Feb-Mar-Apr, May-June-July 1972 - Navy League of Australia

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FAITH
WITHOUT
FOUNDATION
officer nearly brought his promising
career to an abrupt halt. The
captain. Baranoff. claimed that his
command (the small armed
steamer. Vesta) sank a vastly
superior Turkish ironclad when, in
fact, the Vesta had gone about and
fled upon sighting the Turkish
vessel
Being a subordinate. Rozhestvensky
kept silent, albeit with a bad
conscience. After the war the
Turkish Admiral Hobart-Pacha
revealed the truth in a letter to a
Russian newspaper Without thinking.
or even consulting Baranoff.
Rozhestvensky confirmed the story
in a letter to the same newspaper,
without any attempt to justify either
Baranoff or himself His luck held:
Baranoff was cashiered, and by a
miracle. Rozhestvensky survived
He was even promoted: something
which astounded everyone, including
Rozhestvensky himself.
His next task of reorganising the
gunnery branch of the Bulgarian
Navy did not take him long, and in
1885 he was appointed Naval
Attach^"in London where, it appears,
he was both respected and well-liked.
In 1894 he received his Captaincy
and as commander of Admiral
Alexieff's flagship in the Far East,
was thus in a good position to
observe the behaviour of the combatants
during the Sino-Japanese
War He returned to St Petersburg
as Commander of the gunnery
practice squadron of the Baltic Fleet.
It was during this period that
Rozhestvensky s career received its
greatest boost
At 1000 hours on 24 June. 1902.
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany arrived
at Reval roadstead aboard the
Imperial Yacht Hohenzotlern accompanied
by two German warships, for
a State visit Steaming with them
was a Russian cruiser and the beautiful.
immaculate Royal Yacht
Shtandart: the vessel whose lines
were emulated by the designers of
the British Royal Yacht Victoria And
Albert (this last fact is not generally
realised) and who on this day carried
the host. Tsar Nicholas II.
After the mind-warping thunder
and smoke of the simultaneous
thirty-one-gun salutes had passed.
the Royal parties and their staffs
lunched aboard the Shtandart
Following this lavish repast (which
lasted until 1500 hours), all persons
present changed into more serviceable
uniforms and boarded the
cruiser Minln to witness, at sea. a
three-hour gunnery demonstration
by selected battleships and other
picked units of the Russian fleet.
The excellence of the demonstration.
with its steady, extremely
accurate fire from all vessels, greatly
impressed the Kaiser. He publicly
commended Rozhestvensky in the
presence of the Tsar and his own
Admiral von Tirpitz Such praise
from the monarch of a country
noted for gunnery excellence did not
go unnoticed. In rapid succession.
Rozhestvensky was promoted to
Rear-Admiral: made Chief of the
Naval Staff and. at the same time,
aide-de-camp to the Tsar.
Now. charged with the task of
assembling the Second Pacific
Squadron. Rozhestvensky descended
on the graft-ridden and
labyrinthine warren of the Naval
victualling and purchasing departments
like the Seven Plagues of
Egypt, and within three months this
one-man cyclone had succeeded in
making himself the most unpopular
officer in the Admiralty.
The rusty, corrupt machinery had
not seen the oil of a forceful personality
for many a year, and Rozhestvensky
worked eighteen hours a day
in order that his fleet might be made
ready in the shortest possible time
and that its needs would be fulfilled.
Every conceivable item needed by a
fleet on a long voyage of war had to
V>e obtained virtually at the rush.
Shells and propellant of all
calibres, mines, belts o f Maxim gun
ammunition, torpedoes, scuttlingcharges
(if needed), charts for all
vessels, engine-room and auxiliary
machinery spares: all had to be
found. Even such items as office
equipment and reams of various
forms and notepaper was procured
and placed aboard the fighting
vessels and transports of his rapidly
burgeoning fleet. Because of the
varying latitudes through which the
ships would pass, provision was
made for extra clothing for the men.
as well as their food.
Salt meat was delivered by the
barrel-load, tins of butter, boxes of
biscuits and dehydrated vegetables
for soup making, salt preservatives
and. last but not least, hundreds of
crates of vodka and good quality
champagne for the officers, whose
accommodation and comfort were
attended to very assiduously in the
Tsarist Navy.
Rozhestvensky's recurrent nightmare
was coal. He knew from
experience that the boilers and
engines of certain units were not
very efficient and that the likelihood
of their being overhauled prior to
departure was remote. This meant
very high daily coal consumption.
Two ships in particular, the light
cruisers Jemtchug. and Izumrud
each burned twenty-one tons of coal
per hour at 90% power!
The colonial navies of Great
Britain. France and Germany
possessed vast networks of coaling
stjtions in all ports of the World, and
Japan could be sure of access to
British coaling facilities should the
need ever arise. Not so Russia, whose
supplies were virtually restricted to
her own waters and ports. And yet. in
spite of all this. Rozhestvensky proposed
an 18.000 mile voyage with an
entire fleet around the Cape of Good
Hope to the coast of China! Impossible?
Not to Rozhestvensky. who
entered into a contract with the
German Hamburg-Amenka Line for
that company to supply the entire
Second Pacific Squadron with coal
from a vast fleet-train of sixty
colliers spread around the world
from the Baltic to the Yellow Sea.
The estimate of coal required
reached the truly colossal figure of
approximately five-hundred
thousand tons. Even the British expressed
astonishment. Only a mad
Russian would try it. He succeeded
too.
The day of departure from Kronstadt
approached. 15 July was the
expected sailing date, however
Rozhestvensky's problems
seemingly defied resolution and so
this date was abandoned. One of his
main problems was the shortage of
qualified personnel, the cream of
which was in the Far East with the
hamstrung original Pacific Fleet.
Competent specialist officers were
also in short supply: the Engineering
branch in particular being so
affected. Rozhestvensky corrected
the numerical shortage situation
amongst his ratings by accepting
into the ranks reservists, poor
Pag* Efghtwn
THE NAVY
May/June/July THE NAVY P»fe Nineteen