebrated lines about their decisive
battle and sweeping victory, on the front line in Manchuria, where the quality
of the troops continued to deteriorate, his older brother Yoshifuru had to
write about matters such as this.

* * *
From the start of this conflict, Yoshifuru had proposed to strengthen the
Japanese cavalry along the lines he had envisaged. First of all, he wanted
to try to compete with the superior Cossack cavalry by increasing his
brigade’s firepower, and to some extent he achieved this by equipping the
cavalry with machine guns and using field and mountain guns as artillery
support. He also persistently demanded that the cavalry’s potential be
maximized by increasing the size of each unit; this would bolster the ability
to break through enemy lines. The tank corps subsequently adopted this same
approach, but Yoshifuru, who had come up with the concept before them,
was trying to make it work with his cavalry.
He finally managed to put these ideas into practice just before the
armistice. With twenty-six cavalry brigades all concentrated under his direct
352 hill in the rain
command, he then had the best-equipped force the Japanese Army could
afford at that time.
This, Akiyama’s corps, remained under the command of Nogi’s army,
and, as mentioned already, two staff officers were also assigned to this unit.
Although his cavalry was smaller than Mishchenko’s cavalry brigade, this
was the first time that the Japanese Army had formed a mobile force with
such freedom of movement. The approach fell into disuse after the Russo-
Japanese War, but following the defeat at Nomonhan in 1939, it was revived
in some quarters, though never properly implemented before the Japanese
Army itself was disbanded.
The formation of Akiyama’s own cavalry corps appears to have whetted
the appetites of the young staff officers at Nogi’s headquarters. One of them
called Akiyama’s headquarters and spoke to a staff officer, Lieutenant
Colonel Morioka Morinari, who served under Yoshifuru. “It would be a
shame for the war to end without Akiyama’s new cavalry seeing any action,”
Nogi’s staff officer said. “So why don’t you see what you can do?”
Nogi’s headquarters had gained a reputation for lack of discipline since
the assault on Port Arthur, and this incident shows why. They were in the
habit of suddenly urging a staff officer of a subordinate unit to take action
without asking Nogi’s opinion first. In this case, the target of such an attack
would have been Mishchenko’s cavalry brigade, which had constructed a
formidable Russian position at Liaoyangwopeng and frequently operated
beyond its walls.
Yet by this time, the Treaty of Portsmouth had already been settled, and
so Yoshifuru firmly brushed the idea aside. “Such an idea is a disgrace to
the army.”
Before long, the peace treaty was ratified, and on October 21 he pulled
back from the operational zone of his cavalry corps. For the triumphal return,
he created an instructive song for his soldiers. Unlike his younger brother,
Yoshifuru had no literary talent. But more than his brother he was filled
with the sentiment of the Edo period, so his song did not touch upon history
or the future of the nation in the manner of the “Address on the Dissolution
of the Combined Fleet.” Instead, in a rather clownish traditional meter, he
offered extended guidance about how a soldier returning to his town or village
should conduct his life:

I draft some lessons now that it’s time to go.

I take up my brush and write an outline.
Working to support yourself is a universal law.
Idling your time away is the most despicable of all.
One man with one wife is the way of mankind . . .
 clouds above the hill 353
Yoshifuru finally joined the triumphal parade back in his homeland on
February 9, 1906, long after Saneyuki had done the same. He then moved
straight into the barracks of the First Cavalry Brigade in the garrison town
of Narashino in Chiba Prefecture.

