Famous Sea Fights Part 18

Another Austrian ironclad and two of the gunboats made plucky efforts to save some of the survivors of the "Re d'Italia," but they, too, were driven off by the fierce attacks of Italian ships.

Meanwhile Petz with his wooden ships had fought his way through the Italian rear. With his old three-decker he boldly rammed the "Re di Portogallo."

The Italian ship evaded the full force of the blow, but the tall wooden vessel sc.r.a.ped along her side, starting several of her armour plates, carrying away port-hole covers and davits, dragging two anchors from her bows, smashing gun-muzzles and jerking four light guns into the sea. But the "Kaiser" herself suffered from the close fire of the "Re di Portogallo's" heavy guns and the shock of collision. Her stem and bowsprit were carried away, the gilded crown of her figure-head falling on her enemy's deck. Her foremast came crashing down on her funnel, and wrecked it, and the ma.s.s of fallen spars, sails, and rigging was set on fire by sparks and flame from the damaged funnel, the collapse of which nearly stopped the draught of the furnaces and dangerously reduced the pressure on the boilers and the speed of the engines.

The "Re di Portogallo" sheered off, but her consort, the "Maria Pia," came rushing down on the disabled "Kaiser." Petz avoided her ram, and engaged her at close quarters, but the sh.e.l.ls of the "Maria Pia" burst one of the "Kaiser's" steam-pipes, temporarily disabled her steering gear, and did terrible execution in her stern battery. Petz himself was slightly wounded.

With great difficulty he extricated his ship from the melee, and cutting away the wreckage, and fighting the fire that was raging forward, he steered for San Giorgio, the port of Lissa, to seek shelter under its batteries. His wooden frigates gallantly protected his retreat and escorted him to safety, then turned back to join once more in the fight. This was the moment when Albini with the Italian wooden squadron might easily have destroyed Petz's division, but during the day all he did was to fire a few shots at a range so distant that they were harmless.

Persano, in the "Affondatore," had for a moment threatened to attack the "Kaiser," as she struggled out of the melee. He steamed towards her, and then suddenly turned away. He afterwards explained that, seeing the plight of Petz's flagship, he thought she was already doomed to destruction, and looked upon it as useless cruelty to sink her with her crew.

The fleets were now separating, and the fire was slackening. In this last stage of the melee the "Maria Pia" and the "San Martino" collided amid the smoke, and the latter received serious injuries. As the fleets worked away from each other there was still a desultory fire kept up, but after having lasted for about an hour and a half the battle was nearly over.

Tegethoff, having got between the Italians and Lissa, reformed his fleet in three lines of divisions, each in line ahead, the ironclads to seaward nearest the enemy; the wooden frigates next; and the gunboats nearest the land. Every ship except the "Kaiser" (which lay in the entrance of the port) was still ready for action. Some of them were leaking badly, including his flagship, which had started several plates in the bow when she rammed and sank the "Re d'Italia." The fleet steamed slowly out from the land on a north-easterly course, the ironclads firing a few long-ranging shots at the Italians.

Persano was also reforming his fleet in line, and was flying a signal to continue the action, but he showed no determined wish to close with Tegethoff again. On the contrary, while reforming the line he kept it on a northwesterly course, and thus the distance between the fleets was increasing every minute, as they were moving on divergent lines. Gradually the firing died away and the battle was over. Albini, with the wooden squadron, and the ironclad "Terribile," which had remained with him, and taken no part in the fight, ran out and joined the main fleet.

Persano afterwards explained that he was waiting for Tegethoff to come out and attack him. But the Austrian admiral had attained his object, by forcing his way through the Italian line, and placing himself in a position to co-operate with the batteries of Lissa, in repelling any further attempt upon the island. There was no reason why, with his numerically inferior fleet, he should come out again to fight a second battle.

But though the action was ended, there was yet another disaster for the Italians. The "Palestro" had been for two hours fighting the fire lighted on board of her by the Austrian sh.e.l.ls. Smoke was rising from hatchways and port-holes, but as she rejoined the fleet she signalled that the fire was being got under and the magazines had been drowned. Two of the smaller ships, the "Governolo" and the "Independenza," came to her help and took off her wounded. To a suggestion that he should abandon his ship, her commander, Capellini, replied: "Those who wish may go, but I shall stay,"

and his officers and men remained with him, and continued working to put out the fire. But the attempt to drown the magazines had been a failure, for suddenly a deafening explosion thundered over the sea, the spars of the "Palestro" were seen flying skyward in a volcano of flame. As the smoke of the explosion cleared, the heaving water strewn with debris showed where the ship had been.

