Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 120 - Russo-Japanese War Part 2: The Siege of Port Arthur

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

Russia and Japan are introduced to the weapons of modern war. Hilarity does not ensue. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe, and with me, mostly always, is Nick. What's up? How's it going? It is nearing the end of the month of August in Hawaii and I am melting into a puddle. It's so hot.

My air conditioner has finally stressed out and died on me. There'd be a lot of hair floating in that puddle. It's like if Ron Jeremy went floating in that puddle. Yeah. It's like, uh, like if Ron Jeremy went into a shower and exploded. Yeah. Ooh.

Ooh. Who, who has more hair? You were Ron Jeremy. I'm going to go with Ron Jeremy. You have the hide on. Yeah. I,

I feel like seeing his work, I'm going to go with Ron Jeremy. Uh, Seeing his work, I'm going to go with Ron Jeremy. So much like Ron Jeremy, who is going to die in prison, we're going to talk about the Russo-Japanese War Part II. That didn't flow, but that's what we're... That wasn't a good segue. It flowed good enough. It flowed as well as he's going to into prison.

I quit. We're talking about part two of our Russo-Japanese war series. Float as well as the money coming out of the keister. The prison wallet. So when we left you last week, Japan had trapped the Russian Far East fleet within the confines of Port Arthur and settled in for a siege. Now,

Port Arthur was something of a natural fortress for the Russians, and the only real damage done to their fleet at the outset of the battle, that was like, remember when the Japanese torpedo boats kind of attacked them and ran off? They lightly damaged three ships out in the

open ocean which then retreated back into the port in which they were safe um after that they ran into the port and were protected by the mountains and shore defenses like to the point that it was hard for japan to even try to like try to lob shells over the defensive works and hit the ships um though there is a small problem. Right. The protection of this port ended up being what trapped the Russian fleet entirely. They could only leave the port in one direction during a certain time of day because the tides would recede so much that the ships would run aground

if they attempted to flee. This seems like a pretty big... Remember, this is the part that they like desperately wanted right i feel like that that's a pretty big weak point right like we can only deploy the ships on this one small window of the day or we'll just hit some rocks and fall over i mean it's for the warm water it's it's a it's a pretty big like achilles heel here um so in order to counter that, the Japanese fleet just had to sit outside and wish a motherfucker would like

knowing that if the Russians left, we know where they're going to leave from. We can just attack them. and like, and should like the, the Russians attempt to like, like, like go out to the open ocean for battle,

they wouldn't be able to get in formation. Like they would just get nuked as soon as they left the port. Yeah, one ship at a time. Yeah, they're fucked. Yeah, it's like a bad action movie fight. Like, I got it, gentlemen. Let's go at the Japanese fleet one ship at a time. They won't see it coming.

Or they could have done the old, alright, check this out, guys. Take our flags down, put some white sheets, put a red dot in the middle. Okay, hold on to that thought. Hold on to that until

the third episode, because that kind of happens. Oh, yes. So, in the opening days of the blockade, the two Russian ships attempted to make a break for it. so in the opening days of the blockade, the port of the port, the two Russian ships attempted to make a break for it. What they were trying to do is get to Vladivostok,

which is like the nearest base where Russian or more Russian ships were based. So like they were trying to rush there. And one of them was the commander of the entire East Far East squadron. So like, he's like, guys, I have an idea. I'm going to take these two ships.

I'm going to make a break for it so we can get support, right? Immediately hit sea mines. Oh my god. And the Russian flagship, the Petropavlovsk, under the command of their fleet commander, Vice Admiral Stepan Makarov, sank immediately

killing almost everybody on board, including Makarov. Holy shit. That is the first of several admirals that the Japanese are going to kill. It's going to be great. Really? Yeah. Like, the only people less safe than, like, a Russian conscript during this war is a Russian admiral,

which is something I support. The two worst ranks I hear you want to be in. After that, the Russians decided, you know, we're going to stay in the port. I would. Yeah. So Japan resorted to just bombarding the port, not doing a whole lot of damage.