* * *
We return to shortly before Yoshifuru’s arrival back in Japan.
He had pulled out of his cavalry corps’ quarters and left the combat zone,
leading just the First Cavalry Brigade, which he had personally commanded
since the beginning. From October 23 onward, he stayed at a village called
Dongtuoshanzi, waiting for the formal transport that he would use for his
triumphal return home. By then, the staff officers had gone, and only an
adjutant was left.
“Kiyooka,” Yoshifuru called to the adjutant one night to make a prophetic
statement. “Russia will probably become a socialist state!”
When Kiyooka asked him what he meant by that, Yoshifuru took a swig
of his Chinese liquor. “Don’t ask me why. I just feel it.”
Kiyooka was honest enough to admit that he did not really understand
what socialism was, so he asked Yoshifuru to explain. To his surprise, the
usually taciturn and untutored Yoshifuru seemed to know quite a lot about
this subject.
“Don’t be so surprised. I picked up the information just by listening,”
Yoshifuru told him. Even more astonished to hear this, Kiyooka then asked
if he had been associating with socialists. Yoshifuru told him that he had
met some during his time in France.
While he was studying abroad in his youth, Yoshifuru used to frequent
the bars of Paris. His usual watering hole happened to be a meeting place
for socialists, and one day a man there tugged his shirt sleeve. This man,
who turned out to be a socialist, went on to inform Yoshifuru about the just
nature of socialist thought. As they became more friendly, the man showed
him the cellar room where he met a number of his comrades.
“They’re not all bad types, you know,” Yoshifuru told Kiyooka that night.
“They have their good points as well.” In later years also, when socialism
became controversial, he said, “There is no point at all in being prejudiced
against the Communist Party.”
Yoshifuru had a hunch that Russia would become a socialist state because
the army that had always been the glory of Russia had been defeated by a
small nation like Japan. “It’s because the Russian Army is not the people’s
army, you see!” he said. Although the largest army in the world, the Russian
Army was probably no more than the private property of the tsar. When that
354 hill in the rain
army lost to a foreign power, only the tsar sustained damage, not the people’s
pride. If the tsar lost his authority, there might be a revolution.
Yoshifuru often said that, unlike Russia, Japan had a people’s army.
Throughout his life, he never said much about the emperor, but the passages
in the constitution that later, during the Shōwa period, became so
synonymous with the “Imperial Army” were in Yoshifuru’s day simply
figures of speech. The general public in all probability felt that their army
was more of a people’s army.
“Napoleon derived his strength from the fact that he was leading the first
people’s army in French history,” Yoshifuru often said. This, he thought,
had also determined the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two armies
in the Russo-Japanese War. In his view, the Japanese Army, as a people’s
army, had not fought for the tsar’s personal ambitions in the Far East as the
Russian Army had done. Instead, the Japanese people had stood up to the
crisis facing their country. In order to protect their ancestral land, volunteers
had taken up their guns and managed to push back a mighty enemy.

* * *
To what extent Yoshifuru really understood socialism is unclear, although
there is this one episode. Over the years, he had a number of dealings with
Nogi Maresuke, the first when he met him in 1887. Nogi, then thirty-nine
years old and a major general in the Japanese Army, was taking a trip
overseas. When he came to Paris, Yoshifuru was studying there and so served
as his interpreter. On a visit to the French Army Ministry, a newspaper
reporter requested an interview. Nogi agreed, and Yoshifuru translated for
him.
“What do you think of socialism?” the reporter asked.
Nogi really did not know much about this, so Yoshifuru briefed him,
simply saying, “Socialism is a doctrine that emphasizes equality.”
When Yoshifuru said this would mean that everyone had equal status and
income, Nogi bowed his head deeply and replied, “In that case, Japan’s
Bushidō is superior.”
This was not a direct answer to the question, but he spoke with such
conviction that the journalist was taken aback.
“In Bushidō,” Nogi explained, “you kill yourself in order to give to others.
You say that socialism emphasizes equality, but Bushidō is one rank above
because you sacrifice yourself to help other people.” Nogi was the last of
those who believed in the Bushidō warrior code, which was already dying
out in Japan. This self-taught man, who had grown up in an environment
that gave Bushidō much importance, lacked the military knowledge and
international awareness required to be a general in a modern state, but he
 clouds above the hill 355
was steeped in the pure code of ethics distilled during the three hundred
years of the Edo period. The sheer force of his personality apparently
overwhelmed the reporter.
Yoshifuru did not dislike Nogi. At the same time, he was silently critical
of the manner of his attack on Port Arthur, and this may have been implicit
when he said, “I do not deserve credit for the fact that the weak Japanese
cavalry somehow managed to repel Mishchenko’s cavalry brigade, which
was several times its size. We won because from the start our cavalry was
equipped with machine guns, and the enemy was not. I cannot understand
why you emphasize spirit so much that you ignore firepower.”
Nogi continued to talk about self-sacrifice as he went on to serve as
governor general of Taiwan. He later became a count and was appointed
president of Gakushūin, which educated the children of the nobility.
Yoshifuru, by contrast, received no peerage, and, after retiring from the
army with the rank of general, he returned to his native Matsuyama and
became the headmaster of an unknown private school called Hokuyo Junior
High. He quietly served in this post for six years, never failing to attend the
junior high school headmasters’ meetings in Tokyo. In those days, it was
unheard of for a man who had risen to the rank of army general and been
decorated with the Junior Second Rank, First Order of Merit, Second Grade,
to then serve as headmaster of a rural private junior high school. Most
importantly, his house in Tokyo was a small rented building, while in
Matsuyama he would still stay at his family home, the residence of an okachi
samurai, where he had been born. Throughout his life, he was fond of
Fukuzawa Yukichi’s thinking on equality and held him in great respect.
When Yoshifuru died, those who knew him said, “The last samurai has
passed away.”
More than Nogi who had sung the praises of Bushidō in Paris, Yoshifuru
perhaps better exemplified the true nature of a samurai.