The Austrian fleet was steaming into San Giorgio, amid the cheers of the garrison and the people, when the explosion of the "Palestro" took place.

Persano drew off with his fleet into the channel between Lissa and the island of Busi, and when the sun went down the Italian ships were still in sight from the look-out stations on the hills of Lissa.

The Austrians worked all night repairing damages, and preparing for a possible renewal of the fight in the morning. But at sunrise the look-outs reported that there was not an Italian ship in sight. Persano had steered for Ancona after dark, and arrived there on the 21st.

He was so unwise as to report that he had won a great naval victory in a general engagement with the Austrians in the waters of Lissa. Italy, already smarting under the defeat of Custozza, went wild with rejoicing.

Cities were illuminated, salutes were fired, there was a call for high honours for the victorious admiral. But within forty-eight hours the truth was known. It was impossible to conceal the fact that Lissa had been unsuccessfully attacked for two days, and that on the third it had been relieved by Tegethoff dashing through the Italian fleet, and destroying the "Re d'Italia" and the "Palestro," without himself losing a single ship.

There were riots in Florence, and the cry was now that Admiral Persano was a coward and a traitor. To add to the gloom of the moment the ram "Affondatore," which had been injured in the battle, sank at her anchors when a sudden gale swept the roadstead of Ancona.

Three of the twelve Italian ironclads had thus been lost. Three more were unavailable while their damages were being slowly repaired. Peace was concluded shortly after, and the Italian navy had no opportunity of showing what it could do under a better commander.

In the sinking of the "Re d'Italia" some 450 men had been drowned. More than 200 lost their lives in the explosion of the "Palestra," but the other losses of the Italians in the Battle of Lissa were slight, only 5 killed and 39 wounded. The Austrians lost 38 killed (including two captains) and 138 wounded. These losses were not severe, considering that several wooden ships had been exposed to heavy sh.e.l.l-fire at close quarters, and one must conclude that the gunnery of the Italian crews was wretched. The heaviest loss fell on Petz's flagship, the "Kaiser," which had 99 killed and wounded. Some of the gunboats, among which were some old paddle-ships, though they took part in the fighting, had not a single casualty.

Persano was tried by court-martial and deprived of his rank and dismissed from the navy. Tegethoff became the hero of Austria. His successful attack on a fleet that in theory should have been able to destroy every one of his ships in an hour, will remain for all time an honour to the Austrian navy, and a proof that skill and courage can hope to reverse the most desperate disadvantages.

CHAPTER XII

THE BATTLE OF THE YALU

1894

One result of the victory won by Tegethoff at Lissa was that an exaggerated importance was for many years to come attached to the ram as a weapon of attack. In every navy in the world ships were built with bows specially designed for ramming. The sinking of the "Re d'Italia" had made such an impression on the public mind, that it was in vain for a minority among naval critics to urge that the ram was being overrated, and to point out that even at Lissa for one successful attempt to sink an enemy by running her down there had been an untold number of failures. It was very gradually that the majority was brought to realize that a ship under full control could generally avoid a ramming attack, and that it could only be employed under exceptional circ.u.mstances, and against an already disabled enemy.

Then the progress of invention and armaments introduced features into naval warfare that made it extremely difficult and dangerous for a large ship to come to such close quarters as an attempt to ram implies. First the introduction of the Whitehead torpedo as part of the auxiliary armament of battleships and cruisers gave the ship attacked a means of sinking the aggressor as she approached, and the increase in the power of guns led naval tacticians to accept as a principle that fleet actions must be fought at ranges which were regarded as too distant for any effective action in earlier days.

But for nearly thirty years after Lissa there were no fleet actions.

Ships, armour, guns, were all improved, and the great naval Powers built on a larger and larger scale. Steel took the place of iron as the material for shipbuilding and armour. Naval gunnery became a precise science. Torpedoes were introduced, and with them such new types of ships as the swift torpedo boat and the "destroyer." But there was very little fighting on the sea, though in the same period there were colossal conflicts on land.