Meanwhile, that's when Japan launched their offensive through, like their ground offensive through what is today the People's Republic of Korea, more commonly known as North Koreaorea pretty much unopposed uh because the russian commander in the far east again named alexei koropotkin which is a name we're going to become familiar with because he's a big dumbass he's also the minister of war um he knew that uh like the russian supply line was so extended uh like because at this point it's literally a continent long just about uh that would mean that if he was to defend every inch

of korea it would take like six months to get him up to strength and he would pretty much just be fighting a constant losing battle so he he gave orders for the russ Russians to pull all the way back and allow the Japanese to stomp through Korea without a fight to buy him some time. And he would instead hold out around the Yalu River, which is kind of funny, because this exact same thing would kind of happen to

the Americans during the Korean War. And pretty much just try to defend the Japanese from coming into Manchuria. There's a slight issue with the Russians' plan for the area, though. For one, the Russian commanders were very racist and thought very little of Japanese soldiers that they were fighting them. But they also thought very little of the local Korean populace because they were the kind of racists that don't see the difference between Asians.

Ah, those racists. the local korean populace because they were they were the kind of racist that don't see the difference between asians so uh those races yeah it's like you know there's there's shades of racist they're that kind uh brands if you will i don't know like they thought um the koreans were the same as the japanese and they would definitely take the side of the japanese because they never opened a history book or something um and and treated them like shit uh there was like lots of outright murder um enslaver enslavement uh rape things like that uh so when the japanese marched through the koreans kind of turned to them as the lesser of two evils which will be the first and only time this happens in history um furthermore the japanese learned some lessons during their wars in China. And they knew

that they could move faster if they hired local porters to carry their supplies for them. So the Japanese paid them incredibly well in order to win them over to carry their stuff. And also they made sure to tread lightly through their areas. They didn't take their

food. This meant that pretty quickly they kind of won over the local population's semi-loyalty. At least enough for them to tell them all about the Russian positions on the other side of the river. That's fucking awesome. Thankfully, this friendship between Korea and Japan would never change or lead to horrible horrible war crimes that japan refuses to acknowledge to this day or anything like that this meant the japanese marched faster than the russians ever thought they would because they didn't have to carry their own shit and they knew exactly where they were dug in uh because the russians thought so little of their enemies they put most of their strength at the easiest crossing points at the main road, leaving only tiny detachments in other places, assuming that the Japanese were so dumb they would just march straight up the road into the Russian positions.

I mean, duh. But the Yalu was a big-ass river that would require bridges to cross it, so the Japanese began building one in full view of the Russians, knowing it would be targeted by the Russians. While that was happening, they simply built nine other ones while the Russians were distracted. Because the Russians were like, ha, those dumbasses are building a bridge right there.

Let's destroy it. At this point, the Japanese have to be so shocked that the Russians are so racist that this plan's working. Like, don't look at these other nine bridges that we're building, but just distract all of your fire over there. Cool. Thanks, buddies. I think once they saw that one going up,

they're like, fucking idiots. Everybody, go. Like, the whole Russian army. Yeah. We see your bridge, you you absolute idiots just sitting out there in the middle of nowhere like you wanted us to see it yeah this isn't certainly a trap there's like a fake army right behind it too yeah also like i have to feel bad for the japanese bridge like engineers that were sent out there solely to get murdered by the russians they're like wait

where's everybody else going i I heard something about ten bridges? Oh no. Why do we have hay soldiers behind us with broomsticks for guns? While this happened, the Japanese began their attack and they immediately went around the main Russian forces and attacked the detachments and pushed straight through them.