* * *
On October 23, the Combined Fleet held its triumphal review off the coast
of Yokohama. Two days later, Saneyuki left the house early in the morning,
before sunrise. On his way, he rested at a tea house in Imosaka in Negishi.
He had told people that he was off to Negishi to visit Shiki’s house, and
Shiki’s mother and sister. He stopped off at the tea house because he had
forgotten to take any breakfast with him. He was wearing grubby Japanese
clothes, a Kokura hakama and a cap. He looked like a teacher from some
cram school in Kanda.
On entering, Saneyuki asked if they served any food, but since he spoke
in a Matsuyama accent, the waitress did not even reply. The Wisteria Tree
356 hill in the rain
Tea House was an old establishment that had been around since the Edo
period. The shop sold dumplings on a stick, but no rice. The dumplings,
known for their silky texture, were much in demand.
“We only have dumplings,” the waitress told him. Saneyuki had no
option but to order a plate for his breakfast.
“Uguisu Path is around here, isn’t it?”
“About half a block that way.”
“Do you know Masaoka Shiki’s house?”
The waitress had not even heard of Shiki’s name. Saneyuki silently ate
his dumplings.
The area called Uguisu Path was curved in the shape of a bow. Beyond
the wooden fence, the tops of large oak and zelkova trees rustled in the wind.
The path was about 1.8 meters across, and just as ever the drainage in the
neighborhood was poor, the blackish surface disgustingly damp.
On approaching Shiki’s house, Saneyuki suddenly slowed down. From
where he was on the path, he could see the lattice door in the entrance close
at hand. There appeared to be someone inside, probably Yae, Shiki’s mother,
or Ritsu, his younger sister. Shiki’s only remaining family, they had moved
in to look after him during his illness, and the three of them had spent their
days living close together there. One of them was now missing.
The treetops rustled above Saneyuki’s head. He waited outside for quite
some time, but at last he resumed walking, and his pace quickened.
Ritsu had noticed that someone was standing outside the house. Thinking
this odd, she told her mother. When Yae went out to have a look, all she
could see was Saneyuki’s back as he walked away.
“That looked like Jun-san,” she told Ritsu when she came back in.
Astonished, Ritsu wend and peered after him, but by then there was no
one there.
“It can’t be Jun-san since he is on his ship,” she murmured to her mother
in front of the lattice door. “You must be mistaken.”
But they subsequently learned from a sexton at Dairyyūji, the temple
where Shiki was buried, that a sharp-eyed man in the prime of life, with the
look of a martial arts master, had given a donation there and left.
“No, he was not a navy officer.” The sexton told them this because the
man had not been in uniform.
* * *
After that, Saneyuki walked on for a further 3 kilometers to Dairyūji in
Tabata. As he walked, the slope became steeper, and on reaching the top he
found himself on a plateau with few houses around, while far to the north
he could see the banks of the Arakawa. The white sails seemed to float back
and forth upon the water and against the sky just like a Hiroshige picture.
 clouds above the hill 357
There were many old zelkova and kaya trees in this area, and these were
especially dense behind the cemetery of Dairyūji. Shiki, who had chosen
this place as his family temple, had asked to be buried within its precincts.
The rustic main building had a large thatched roof 28 meters long on all
sides. The cemetery was to the left of this main hall, Shiki’s grave toward
the back. Inscribed on the granite headstone were the characters “Grave of
Shiki.” The surrounding maple leaves had turned a vivid red.
When Saneyuki stood before this grave, the monument, with the epitaph
inscribed on a brass plate, had not yet been installed. The text for this had
already been written, drafted by Shiki himself, and Saneyuki had seen it
after Shiki died.
As a writer, Saneyuki found this epitaph a bit odd, but this text epitomized
the realistic style Shiki had promoted. In just a few lines, Shiki captured the
essentials of his life.

Masaoka Tsunenori, also known by the names Tokoronosuke, Noboru,

Shiki, Master of Dassai Shooka, and Takenosatobito; born in Matsuyama
in Iyo and moved to Negishi in Tokyo. Following the death of his father
Hayata, o-uma-mawari kaban rank in the Matsuyama domain, he was raised
by the Ōhara family, his mother’s family. He was an employee of the Nippon
newspaper. Died in 1897 X month X day, age thirty years X months. Salary
forty yen.

