Slike stranica
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

Granville's tact and patience, the unhappy Cabinet of 1880 would have been broken up on more than one of the occasions to which we have referred. He succeeded in arranging difficulties which it seemed impossible to smoothe, and in healing wounds which were apparently irremediable. Some men, indeed, thought that he carried conciliation too far. I have sometimes 'asked myself,' so the Duke of Argyll wrote to him after the fall of Mr. Gladstone's Ministry, Is there any conceivable measure that Granville would not accept rather than split the 'party? And I have never been able to answer this question 'to my own satisfaction.' The loyalty which induced Lord Granville to adhere to his chief, through good report and ill report, was of the utmost importance to Mr. Gladstone. Lord Granville and he may have been cast in different moulds, but they were eminently fitted to serve together. As Lord Edmond says: the very dissimilarity of their respective characters and gifts seemed only to constitute an additional link between them; and each, with perfect truth, might say of the other

He was rich where I was poor,

And he supplied my wants the more
As his unlikeness fitted mine.

Unhappily, indeed, towards the end of his career a subject was slowly forcing itself to the front which was to shatter the Liberal party into pieces, and on which even Lord Granville's influence was to be powerless for union. But we cannot enter into the vexed subject of Home Rule at the close of an article already too long. Lord Granville was, of course, a party to the first Home Rule Bill. He did not live to see the revised measure of 1892.

In this article we have dealt almost exclusively with Lord Granville's public career, and we have tried to show that in some stages of it his character was neither hard enough nor stern enough to deal with the troublous circumstances in which his lot was cast. But his defects as a Foreign Minister, if defects they were, might have been reckoned as virtues in other men. He brought to the Foreign Office the feelings and the instincts of a gentleman; and he never realised that some of the contemporary statesmen with whom he was thrown into collision were made of baser metal, and actuated by more worldly motives than himself. In consequence he was occasionally overreached by diplomatists whose natures were either keener or sterner than his own. Thus, in his negotiations with the United States in 1871, he placed his hand on the table, and never realised that his adversary was reserving a trump card-the indirect claims—

for future use. While, in the controversy with Prince Bismarck in 1884, he was no match for a statesman who openly professed that, if he could not get his way in South Africa, he would not assist Lord Granville in furthering a policy which he approved in Egypt. It should not, moreover, be forgotten that the very qualities which occasionally interfered with the success of his foreign policy made him the most constant of colleagues and the most delightful of friends. Perhaps, indeed, a single anecdote will show more clearly than any language of our own the charm which was universally attributed to Lord Granville. In 1879, as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, it was his duty to appoint a Captain of Deal Castle. He chose for the place, which Lord George Hamilton now fills, Lord Sydney, the Lord-Lieutenant of Kent. But, as the office was nominally a responsible post, he conceived it to be his duty to explain to the Prime Minister, Lord Beaconsfield, his reason for making it. Lord Beaconsfield replied to a rather laborious letter of considerable length in 'six words: "Happy Sydney! to be your neighbour.'

We will not weaken the force of such a testimony by adding to it any tribute of our own.

ART. II.-THE BATTLE OF THE JAPAN SEA.

1. The Japan Times (Weekly Edition); June and July 1905. Yokohama.

2. The Times; June, July, and August, 1905. London.

'BY Y the grace of Heaven and the help of the Gods, our combined fleet succeeded in nearly annihilating the Second 'and Third Squadrons of the enemy in the battle that took place in the Sea of Japan on May 27 and 28.' With these words Admiral Togo begins his report of the most momentous sea-fight that has occurred since that of Trafalgar, the centenary of which we celebrate this very month and within a few days of the publication of the present number of this Review. A more decisive victory than that of the Japanese over the Russian fleet near Tsushima at the end of last May has never been won. For the first time-notwithstanding the frequent occasions, to take the present war alone, in which they had already been used-have modern naval weapons shown the full effect of which they are capable. As to many details of the memorable engagement we are as yet without information, the politic reticence of the Japanese Government being still maintained on a variety of points of interest. The knowledge of the successive phases of the battle which we do possess is principally, it would be no great exaggeration to say almost exclusively, derived from one side-that of the victors.* We know enough, however, to enable us to form a fairly accurate general view of the action, an account of which we purpose to lay before our readers.