One of the main Japanese tactics was to try to penetrate a flank and then encircle you and this is pretty much what happens to every russian force throughout every battle of this war and they never learn really and that's and kuro potkin will be in charge through most of these so he saw this happening and ordered the frontline commander to begin a withdrawal but the commander refused said uh because the commander thought that victory was within his grasp because uh this is like quite literally one of those like we got him right where we want him all over the place dude's getting fucking bayoneted and he's like got him right

where i want him yep uh and then he the the commander actually sent a telegram to the czar bragging about he was going to win the first battle of the war for the empire during the battle yes that's fucking confidence that's awesome well kuro potkin's like could you fucking not you're making me look bad uh kuro potkin will not win a single battle during this war. That's awesome. That commander is so fucking funny. You're going to see why. Instead, the Japanese encircled the main Russian position with very little effort. They moved a custom-built 4.7-inch howitzer into position, and after that, they rained 60-pound shells onto the Russians for hours.

Like a pin-in-my-ride artillery. It was like a purpose-built like siege gun and each shell weighed 60 pounds and they fired hundreds of them for hours and the to their credit the russians were able to fight off the japanese for a little while but uh like other units uh had withdrawn with like when um kropotkin gave the order. It left one specific unit smack dab in the middle with no artillery support.

After they started getting pounded by this massive monster piece of siege weaponry, the Russians decided it was time to run, but they were surrounded. They ran right into Japanese soldiers who killed them or captured them pretty much immediately without much of a fight fight it wasn't a fighting withdrawal at all and the japanese army was making quick progress over land their goal was to meet their fleet

on the other side of port arthur totally encircling it and cutting off the defenders from even their own terrible supply line that they had been dependent on and pretty much been left out to dry about uh the russians knew this and they knew that uh that to be their target so they set out to stop them and two battles called the battle of non-shawn and liao yang and like i already alluded to koropatkin does not win a single battle during this war and it could be argued that either does russia um and both of these battles are going to fail horribly for very different reasons now at nanshan the overall commander was not a military man at all uh he was a guy who was a former cop who kind of schmoozed and bribed his way into a general's uniform because the czar kind of liked him. There was a guy named Alexander Folk. Furthermore, the Russians had just hired

a bunch of Chinese laborers to build their defenses rather than building them themselves. Dozens of them were actually just Japanese spies. Really? Who purposely sabotaged the defenses and then let the army know exactly what and where

to expect resistance. When the battle began, the Russians still managed to do incredibly well, holding off the Japanese despite being badly outnumbered. And that's something that's pretty common throughout this war. The Russians do really well defending and only defending. The second they have to maneuver anything, shit just falls apart. And the Japanese attacks just don't end. So eventually they just defeat the Russians through attrition, running out of, like, both man and material attrition, because the Russians were

a net negative at both of those since pretty much the beginning. Right. The Japanese assault wasn't exactly imaginative, but it was historic. Thick waves of Japanese infantry, three divisions wide, stormed the hill, only to be mowed down by Russian machine gun fire, as well as artillery deployed in the rear as one of history's first uses of indirect fire, like firing over one unit and supporting another

one. So like congrats Japan. You experienced history. Though the front line commander was a guy named Colonel Traikoliov I'm probably pronouncing that wrong who had fought the Japanese off for hours

and was pretty much the only officer down there guiding the battle and had been left by most others. He was shocked to find the entire reserve detachment, which was to be ordered into battle to relieve him and plug any holes in defenses. But he was shocked to find them who had not seen any combat yet under the personal command of folk retreating. There's a reason for that. Folk wasn't a coward or scared. He was just bad at his job. Folk, who was a general, had received orders for his unit to retreat. This included Tricholioff's.

Instead, Folk did not tell anybody else and just ran. When he left, he left Trikaliev to be surrounded because that just keeps happening. Every time. Yeah, Trikaliev's soldiers retired pretty much out of ammo after fighting off nine different division strength charges. That's fucking insane. And realize that they were now on their own.