Saneyuki recited these words from memory. There was no mention at all
here of the haiku and tanka verses to which Shiki had devoted his short life.
He had just written his name, his father’s domain and post, that he had been
raised by his mother, his place of work, and then his monthly salary. Shiki
had written this on his sickbed. When finished, he had sent the text to his
friend Kawahigashi Sen, enclosing an explanatory note. “I am not the kind
of man who would want a monument or anything like that when I die, nor
would I wish for any inscription even if a monument were built. If there has
to be some inscription, I would detest anything too long. I would rather just
throw down some piece of stone. But if some inscription is really unavoidable
I think the accompanying draft that I have written up should do, and I would
consider it excessive to add so much as a single word.”
Rather than serving as an example of Shiki’s realistic style, this inscription
best conveys what kind of human being he was—the last of the men from
the samurai culture that had reached its apex during the last years of the Edo
period.
The gravestone was beginning to get wet as Saneyuki left.
358 hill in the rain
It had started to rain. Borrowing an old bamboo hat and an old straw
raincoat from the priests’ living quarters, he left a donation behind and went
out onto the road. This path was the old highway that led past Asukayama
and Kawagoe. The distant greenery was lost in the rainy haze, and Saneyuki
suddenly remembered the broad expanse of the Sea of Japan that he had
seen from the bridge of the Mikasa on that day of the battle.

* * *
Akiyama Saneyuki did not live so very long either. He died at the age of
forty-nine on February 4, 1918. After the Russo-Japanese War, he did not
live the life of a modest bureaucrat in the Naval Ministry. His eccentric
speech and behavior would often astonish people, and some said that a genius
and a madman coexisted within the same personality.
“You must learn to give your brain a rest,” warned Shimamura Hayao,
whom Saneyuki had served under when Shimamura had been chief of staff.
But even after Saneyuki’s duties devising strategy in the Sea of Japan were
over, the mind that Shimamura had once said “runs like an electric fan”
moved onto other targets, pondering the nature of mankind and the nation,
and he continued to think over questions of life and death. These were all
problems that a bureaucrat did not have to worry about.
In an episode that sums up the man, Saneyuki was sent on government
business to Paris when the First World War broke out. The predictions he
made on the course and outcome of the war were invariably correct. In 1918,
he was promoted to the rank of vice admiral, although he was placed on the
waiting list for he was already in poor health. Three months later, he was
dead. He was staying at a friend’s country villa in Odawara when his chronic
peritonitis suddenly grew worse, and before first light on February 4, he
coughed up blood and approached his end.
“Thank you, everyone,” he said to all assembled at his bedside, “for all
your help. From here onward I go alone.”
These were his last words. His brother Yoshifuru was away on business
in Fukushima Prefecture at the time, attending to some military inspection
at Shirakawa. He sent a telegram to those gathered in Odawara that simply
said, “Please see to arrangements.”
Yoshifuru himself went on to live for quite a long time. Promoted to
general in 1916, he was placed on the reserve list in 1923. The following
year, he became headmaster of Hokuyo Junior High School in his native
Matsuyama, a post he continued to hold until 1930. In April of that year, he
finally retired at the age of seventy-one and returned to Tokyo to receive
treatment for ailments that had developed as he had aged. He died shortly
afterward.
 clouds above the hill 359
Yoshifuru suffered from diabetes and gangrene. He had great pain in his
left leg, although at first he thought he might be suffering from neuralgia.
“I have done all I had to do,” he told the childhood friends from Matsuyama
who came to visit him at his rented house in Akasaka Tango-chō shortly
before he entered the hospital. “I am ready to die now.”
He was admitted to the hospital at the Army Medical School in Ushigome
Toyama-chō and embarked on a life without liquor for the first time. The
doctors hesitated before deciding to amputate his leg, but in the end the
surgery went ahead. The infection, however, kept advancing beyond the point
of amputation. Four days after the operation, he was practically in a coma,
and when Shirakawa Yoshinori, a military man from Matsuyama, came to
visit him he was drifting in and out of consciousness with an extremely high
fever.
For several days, Yoshifuru kept on talking in a delirious state. He spoke
only of the Russo-Japanese War, for his spirit continued to roam about the
Manchurian plains that had once tormented him so. Nearing his end, he often
mentioned a place called Tieling.
“On to Mukden!” Yoshifuru cried out, groaning, and then he died, at ten
past seven in the evening, November 4, 1930.
 A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR 1
On beginning to write Clouds above the Hill

