RUSSIAN FLAGSHIP DESTROYED BY A MINE; ADMIRAL MAKAROV LOST

PORT ARTHUR, 1904-04-13. — Russia has suffered a grave naval disaster at the entrance to Port Arthur. The battleship Petropavlovsk, carrying Vice-Admiral Stepan Osipovich Makarov, struck a mine this morning and went down with the Admiral and hundreds of her company. A violent explosion overwhelmed the flagship, which disappeared with scarcely time for those aboard to escape. Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich is among the survivors. The celebrated painter Vasily Vereshchagin, who had accompanied the fleet to observe the war, is also lost. The destruction has deprived the Russian squadron, in a single morning, of a powerful ship and the commander upon whom its hopes of renewed activity chiefly rested.

The catastrophe followed operations outside the harbour in which Russian and Japanese vessels had again come into contact. Russian destroyers had been at sea, and the destroyer Strashny was overwhelmed in an encounter with the enemy. Makarov brought out ships to meet the danger and support the vessels engaged. Japanese cruisers were followed by the appearance of Admiral Togo's heavier force, and the Russian ships turned back towards Port Arthur. It was during these movements near the defended anchorage that Petropavlovsk encountered the mine. Thus the decisive blow of the morning came not from a broadside exchanged between the opposing battle fleets, but from an unseen weapon beneath their course.

The sinking was extraordinarily rapid. The explosion was followed by the destruction of the ship before any orderly abandonment could be accomplished. Boats recovered survivors, but the scale of the loss is already beyond doubt, even though a complete roll cannot yet be set out. The presence of a member of the Imperial family aboard will command particular attention in St. Petersburg; it must not obscure the hundreds of officers and seamen who shared the flagship's peril. Nor was Petropavlovsk the only battleship struck. Pobeda also encountered a mine, but remained afloat. Her escape leaves the squadron with damage to repair as well as dead to mourn.

Petropavlovsk belonged to the class of battleships which constitutes an important part of Russia's strength in these waters. Her principal armament comprised four 12-inch guns, supported by a battery of 6-inch pieces. Such a vessel represents years of construction, a great expenditure of public money, and the training of a numerous company. None of these can be replaced at a distant station by an order from the capital. Port Arthur possesses fortifications and facilities for naval work, but it is not a Baltic shipyard. The loss must therefore be reckoned not merely as the disappearance of a name from the Navy List, but as an immediate reduction in the force available against Japan.

Makarov had assumed command here after the opening reverses of the war. His arrival brought a more energetic temper to the squadron, with increased activity at sea and an evident determination not to leave the initiative wholly to the Japanese. His reputation extended beyond command afloat. He had written upon naval tactics, pursued scientific investigations, and taken a leading part in the development of the icebreaker Yermak. The injunction associated with his professional teaching, “Remember war,” expressed his insistence that preparation should be governed by the realities of battle rather than the comforts of peace. Russia has now lost an officer who had made that principle the business of his career.

Vereshchagin's presence gives the disaster a further and melancholy distinction. He was no painter of warfare solely from ceremonial reviews or the accounts of others. His pictures of Central Asia and the Turkish war had carried before European audiences the suffering and desolation which accompany military glory. One of his most formidable canvases, The Apotheosis of War, bears the dedication, “To all great conquerors, past, present and to come.” He had come east to witness another campaign at close quarters. The artist who repeatedly placed the human cost of conquest before the public has himself been overtaken by the sudden destruction of a ship in battle.

The mine has already become a weapon of exceptional consequence in the struggle for Port Arthur. A fleet cannot remain indefinitely behind its defences without surrendering freedom of movement; yet every departure and return obliges its ships to traverse waters whose safety must be established anew. A gun can be answered by another gun, and an approaching torpedo-boat may be sighted and engaged. A submerged mine gives no such warning. Today's disaster demonstrates how a comparatively small instrument may destroy a great armoured vessel without an opposing battleship coming within effective range. Sweeping, reconnaissance and the careful examination of the approaches are accordingly matters upon which the fighting strength of the whole squadron depends.

The political weight of the news is scarcely less than its naval importance. Port Arthur is the principal fortified base of Russian sea power in this theatre, and its fleet bears directly upon Japan's freedom to transport troops and supplies across neighbouring waters. The Japanese attack at the beginning of February had already damaged Russian ships and shown that the anchorage could not be regarded as secure merely because war had not yet been formally announced. Makarov's command offered the prospect of a more vigorous answer. His death now requires an urgent settlement of command at the very moment when continuity, confidence and intimate knowledge of the squadron are most necessary.

No trustworthy movement in European securities or marine insurance rates can be reported from this port with the present dispatch. The commercial significance, however, is plain without attaching an invented quotation to it. The war is being fought across sea routes upon which troops, coal, provisions and ordinary trade depend. The destruction of a battleship by a mine will oblige shipowners and naval authorities alike to consider not only the strength of the opposing fleets, but the safety of the waters through which vessels must pass. A defended harbour may shelter ships from gunfire while its approaches remain a source of mortal danger.

The immediate duty here is the recovery of survivors, the accounting of the missing and the protection of the ships that remain. Beyond those tasks stand difficult questions concerning the condition of the approaches and the squadron's next employment. Today's losses do not decide the war, nor do they warrant a confident prediction that the remaining Russian vessels must stay in harbour. They do, however, alter the conditions under which every further sortie will be considered. Port Arthur still has its guns and its fleet; it has lost the Admiral who had sought to give that fleet a more active purpose.