So Trikaliev shrugged and ordered his men to launch into a fighting, unsupported retreat all the way back to Port Arthur. They succeeded, but destroyed pretty much anything that could be considered a force that was able to fight. So, this is the only Russian unit that would be able to pull off a fighting

retreat during the war, and it destroyed itself doing it. Jesus. Now, at Liao Yang, both the Japanese and Russians knew that they had had to win it was the hub of the entire southern manchurian railway and holding it would mean a stranglehold on the russian supply system because remember the trans-siberian railroad isn't finished yet right kuro potkin knew this and built three different lines of defenses and planned to switch to a defense in depth uh which anybody we talked about it kind of vaguely uh in a previous episode is what kind of what germany switched to during the end of world war one where the instead of holding a trench for a prolonged period of time they would fight at one line only long enough to inflict a ton of losses

before falling back to the next which would then be able to support shooting into the first position, kind of making an endless cascade of casualties for the Japanese. They wouldn't stand and fight to the death. They would pull back, be able to fight from another position and continue shooting the Japanese.

It's not something that works great. This probably wouldn't have been something that would have worked great against the japanese simply because the russians never once made the japanese retreat due to casualties um because they simply wouldn't so like defense in depth really wouldn't work they're like okay i guess we'll just die some more that's probably not a planet i'd like to follow. God.

Yeah, like, imagine, like, sitting in an officer's meeting or something, like, Japanese headquarters, and, like, you're a soldier, like, on guard duty or something. Like, wow, they arrayed all these trenches so they can kill thousands of us. And Nintendo's like, yes, perfect. I like where this is going. It's playing right into our plan of killing thousands of you. Just me overhearing it, yes, perfect. I like where this is going. It's playing right into our plan of killing thousands of you. Just me overhearing it like, say again?

It's like that South Park movie where it's like, ah, yes, Team Human Shield. Yeah, the meat shield. Yeah. Now, this may have worked if the Japanese, again again did not know exactly what his plans were due to japanese spies and chinese informants though the russian defenses were strong enough that it didn't end up mattering much as the japanese drive to continue attacking no matter what would not break japanese attacks were repulsed over and over again only to be relaunched with very little time in between unfortunately kuro

potkin's defense and depth meant he couldn't launch counter-attacks so like as the japanese pushed him back to one line to the next one line to the next they slowly inched forward and like he was since he was so uh attached to his defense and depth he didn't leave anything in reserve so he wouldn't like koropat can refuse to launch counter-attacks because he thought it would harm his ability to defend the other trenches right so this meant like there was very obvious openings where he could have launched a counter-attack when the japanese were drawing in between attacks that he could have driven them from the field maybe actually won a battle and and instead he just kind of sat on his ass to the point that like it shocked the japanese that

he wasn't counterattacking to the point that he's like he must have something else planned he wouldn't just sit there nope yeah again and again during this war the japanese assume the russians are much better at war than what they actually end up being. So the Japanese kept up the attack, even throughout the night, which was rare for the time. And this is like the first war where people are busting out like spotlights. Oh, wow. Yeah. So like, then that never really stopped them. They're like, okay, they're pointing spotlights so they can guide a machine gun fire, whatever, run under the spotlights.

Ew. That's known as the moth defense yeah fuck that this forced the russians to fight around the clock without support and with all of the reserves committed to battle constantly oh that sounds awful yeah just like have you ever been up so late like i've been awake so long you start hallucinating yes i can assume that's every russian soldier at this point and not to mention their supplies began to dwindle and they began to like just collapse from exhaustion in one case a russian position fell because three russian units accidentally began to battle with one another what like yeah like one uh it was like one uh squadron or

something shifted positions to like plug a hole in the middle of the night which led to another russian position think they were japanese to open fire and then another russian position saw that that one was opening fire so that must be japanese so they opened fire on both of them what like yeah this meant they actually managed to lose a battle to themselves um like those three units so severely fucked each other up that when the Japanese launched an assault on that position, they just were really confused because there was nobody

there anymore. Jesus. They're just like, huh, there's just a big old hole here. We didn't do this. Somewhere a Japanese captain's like, congratulations, men, we won a great victory. It's like the Russians are bayoneting with each other. In the background, just fucking each other up.