Writing a novel does not require quite the same precision as making
mayonnaise. A writer, or his readers for that matter, might not really like
one of his works, but by and large no novel can be totally botched. I drew
some comfort from the knowledge that a novel has no prescribed content or
form when I embarked on this grand project.
I am always thinking about what Japanese people are really like, and that’s
why I wanted to look at the characters in this work against the background
of the particular circumstances they faced during their lifetimes. After all,
the thirty-odd years from the Meiji Restoration to the Russo-Japanese War
were, both culturally and psychologically, a singular period in Japan’s long
history. Never before had there been a period filled with so much optimism.
Of course, not everyone subscribed to this view. The masses groaned
under the weight of taxation, while the heavy-handed power of the state stood
in stark contrast to the meager protection afforded by civil rights. There was
also the environmental disaster at the Ashio copper mine, the tragic stories
of the young female workers who were exploited during Japan’s rush to
industrialize, and the various disputes between landowners and tenant
farmers. For those who saw themselves as victims, there had probably never
been such a dark period.
The history of the masses, however, is seen not only from the perspective
of the victims. The years of Meiji were good times! Various artisans, farmers,
and teachers who had lived and worked during this period often told us that

“A Note From the Author” 1 and 2 have been adapted from Shiba Ryōtarō’s Atogaki,
essays that originally appeared at the end of each hardcover volume. Two of his six essays
have been translated.
 a note from the author 1 361
in our youth. So there is also the Meiji, as evoked by Nakamura Kusatao in
his haiku, which is a world of fresh colors.

Falling snow—
the Meiji era
is long gone

In Japan, the idea of the “nation” in the European sense of the word was
born with the Meiji Restoration. A strong centralized state had been set up
temporarily following the Taika Reforms of 645–649, although in reality it
may not have actually functioned as such. But soon the country returned to
its natural state. This meant an assembly of various regional powers large
and small that could be described as a feudal or decentralized system.
Even under the Tokugawa state, which was the most powerful regime ever
seen before the Meiji Restoration, the shogun was, in effect, no more than
the strongest figure—the leader of a confederacy composed of a host of
daimyo lords. The revenge of the forty-seven rōnin in Chūshingura at the
start of the eighteenth century is often cited as the embodiment of samurai
loyalty. But the focus of their loyalty was, from beginning to the end, their
own daimyo, not the central ruler in Edo. They had no sense of a national
consciousness.
With the Restoration, the Japanese people gained their first modern state.
The role of the emperor was transformed from his traditional persona to the
more or less legislative character of the German emperor. Everyone became
a citizen. Although the people were unfamiliar with this notion, the novelty
of this new experience gave them a tremendous lift. In understanding the
history of this period, we must take into account this profoundly touching
sentiment of raised expectations.
Looking back, we can see the comedy of this nation of peasants, who had
no major industry of their own apart from rice and silk, trying to acquire a
navy on the same scale as the advanced states of Europe. The same was true
of the army. It was as if a village with a population of around five thousand
had decided to produce a top-class professional baseball team, even though
it could not possibly afford one.
Essentially, the overall scheme of the Meiji Restoration, which was also
the youthful dream of this nation’s new citizens, was to somehow build their
own modern nation-state. For thirty-odd years, these youths put up with
hunger, but while this may have appeared tragic to outsiders, one wonders
if these new citizens themselves perceived it as a misfortune.
Meiji was a period characterized by the most severely bureaucratic state
machinery. From our perspective today, the system seems extremely
362 a note from the author 1
unattractive, but if we could just peek into the thoughts of those new
citizens at that time, they very likely did not really loathe the government.
For regardless of his social class or family background, a man could become
a professor, government official, military man, or teacher, as long as he had
the mental abilities and discipline to pass some standard exams. Even though
few men ever actually rose to such heights, the rest could still rejoice in the
knowledge that they or their children might aspire to do so, if they applied
themselves. Not even the greatest intellectuals ever doubted that they should
thank this “enlightened” system called the “state.”
At this early stage in the nation’s growth, all a man had to do was to be
selected for a certain post, and he would suddenly find himself entrusted
with a key role. This may be an exaggeration, but he had the same kind of
power once bestowed upon the gods in ancient legends to build and develop
a given component of this new state. He was like a commoner of low
background who suddenly made a fortune.
The state, moreover, was small. The government also was a small
household, while the army and navy that appear in these pages were both
laughably tiny. With such a small household, this state seemed much like a
small town workshop, and those staff members who were given special duties
and authority in their respective fields also had license to operate as they
pleased, moving forward with the sole aim of strengthening the team around
them, never questioning their goals for a single moment. It was probably
this abiding sense of optimism that gave the period its bright, cheerful mood.
This long tale is the story of those blissful optimists who are without
parallel in Japanese history. They are so absorbed in their task that before
long they march straight into the ridiculously grand venture of the Russo-
Japanese War. Now I intend to write about the way this funny gang from
what was, in effect, a nation of peasants, will conduct themselves when they
ultimately go on to do battle against one of the Great Powers of Europe.
With the mentality typical of their generation, they walk on looking only
forward. If so much as a single wisp of cloud were to light up in the blue
sky above the hill they are climbing, they would probably stare only at that
as they continue on their way.
For many years, I have been fascinated with the story of Masaoka Shiki.
One summer, on a walk through the old samurai quarter in Matsuyama where
Shiki was born, I suddenly realized that Akiyama Saneyuki had also gone
down the same path as Shiki, from primary school all the way up to the
Preparatory School of Imperial University. At the time, I was taken up with
everything concerning Shiki, and so I decided to investigate further, though
I had no intention of writing a novel. As I probed further, I was amazed to
realize that during the Russo-Japanese War, Akiyama Saneyuki, another
 a note from the author 1 363
native of this old castle town, had devised and implemented the strategy that
destroyed the Baltic Fleet, an enemy so strong that victory was thought to
be pretty much impossible.
Saneyuki’s older brother Yoshifuru only enrolled at military college
because he begrudged paying even one yen for board and tuition, but later
he would be the one who, with tactics learned in France, developed the
Japanese cavalry. He then led his troops into battle against the Cossacks, a
force the Japanese had not the remotest hope of defeating, somehow escaping
total annihilation in the process as he held his ground just across the winning
line.
These individuals were not such exceptional talents, but, as I have
mentioned already, they simply conducted themselves much like any average
man of their generation. It is possible to overstate the case and imagine that
without these two brothers the Japanese archipelago together with the Korean
Peninsula might have ended up as Russian territory. But, if they had not
existed, no doubt some other average man of their generation would have
filled their boots instead.
This is what I shall write about. At this stage I cannot predict how much
space I am going to need.
March 1969
 A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR 2
On victory and defeat

