Admiral Togo by Jonathan Clements

Author:Jonathan Clements
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912208104
Publisher: Haus Publishing
Published: 2018-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

10

Port Arthur

Tōgō’s journey home was not without incident. He took a zig-zag route across the Bohai Gulf to Zhifu and back towards Korea, seemingly patrolling the old demarcation line that had once hemmed in his old foe Ding Ruchang. Leaving his ship at Chemulpo, he made the familiar journey inland to Seoul, where he was received in audience by the Korean ruler and made several courtesy calls on diplomats from some of the other nations involved in the Boxer strife. He then entertained two Korean ministers back aboard his ship, and steamed off down the coast of Korea. En route for Japan, he found a Russian ship stuck on a shoal and delayed his trip to come to her rescue, successfully towing her out of trouble.

Uneventful months followed at the naval academy; although in February 1901, Tōgō requested and was granted a brief compassionate leave. His mother Masuko, now eighty-seven years old, was in failing health, and Tōgō rushed to her bedside to nurse her in her final days. She remained a Satsuma samurai to her last breath, dying with the words: ‘Be loyal in your service.’1

Tōgō’s observations in Tianjin were not misspent. In the years that followed, the Japanese Admiralty re-assessed the greatest threat to Japan as issuing from Russia, and continued preparations to avenge the indignity of the Triple Intervention. Tōgō was called to Tokyo for secret talks on 15 October 1903. The summons found him once more bedridden with rheumatism, but he dragged himself to his feet, sure that if he did not, he would lose his chance to command the fleet. He was not to be disappointed. In a meeting with his old Satsuma friend, Admiral Yamamoto Gonnohyōe, Tōgō was informed that war was imminent and that he was to command the fleet. Tōgō was ecstatic at the news, but, true to form, merely acknowledged it with a curt nod and a salute. Even when being given the chance of a lifetime, he never went beyond bare monosyllables. He took his leave of his wife and family, and treated this sight of them as his last. To Mrs Tōgō, he left with a parting entreaty that she should look after his dogs if he never came back.2

Although the result of his summons was a blunt statement in the official gazette that he had been appointed to a new post as Commander-in-Chief of the Standing Squadron, the discussion of his new position took several hours. Saying nothing to his subordinates, Tōgō threw his new squadron into a continuous round of drills, much of it in deliberate preparation for dealing with the naval tactics that he might expect from a pupil of Stepan Makarov – the admiral whose manual he had ordered to be translated some years earlier.

Tōgō would have several months to prepare, until 4 February 1904, when an Imperial Order was sent to both the army and navy:

We are now compelled to conclude that the Russian Government has no sincere desire to maintain the peace of the East.

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