I thought they were all sitting in the same trench and they turn and look at each other. And they're like, oh! And they start fucking fighting. I think at some point that is what happened because it's dark, they're confused and exhausted. So once one person starts shooting, I think people just start shooting wildly

in every direction. That is on brand for other series regarding Russian soldiers, so it's not surprising. I can't say I wouldn't have done that. No, I've been so sleep-deprived. I've been kind of high and shot

at things that didn't actually exist thankfully it happened to not be another soldier oh that's good yeah it wasn't another person nope it wasn't it was a bush i thought i thought the bush was a person and i let like i let a burst of 240 ammo out fuck the bush up and then like everybody like ran to guard towers and everything because like the Taliban was coming and that actually happened previously when someone else I was asleep and someone in the guard tower saw

like a flare go up and thought it was an RPG and just started wildly firing into the distance I guess the long and short of this is soldiers shouldn't have guns. They should have bedtimes. So this time Kuro Potkin knew

the Japanese were going to attempt to encircle him and managed to order an organized withdrawal from the area before they could actually do it. So he saw it coming this time. He's learning, though at this point kura potkin had been uh so like smashed by the japanese time and time again he reported that this withdrawal which was a retreat with extra steps right right he sent him uh uh a letter to the czar like as if it was a huge victory look i got your first letter from this

one guy saying that you guys won and uh clearly you guys got stomped yeah uh and then this just led to the czar yelling at him like a lot which sure probably because the czar keeps putting in bets on his own team but clearly it's not working out all you're like i want to know how someone managed to like wear a victory like tell them about it like a victory and nobody like give a heads up to the czar like yo we lost like there's literally hundreds of thousands of people and they're like no like we should just we should just let them be i mean i know like conscripts aren't going to do that because they don't know how to send telegraphs and they're probably just wondering where their next food like meals coming from

but like other offices especially like the aristocracy of the Russian military was pretty much like palace intrigue where people were like stabbing each other in the back to try to further their own career oh yeah like that's a low hanging fruit all day baby like that motherfucker just lied about winning a battle the

evidence is all the dead Russians yeah now after this the Japanese had a about winning a battle. The evidence is all the dead Russians. Yeah. Now, after this, the Japanese had a land route to Port Arthur. And on the land side, Port Arthur was defended by around 80,000 Russian soldiers.

But because of the struggle to get material into the area and build defenses like concrete fortifications and redoubts and things like that. They got about half of them done, and some of those were half finished. So they supported those with trench lines being dug and with intersecting fields of fire.

If that sounds kind of like World War I, that's a trend. Sounded like it, yeah. Prior to this, the Russians based a lot of their land defenses around the surrounding hillsides, of which there were many. But he knew, Kurapotkin, that is, he didn't have enough men to hold them over a prolonged period of time, and he wasn't about to be getting any reinforcements. So he abandoned most of them to the 150,000-man-strong Japanese Third Army

that was marching their way towards them. The Japanese set up massive field guns on top of these hills. Fuck. you have to be like cora potkins like ah clever girl yeah like god damn congratulations you just owned yourself like it's incredible that like he had deployed um and seen indirect fire be deployed and he couldn't think like I feel like this massive high point all around us would make a really great place for cannons to be set up I should defend these otherwise

they're going to put cannons on them and he didn't but and he didn't just like the guys Baron Nogi Marisaki or Marisuki who's the Japanese commander of the third army he uh he didn't just like wheel regular artillery up there he wheeled massive 280 millimeter armstrong howitzer guns that were that used to be naval cannons oh god who did he have wheel that up

a whole lot of conscripts yeah here's the thing about conscripts if you have a problem every problem can be solved with the proper application of conscripts because in the end that problem is either solved or you have less conscripts which is also a positive on its own so when you just strap hundreds or thousands of japanese conscripts to tow this shit up the hillside you're good conscripts are tow this shit up a hillside, you're good. Conscripts are also known for having massive quads. Lifting cannons all day.