To go to war or not is a highly ideological matter, but, when we look at the

question from a purely military perspective, the Russo-Japanese War was a
conflict that Japan should not have fought. The risks were just far too high
and the chances of success too slim.
In the period leading up to the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese govern-
ment was dead set against going to war. When pro-government newspapers
like the Kokumin Shimbun and Nichinichi Shimbun urged a cautious
approach, some of them became so unpopular that they were rumored to be
on the brink of closing.
The common people are always ready for a bit of excitement. They, of
course, were in favor of the war. Newspapers such as the Asahi were influ-
ential in stirring up public opinion in support of war, and some academics
also contributed to this bellicose mood. A group of seven professors from
Imperial University formed a small party and started lobbying the
government.
“Seven fools have come to see me today,” muttered Ōyama Iwao, then
chief of the General Staff, a distracted expression on his face one morning
as he came out of the reception room at his home. Seven professors had
come to persuade him that Japan should start a war against Russia, a war
that Japan was simply incapable of pursuing.
Tomizu Hirondo and the six other Imperial University professors also
went to see Prime Minister Katsura Tarō and criticized him for his
spinelessness, addressing him with the confidence of military experts.
“Unless we strike now, our strategies will fail, and we won’t have a chance
of winning.”
 a note from the author 2 365
Katsura Tarō was a man so renowned for his affable nature and ability
to smooth things over that he earned the nickname Niko-pon—“Mr. Smiles.”
He simply kept a wry smile on his face as he listened to the tactical advice
of these academics.
“You have forgotten, gentlemen,” he finally said, “so let me remind you
that I am also a military man.” As prime minister, he always dressed in a
civilian’s frock coat and did not have the air of a military man, but he was
actually an army general.
The Japanese people, meanwhile, were swept up in an eager push for war.
Those in government who were either against hostilities or urged restraint
were the same men who ended up making the decision to go to war and then
managed the campaigns. Their jobs were made easier for them, since they
did not have to do anything at all to promote the war and motivate citizens
into action. Public opinion was galloping off in that direction anyway.
In developing their strategy for a war against Russia, the Japanese
government walked a tightrope, for they had no chance of winning the prize
if they made so much as a single slip along the way. Taking advantage of
the slow, lumbering initial moves of the Russian giant, they landed two or
three blows in quick succession to give the appearance of winning, and before
that giant could fully respond they called on the United States to intervene
as referee and bring about a ceasefire.
By a succession of quick punches in the opening rounds, Japan left the
international community with the impression that Japan was ahead. This
enabled Japan to secure the financial backing needed to pay for the war and
also made the United States willing to mediate. Had Japan taken even one
false step, it would have found itself on the edge of the precipice leading to
total oblivion.
Standing close to that precipice as they confronted this grand adventure,
the army and navy, together with the government, coordinated their tactics
and diplomatic strategy with great effectiveness. The planning and sound
organization that went into the war effort was managed so incomparably
well that no country in world history could claim to have performed better
than Japan did in the Russo-Japanese War.
There is no such thing, however, as an absolute victory. There must always
be a loser as well. One might say that the Russian Empire did not simply
lose, but rather behaved in a way that ensured its defeat. It was as if a sumo
wrestler, having just grabbed his opponent’s belt to engage in combat,
suddenly kneeled down and gave up on the match.
In Alexei Kuropatkin’s grand plan, Russia would not win the first battle
at Liaoyang. Instead, the Russian Army would retreat from Liaoyang and
