Battle of Chemulpo Bay, 1904: the Varyag's hopeless sortie

The first naval clash of the Russo-Japanese War was fought in front of an audience. British, French, Italian and American warships lay at anchor in Chemulpo, crowds lined the waterfront, and the two Russian ships sailed out past them to a fight they could not win.²

Two Russian ships in a neutral port

Chemulpo, today Incheon, lies on the west coast of Korea about 30 miles from Seoul. In early 1904 it held the Russian protected cruiser Varyag, an American built ship of about 6,500 tons with twelve 6 inch guns, and the old gunboat Korietz. The Japanese cruiser Chiyoda was there too, and the British cruiser Talbot, the French Pascal, the Italian Elba and the American gunboat Vicksburg. For Japan, Vanner explains, the port mattered greatly: it was where troops and supplies would land for the war in Manchuria.³

According to Vanner, Rear Admiral Uryū Sotokichi was sent with six cruisers, including the armored cruiser Asama, smaller warships, transports and about 2,500 soldiers to take it. On 8 February the Korietz, sailing for Port Arthur, met the Japanese at the harbor mouth. Antoine Vanner of Dawlish Chronicles writes that she first mistook the Chiyoda for a Russian ship and prepared a salute; in the confusion guns were fired, the Chiyoda launched a torpedo, and the Korietz went back into port.⁴

The ultimatum

That evening, Vanner continues, Japanese troops landed at Chemulpo, close beside the Varyag, without interference, while elsewhere Japanese torpedo boats were attacking the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. At 7:30 a.m. on 9 February Uryū informed the neutral commanders that war had begun and that the Russian ships had been told to leave by noon or be attacked in the harbor, and asked the neutrals to leave by 4 p.m. if they did not.⁵

The report of the Russian minister to Korea, Aleksandr Pavlov, which the American embassy in St. Petersburg forwarded to Washington, records what followed. The neutral commanders met on board the Pascal with Captain Vsevolod Rudnev of the Varyag, who received the Japanese summons there in a sealed envelope. The British, French and Italian captains agreed to protest the breach of Korean neutrality, but warned Rudnev that they would have to leave if he did not. Rudnev decided to fight outside the harbor.⁶

Out past the neutral ships

The Russian crews threw tables, chairs and anything that would burn overboard, Neff writes, and the sailors wrote farewell letters, which they left with the captain of the Talbot. Shortly before noon the Varyag steamed out with the Korietz behind her. As they passed the foreign ships, the crews cheered them and the band of the Italian Elba played the Russian national anthem.⁷

Waiting outside were, by Neff's count, fourteen Japanese warships. In Vanner's account, with no room to maneuver and hopelessly outgunned, the Russians were pounded at ranges as short as 6,000 yards. Vanner writes that all twelve of the Varyag's 6 inch guns, whose crews had no gun shields, were put out of action, that she took five serious hits at or below the waterline and that at least five fires broke out. Rudnev was wounded. The fight lasted about an hour, watched by crowds on the shore.⁸

Scuttled in the harbor

At about 1 p.m. the two ships came back into the harbor and anchored. Rudnev decided he could not fight again and would not let his ships become Japanese prizes. The crews were taken onto the British, French and Italian cruisers; the Vicksburg's commander sent a doctor but said he had no permission to take Russian sailors aboard. The Korietz was blown up at about 4 p.m., breaking into three parts. The neutral captains persuaded Rudnev not to blow up the Varyag so close to their own ships, so she was set on fire and scuttled, and sank after sunset.⁹

The figures for the Russian dead differ. Vanner gives 82 killed and 190 wounded of the Varyag's crew of 570; Neff writes that 41 sailors killed in the battle were laid in one of her cabins and went down with her. Vanner adds that the Japanese appear to have suffered no casualties.¹⁰

Afterward

The survivors went home on neutral ships and were greeted as heroes. According to Vanner, Rudnev was decorated by the Tsar, and in 1907 the Japanese emperor awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun. The Japanese raised the Varyag and commissioned her as the Soya; she was handed back to Russia in 1916, seized by the British after the revolution and ran aground off Scotland in 1920, where a monument now marks the spot.¹¹

For Japan, the outcome mattered more than the gesture: the landing at Chemulpo went ahead, and the army it carried would march north toward Manchuria.¹² › Battle of Mukden, 1905