By leaving these hills, the Russians allowed the Japanese to just move into areas unopposed, which led to Port Arthur almost being encircled from the land and sea without a fight. Jesus Christ. These hills could see for miles around them i had a clear view of fire directly into the city of port arthur but not the port

itself uh at which point they began using to shell the living shit out of the city uh the bombardment uh from the hill started at 4 a.m. and continued for hours. That is when the Japanese commander, Baron Nogi Mirosuke, ordered a full frontal assault against the Russian positions. They were based around the hills closest to the port. The most forward defensive lines the Russians had before the city itself were those hills. So, like, you had to take the hills and then you had a little else left but to take the city. There's a little problem with this however. During their bombardment a downpour had

started. This churned the dirt into mud and floated the nearby Ta River. Furthermore the cannons were firing where remember this is 1904. So they're producing huge amounts of black smoke. Right. This meant that when the japanese commanded ordered his men into battle they couldn't see where the fuck they were

going uh they ran into like carpets of black smoke that they couldn't see through drowned in the flooded river or got stuck in the mud and then when and this broke up their attack formation so by the time they got close, like in small groups, they just got lit up by Russian searchlights and then were tore through with Maxim machine guns and artillery. That sounds fucking awful. Yeah. Nogi called off the attack momentarily

so he could shell the Russians some more before sending his men back in, this time with explicit orders to press the attack no matter what. And the Russians held on, despite being badly outnumbered, outgunned, and out everything else. They did receive some support in the form of naval strikes from ships

within the ports, but it was really inaccurate. Shells from the big naval guns slammed into the mass of Japanese infantry, causing horrific casualties, but before the Russians could celebrate, maybe launch a counterattack, their ships then shelled them too. Jesus. That'll teach you to get ahead of yourself and think you're winning. That'll teach you to be a Russian conscript and feel happiness.

Yeah. God, that sucks. There was also an event where oneussian commander thought he had been given an order to pull back starting a weird game of telephone down the line of 80 000 men where confused frontline commanders began trying to figure out who gave orders to withdraw and where they came from and others were given orders to hold the line. In the confusion, some Russian soldiers pulled back while others stayed still. Through all of this, the Japanese really

only won the day due to massive manpower advantage and huge incompetence in the Russian chain of command and communication. They finally forced the Russians to retreat from the hill before they were entirely destroyed. The victory cost the Russians a few hundred dead.

I think it was like 500, but the Japanese over 1200 with double that wounded. And this will become a trend. Almost every battle the Japanese win, they have a lot more dead and wounded. I imagine. With the exception of one major outlier, which we'll talk about next episode.

Now, with the fall of the outer portions of the port's defensive lines and the fleet trapped inside the czar began to panic he was frantically reaching out to his cousin that being our friend willie asking where his navy was like remember from last episode uh czar nicholas was 100 under the impression that the germans were going to help him in this war and he's like hey where's the kriegsmarine or whatever those they were called back then like could you please bail me out and what the hell he said the japanese were subhuman another beating my ass what the fuck that's when the kaiser just kind of shrugged and said that he never told the czar that he'd help them in the event of a war but did promise to amount him

to up the amount of loans the German Empire could give Russia which to be fair was most of their economy at this point but just to show everyone how much of an absolute two-faced bastard the Germans were they also gave huge amounts of

loans to, wait for it, the Empire of Japan. Nice. You've activated my trap card. That's fucking awesome. Kaiser Wilhelm might be the worst cousin in European history. Actually, don't quote

me on that. That covers a lot of history and a lot of inbred cousins, and they're all bad. So fucking funny. Anyway, the Tsar was desperately attempting to break the siege of Port Arthur, which he thought if he could do that, it might be able to turn the tide of the war.

That's when Viceroy Igveny Iglexiev... Viceroy? Yep. It's a... Yeah, it's... Aristocracy is stupid. Sounds like a Star Wars. Yeah, he's also a real big idiot.

