me night--just as the Czar was discussing with
his council what should be done--she delivered her first blow. By
extraordinary laxity, though the diplomatic rupture was known,
the Port Arthur squadron remained in the outer anchorage, "with
all lights burning, without torpedo nets out, and without any guard
vessels."[1] Ten Japanese destroyers attacked at close quarters,
fired 18 torpedoes, and put the battleship _Tsarevitch_ and two
cruisers out of action for two months. It was only poor torpedo
work, apparently, that saved the whole fleet from destruction. A
Russian light cruiser left isolated at Chemulpa was destroyed the
next day. The transportation of troops to Korea and Southern Manchuria
was at once begun. Though not locked in by close blockade, and not
seriously injured by the frequent Japanese raids, bombardments,
and efforts to block the harbor entrance, the Port Arthur squadron
made no move to interfere.

[Footnote 1: Semenoff, RASPLATA, p. 45.]

Both fleets suffered from mines. Vice Admiral Makaroff, Russia's
foremost naval leader, who took command at Port Arthur in March,
went down with the _Petropavlosk_ on April 13, when his ship struck
a mine laid by the Japanese. On May 14, on the other hand, the
Russian mine-layer _Amur_ slipped out in a fog, spread her mines
in the usual path of Japanese vessels off the port, and thus on
the same day sank two of their best ships, the _Hatsuse_ and
_Yashima_. Mining, mine-sweeping, an uneventful Russian sortie
an June 23, progress of Japanese land forces down the peninsula
and close investment of Port Arthur--this was the course of events
down to the final effort of the Russian squadron on August 10.

[Illustration: HARBOR OF PORT ARTHUR]

By this time Japanese siege guns were actually reaching ships in
the harbor. Action of any kind, especially if it involved some
injury to the enemy navy, was better than staying to be shot to
pieces from the shore. Yet Makaroff's successor, Witjeft, painfully
and consciously unequal to his responsibilities, still opposed
an exit, and left port only upon imperative orders from above.
Scarcely was the fleet an hour outside when Togo appeared on the
scene. The forces in the Battle of August 10 consisted of 6 Russian
battleships and 4 cruisers, against 6 Japanese armored vessels and
9 cruisers; the combined large-caliber broadsides of the armored
ships being 73 to 52, and of the cruisers 55 to 21, in favor of
Togo's squadron. In spi