There is no need to dwell on the early history of the so-called 'Baltic Fleet,' the great force under the orders of Admiral Rojdestvensky which met its fate in the Japan Sea. Most of it, known as the Second Squadron,' left Russia in October 1904. Before it had got as far on its voyage to the Far East as the Straits of Dover, its proceedings had occasioned the occurrence off the Dogger Bank which will be long remembered as The North Sea Incident.' This portion of the force was under Admiral Rojdestvensky's immediate command. It spent a considerable time in French waters, and made its last start to

* A small amount of information-sometimes official-comes to us from the Russian side, and most of it seems trustworthy. Little if any credence, however, can be given to the alleged report of Admiral Rojdestvensky, published, as telegraphed from St. Peters burg, in the Paris newspaper Liberté,' and republished in London

[ocr errors]

cross the Indian Ocean from Madagascar. On April 9, being then composed of twenty-six fighting vessels-from battleships to auxiliary' cruisers and destroyers-and nineteen colliers and other attendants, it passed Singapore. Though it was, in the circumstances, practically a peace operation, Admiral Rojdestvensky's conduct of this large and very heterogeneous body of vessels throughout the long voyage without accident was a very creditable performance. It was all the more creditable because of the inexperience of most of the officers and men belonging to the ships, and the discontent of many. We may say of Rojdestvensky, what perhaps would be true of a great many officers in many navies, that in peace service, however arduous and perplexing, he had done well, and had established a right to be considered a man of exceptional capacity. Less fortunate than most of his contemporaries, he had to be subjected to the searching test imposed by high command in battle. In war, indeed, admirals are tried as by fire.

[ocr errors]

The Second Squadron of the Baltic Fleet made a prolonged stay on the coast of Annam, in the waters of French Indo-China, and was there reinforced by the Third Squadron' under Admiral Nebogatoff. The persistent use of neutral waters by a belligerent in the act of advancing to encounter his antagonist promised to raise, and but for the result of the great battle would almost certainly have raised, in menacing form, questions of international law of the utmost gravity. Never since the war began was the demeanour of the Japanese people more admirable. Knowing, as nearly every adult in Japan knew, that the whole course of the war might be altered and the future of their country imperilled by a Russian naval victory, the Japanese regarded the continued hospitality of a neutral to the Russian fleet with deep and natural resentment. Foreign tourists not specially observant could not help perceiving what the general feeling in Japan was. Yet the nation never lost its admirable composure, but gave to the world, in addition to many a one already given, another lesson in dignity. On May 14 the Russian fleet finally quitted neutral waters.

It passed south of Formosa through the Balintang * section of the Bashee Channel into the Pacific Ocean. Vladivostock, sooner or later, was known to be Admiral Rojdestvensky's objective. There were four ways of getting there. Of these, that round the north of Yezo (Hokkaido), through the Laperouse or Soya Straits, was impracticable, if only on account of the greater

*This is stated on the authority of a Russian officer who was in the fleet.

6

length of the voyage necessary if it were taken, and the consequent serious increase in the consumption of the ships' coal. The second route, by the Tsugaru Straits, between Hokkaido and the main island of Japan, would have been only some 850 miles longer than that which was in fact taken, and, as the Russians were accompanied by colliers, from which, till in Formosan waters, they supplied themselves, their coal endurance' would most likely have allowed them to go by it, and it would have been free from some of the disadvantages which the Korean Straits route forced upon them. The last-named straits might have been approached either by the Formosa Channel west of the island which gives it its name, or by the waters east of that island. The difference in distance is not great: the distance by the latter of the two routes, the one which Rojdestvensky by passing through the Bashee Channel had chosen, being only about 100 miles greater than that by the former.

In nothing throughout the war have the Japanese shown more ingenuity than in watching their enemy and gaining information about his movements. A good deal has been written by foreigners, of course-to show that the Japanese 'divined' Rojdestvensky's intention of trying to pass through the Korean Straits in his attempt to get to Vladivostock. If there is one thing that the Japanese have exhibited no predilection for doing, it is allowing the result of an important belligerent operation to depend on a happy guess. They have recourse to the more prosaic and much more trustworthy method of keeping an eye on their enemy, and sending in a stream of reports about his proceedings. As anyone who knew anything of their navy would have expected them to do, they took special steps to look out for Rojdestvensky and his fleet. 'A certain squadron,' as the Japanese themselves state, had been 'stationed in Formosan waters as the advanced guard of their 'fleet.' Having seen the Russians through the Bashee Channel, and carefully observed their movements, the commander of this squadron ascertained how they were proceeding. He accordingly steamed homewards, hanging on, apparently, to his enemy's rear as long as desirable, and no doubt communicating with the signal and telegraph stations on his way. Duly warned by its advance guard, the Japanese fleet in the Korean Channel sent out scouts in the direction from which the enemy 'was expected.'

The departure of the Russians from the coast of Annam was known at Hong Kong on May 17, and must have been known in Japan at least as early. On the 19th, having passed through the Bashee Channel, their fleet took advantage of calm weather

[merged small][ocr errors]
« PrethodnaNastavi »