366 a note from the author 2
retreat again from Mukden. This was the Russian Army’s traditional ploy
of what we might call a “fighting retreat,” for they intended to switch
ultimately to a grand offensive way north at Harbin and win at one stroke.
In short, while they were buying time at Liaoyang, Shaho, and Mukden,
they would be able to send train after train of reinforcements via the South
Manchurian Railway to fill up northern Manchuria with Russian soldiers.
They would then use that vast supply of manpower to strike at the Japanese
Army.
If this grand plan had been put into action, the Japanese Manchurian Army,
which had already become severely depleted at Mukden, would probably
have suffered a defeat approaching total annihilation at the battle of Harbin.
Right from the start, the presentiment of such a crushing defeat had haunted
the thoughts not so much of Kuropatkin but of Kodama Gentarō, then chief
of staff of the Japanese Manchurian Army. In that scenario, defeat was
probably beyond doubt.
In the event, of course, the battle of Mukden was followed by the battle
of Tsushima, and the Russian Baltic Fleet sank to the bottom of the sea. Yet
even though the navy had now been destroyed, if the Russian Empire had
remained determined to continue fighting, it could have brushed aside peace
talks and crushed the Japanese Army on the Manchurian plains.
In choosing not to do this, Russia displayed its fundamental weakness
in the pursuit of the war. When we study the outcomes of each battle in
Manchuria, we can see that the strength of the Japanese Army was not as
crucial as the chaos in Russia’s chain of command and the conflicts among
Russia’s high-ranking officers, which guaranteed that the Russians would
lose.
And so instead of giving credit to the Japanese Army, we can say that,
to a great extent, the actions of the Russian leadership at home, the Russian
leadership in Manchuria, and the tsar himself brought about Russia’s defeat.
Of course, Russian society was heading toward revolution, and this may
be counted among the factors in this defeat, but even if a great cancer
afflicted this empire, victory should still have been possible with effective
management of Russia’s vast manpower and weaponry.
Some people exaggerate the extent of the influence of revolutionary ideas
on the Russian military and how much this undermined their will to fight.
This is probably analysis conducted in hindsight long afterward. The
command of a fine leader is all that is required to transform the way a soldier
fights, and the Russian men who fought under Major General Roman
Kondratenko at Port Arthur, Lieutenant General Fyodor Keller in the field
army, and also Stepan Makarov, the second commander of the Port Arthur
 a note from the author 2 367
Squadron, displayed several times the strength of their comrades and
tremendous fighting spirit. These three generals were all killed in combat
one after another, and following their deaths the forces under their command
were clearly weakened, as if tigers had turned into cats.
In other words, the Russo-Japanese War was in many ways probably a
case of Russia losing because of its own flawed leadership and strategy,
while Japan kept picking up hairbreadth victories along the way due to its
excellent planning and because of the problems afflicting the enemy forces.
In Japan after the war, no attempt was made to teach the people the grim
reality of these hard, basic facts, and the people did not try to educate
themselves either. Instead, they extolled what they imagined to have been
an absolute victory, and the entire nation lost their heads over their triumph
as they nurtured a belief in the mysterious strength of the Japanese Army.
From the Russo-Japanese War onward, rationality largely disappeared
from the thinking of Japanese as they entered the frenzied uproar of the
Shōwa period. It was just forty years after victory in the Russo-Japanese
War that the country and the whole population lost their minds in fighting
and suffering defeat in the Pacific War.
If defeat makes people reasonable, and victory makes them go mad, then
victory and defeat in war, when seen over the course of a nation’s long
history, can work in mysterious ways indeed.
October 1969
 GLOSSARY

Ashigaru: light foot soldier, lowest rank in the samurai class.