Hundreds of armour-clads were built that became obsolete, and were turned over to the shipbreaker, without ever having fired a shot in action.

Theories of tactics for fleet actions were worked out on paper, and tested to some extent at naval manoeuvres, but the supreme test of battle was wanting. In the Franco-German War of 1870 the French navy had such a decided superiority that the few German warships of the day were kept in their harbours protected by batteries and sunken mines. The only naval action of the war was an indecisive duel between two gunboats. In the second stage of the war the officers and men of the French navy fought as soldiers in the defence of France. Guns were taken from the ships to be mounted on land fortifications. Admirals commanded divisions, formed largely of naval officers and bluejackets.

Again in the war of 1878 between Russia and Turkey the Russians had only a few light craft in the Black Sea, and the Turkish fleet under Hobart Pasha, weak as it was, held the undisputed command of these waters, and had only to fear some isolated torpedo attacks. In South American civil wars and international conflicts there were duels between individual ships, and some dashing enterprises by torpedo boats, but nothing that could be described as a fleet action between ironclads. The only time a British armoured fleet was in action was against the batteries of Alexandria on the occasion of the bombardment in July, 1882. The forts, badly armed and constructed, and inefficiently defended, were silenced, but a careful examination of them convinced experts that if they had been held by a better-trained garrison, the victory would not have been such an easy matter. This and subsequent experiences have led to the general acceptance of the view that it will be seldom advisable to risk such valuable fighting machines as first-cla.s.s battleships and armoured cruisers in close action against well-constructed and powerfully armed sh.o.r.e defences.

It was not till the summer of 1894 that at last there was another pitched battle between fleets that included a large proportion of armoured vessels.

That action off the mouth of the Yalu River will be always remembered as the event that heralded the coming of a new naval power.

A long rivalry between China and j.a.pan for the control of Korea had resulted in an outbreak of war between the two empires of the Far East. For an island state like j.a.pan the command of the sea was a necessary condition for successful operations on the mainland of Asia, and for some years she had been building up a powerful fleet, the ships being constructed in foreign yards, as the j.a.panese yards were not yet in a position to turn out large warships.

In the memory of living men the j.a.panese fleets had been made up of primitive-looking war-junks. After failures to build ships in j.a.pan on the European model, the Government had in the middle of the nineteenth century purchased some small steamships abroad, but it was not till 1876 that the first j.a.panese armour-clad, the "Fuso," was constructed in England from designs by the late Sir Edward Reed. Naval progress was at first very slow, but solid foundations were laid. Young naval officers were attached to the British and other navies for professional training, and on their return to j.a.pan became the educators of their fellow-countrymen in naval matters. A serious obstacle to the acquisition of a numerous and powerful fleet was the financial question. j.a.pan is not a rich country. At first, therefore, the j.a.panese did not venture to order battleships, but contented themselves with protected cruisers. They thought that these would be sufficient for the impending conflict with China, which possessed only a fleet of weak, protected cruisers of various types and a couple of small coast defence ironclads, that might be counted as inferior battleships.

When war broke out between China and j.a.pan in 1894, the fleet of the latter consisted of older ships of miscellaneous types, and a number of new protected cruisers, some of them armed with quick-firing guns, a type of weapon only lately introduced into the world's navies. Of these modern cruisers most had been built and armed in French yards, but the best and swiftest ship was a fine cruiser delivered not long before from Armstrong's yard at Elswick.

The following lists give some details of the j.a.panese and Chinese fleets, only the ships engaged at the Yalu battle being included. But these ships represented almost the entire strength of the two rival navies, and no really effective ship was absent on either side, while to make up the two squadrons ships were sent to sea that in a European navy would have been considered obsolete and left in harbour (see pages 256-7).

A comparison of these two lists brings out some interesting points. The advantage in gun power was clearly on the side of the j.a.panese. Of the heavier cla.s.s of guns they had seventy to fifty-five, and there were no weapons in the Chinese squadron equal to the long 12 1/2-inch rifled breech-loaders of French make, carried by four of the j.a.panese cruisers.

But there was a further gain in gun power for the j.a.panese in the possession of 128 quick-firers, some of them of fairly heavy calibre. The quick-firing gun was then a new weapon. It is really a quick loader, a gun fitted with a breech action that can be opened and closed by a rapid movement, and so mounted that the recoil is taken up by mechanism in the carriage which at once automatically runs the gun back into firing position, while the process of loading is further accelerated (for the smaller calibre guns) by making up the ammunition like that of a rifle, with projectile and charge in a big bra.s.s-cased cartridge, so that the gun can be loaded up by one movement, and the cartridge contains its own means of ignition, and is fired by pulling off a trigger. The lighter quick-firers are further mounted on pivots, so that they can be easily moved through an arc of a circle by one man, who keeps his eyes on a moving target and his finger on the trigger ready to fire. The storm of sh.e.l.ls that poured from the j.a.panese quick-firers was even more terrible for the Chinese than the slower fire of the heavy guns, and of these new quick-firing guns the Chinese only had three on the little "Kw.a.n.g-ping."

j.a.pANESE FLEET -----------------+------+----+-----+-----+---------------------------------- |Tonnage.

| |Heavy Guns.

| | |Quick-firers.

| | | |Machine Guns.

Ships. | | | | | Notes.

-----------------+------+----+-----+-----+---------------------------------- N {_Yoshino_ | 4150 | -- | 44 | -- |Swiftest ship in either fleet: e { | | | | | speed 23 knots; 2-inch w c{ | | | | | steel protective deck. Built r{ | | | | | by Armstrong.

p u{ | | | | {|2-inch steel protective deck.

r i{_Matsushima_ |} {| 12 | 16 | 6 {| Barbette forward covered o s{_Ikitsushima_|}4277{| 12 | 16 | 6 {| with 12-inch armour, and t e{_Hashidate_ |} {| 12 | 16 | 15 {| armed with a long Canet e r{ | | | | {| 12 1/2-inch gun.

c s{ t {_Takachico_ |}3650{| 8 | -- | 12 {|3-inch steel protective deck.

e {_Naniwa Kan_ |} {| 8 | -- | 12 {| Speed 18 knots.

d {_Akitsushima_| 3150 | 1 | 12 | 10 |2 1/2-inch steel protective deck.

| | | | | One long 12 1/2-inch Canet gun.

_Chiyoda_ | 2450 | -- | 24 | 13 |Small partly armoured cruiser; | | | | | 4 1/2-inch armoured belt over | | | | | two-thirds of length; 1-inch | | | | | steel protective deck.

_Fuso_ | 3718 | 6 | -- | 8 |4 1/2-in. armour belt } | | | | | amidships. } Old _Hiyei_ | 2200 | 9 | -- | -- {|7-in. armour belt. } ironclads | | | | {|9-in. armour on } launched | | | | {| battery. } 1877-8.

_Akagi_ | 615 | 2 | -- | 2 |Gunboat.

_Saikio Maru_| 600 | -- | (?) | -- |Armed merchant steamer carrying | | | | | only a few small quick-firers.

| |----|-----|-----| | | 70 | 128 | 84 | -----------------+------+----+-----+-----+----------------------------------

CHINESE FLEET -----------------+------+----+-----+-----+---------------------------------- |Tonnage.

| |Heavy Guns.

| | |Quick-firers.

| | | |Machine Guns.

Ships. | | | | | Notes.

-----------------+------+----+-----+-----+---------------------------------- A {_Chen-yuen_ |}7430{| 6 | -- | 12 {|Coast-defence battleships, 14-inch r {_Ting-yuen_ |} {| 6 | -- | 12 {| armour belt. Four 12-inch guns m { | | | | {| on each ship, mounted in pairs o { | | | | {| in turrets with 12-inch armour.

u { | | | | | r {_Lai-yuen_ |}2850{| 4 | -- | 8 {|Armoured cruisers, 9 1/2-inch e {_King-yuen_ |} {| 4 | -- | 8 {| armour belt. 8-inch armour on d { | | | | {| barbettes forward.

{_Ping-yuen_ | 2850 | 3 | -- | 8 |Armoured cruiser, 8-inch armour | | | | | belt; 5 inches on barbette.

U | | | | | n {_Tsi-yuen_ | 2355 | 3 | -- | 10 | a {_Ching-yuen_ |}2300{| 5 | -- | 16 {|Quickest ships in the fleet: r {_Chi-yuen_ |} {| 5 | -- | 16 {| speed 18 knots.