Banzai: This word (lit., “one thousand years”) is yelled out with both arms
swung upward to express such feelings as joy, congratulations, and
encouragement.
Boshin War: (1868–1869) a series of civil war battles around the time of
the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Bushidō: the moral code of the samurai, stressing loyalty, mastery of the
martial arts, and death with honor.
Chōshū: present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture; one of the two major domains,
together with Satsuma, that led the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate
(1603–1868).
Genrō: elder statesmen who were “founding fathers” of the modern state
of Japan and the chief advisors to the emperor.
Geta: high wooden clogs with a V-shaped cloth thong that passes between
the first and second toes.
Go: board game in which two players, Black and White, alternately place
black and white stones on a large ruled board to compete for surrounding
territory.
Haikai: a form of linked verse from which haiku evolved.
Hakama: formal divided overskirt, worn over a kimono, tied at the waist,
and falling almost to the ankles.
Haori: a traditional formal jacket worn over a kimono, with short cord
fasteners tied at chest level.
Hatamoto: direct vassals of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Jōruri: a form of narrative chanting accompanied by the three-stringed
samisen, commonly associated with the puppet theater.
Kokinshū: classical imperial anthology of waka poetry compiled ca. 905.
 glossary 369
Koku: a unit of rice equivalent to about 180 liters (5 bushels); in Tokugawa
Japan, land value for taxation purposes was expressed in koku of rice;
one koku was generally viewed as enough to feed one person for a year.
Kumi: groups of samurai that made up the organizational structure of the
feudal domains.
Man’yōshū: Japan’s earliest extant collection of poetry, compiled in the
eighth century.
Meiji Restoration: overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate and restoration
of the emperor’s direct rule of Japan in 1868.
Minamoto no Yoshitsune: a general (1159–1189) of the Minamoto clan,
regarded as one of the most famous samurai fighters in the history of
Japan and a tragic hero who was forced to commit suicide by his brother
Yoritomo, founder of the Kamakura shogunate.
Oda Nobunaga: warlord (1534–1582) who began Japan’s reunification after
the hundred years of civil war known as the era of Warring States.
Okachi: low-status samurai (but higher than the ashigaru); light foot soldiers.
Rin: unit of Japanese currency equal to 1/1000 yen (1/10 sen), used from
the beginning of the Meiji era until 1953.
Rōnin: masterless samurai.
Ryō: a unit of currency used during the Tokugawa period; the standard gold
coin was equivalent to one ryō.
Satsuma: present-day Kagoshima Prefecture; one of the two major domains,
together with Chōshū, that led the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate
(1603–1868).
Satsuma Rebellion: 1877, the last major armed uprising against the new
central government, started by disgruntled former Satsuma samurai with
Saigō Takamori as their leader.
Sen: unit of Japanese currency equal to 1/100 yen, used from the beginning
of the Meiji era until 1953.
Seppuku: ritual suicide by disembowelment, originally reserved for samurai
warriors only.
Shinkokinshū: classical imperial anthology of waka poetry compiled ca.
1205.
Shinsengumi: the group of elite swordsmen who served as a special police
force in the late Tokugawa period.
Shōgi: Japanese chess, in which a player wins by checkmating the opponent’s
king; unlike Western chess, players can use captured pieces, and their
own pieces can be promoted, sometimes several ranks higher at a time,
from pawn to gold, for example.
Tanka: (see waka).
370 glossary
Three hundred feudal lords: this phrase refers to “all feudal lords,” for
there were roughly three hundred feudal lords (daimyo) across Tokugawa
Japan.
Tokiwa Society: educational support organization sponsored by the lord of
the former Matsuyama domain to promote the study in Tokyo of talented
young men from around Matsuyama.
Tokugawa period: rule of Japan by the Tokugawa shoguns 1603–1868; also
called the Edo period, after the name of the capital Edo (now Tokyo).
Toyotomi Hideyoshi: warlord (1537–1598) of humble origin who completed
a reunification of sixteenth-century Japan begun by his lord Oda
Nobunaga.
Tsubo: a unit of area, roughly 3.3 square meters, corresponding to two tatami
mats.
Waka (also tanka): a classical form of poetry dating to the eighth century,
with thirty-one syllables in the pattern 5-7-5-7-7.