He's a former admiral and overall commander of Port Arthur. Though it helped that he was not there. And he demanded an aggressive naval attack from the fleet at Port Arthur to storm out and go to Vladivostok, where they'd be able to link up with more units of the Russian Navy. But they have to leave the port first. Yes. At which point they'd be able to Voltron together and defeat the Japanese on the high seas. How'd that work out? Good news, Nick.

We're going to get there, and it's not great. Meanwhile, Admiral Vilgelm Wittgleff, who had replaced Makarov as the commander of the Pacific Squadron at Port Arthur, was way more cautious. And he was also born without knees from what I heard. Floppy legs. Just shins. Like

the old guy from fucking King of the Hell. Admiral Cotton. He favored staying in port and supporting the land war, which at this point had arguably worked much better than anything else the Russians had done so far.

He figured he could do this until the newly created 2nd Pacific Squadron could make the trip to relieve him. Now, I had to bring up the 2nd Pacific Squadron momentarily, but put that in the back of your mind. That's what the whole next episode's about. Okay. But all you need to know right now

is uh vitgelf uh vitgelf his name's fucking terrible um it's even bad for a russian which i'm pretty sure that's german i don't know um he was under the impression that there was a squadron coming to relieve him and technically there was so he thought why the fuck am I going to leave the port? I have a whole squadron coming to relieve me. I can just sit here till they get here and then go support them when they chase off the Japanese. Now, the viceroy thought Wittgelf was a coward.

Wanting to hide in the port, instead he thought that he should charge out of the port and assault the Japanese and fight his way to Vladivostok. No. The Tsar, being a permanent dumbass, agreed and gave the orders to Wittgelf

to make his move to sally out of the port and fight him. Faced with imperial orders upon what was almost certainly the threat of execution or imprisonment should he ignore them, he followed them. So the Admiral set off for Vladivostok aboard his new flagship, the Tsarevich, with the rest of the port fleet behind him. He attempted to maneuver in such a way to buy time for the rest of the fleet to catch up. But the Japanese Navy had an added advantage of technology. You see, the Japanese had sent a young naval advisor named Akiyama Sayuki

to America years before, in about 1897. Once there, he saw the U.S. Navy using a revolutionary new technology known as wireless telegraphy, something that we now just know as radio. He knew this would change the entire way that navies were organized, controlled, and

deployed. Because previously, the Navy was controlled by a flag-based order system that required you to be able to see each other's ships. This is bad. So he sent a message back to Japan about this new radio technology. And Japan immediately adopted it. Though they found the British versions of the radio sets that they had hard to use and expensive, as well as very hard to repair should it break.

So they simply made their own. That was much better. Nice. The Russians attempted to adopt the same system in 1900, but they bought German radio systems. However, they lacked the ability to buy enough of them, and they lacked the ability to maintain them, and to operate them effectively.

This meant that only some ships in the russian navy had radios while almost all of the japanese navy did so you can imagine how well could a like a flagship like if you were a vick if you were a vick gulf or whatever if only some of your ships had radios that meant like almost none of your ships had radios right like you couldn't pass an order that well you You still had to use a flag system. I feel like their ships just had a string and a tin cup. That would probably work better. Quick, our new radios came in.

Like, this is a Campbell's soup can. Yeah. Campbell's soup, I'm coming at you loud with clam chowder. So, it was very easy for the japanese scout ships to like see the navy the russian navy leaving port arthur and be like hey the russians are coming so like then the japanese could get it get their shit in order for the coming battle while the russians were kind of just sprinting towards vladivostok so the japanese chase, leading to a running naval battle that saw both sides shelling the absolute piss out of one another.

The Japanese commander, Admiral Togo Hiyahachihiro, he was on the flagship of the Mikasa, was hit 20 different fucking times alone. Oh, fuck. Though this is where we learn something about the main armaments of the two navies. The Japanese favored shells that exploded on contact,

causing a ton of damage to the outer and upper decks but without most of the armor piercing that you would think that you would need these ships were designed to kill crew set fires and cause havoc as they blew pieces apart though not always maybe outright sink their opponents the russians liked armor piercing rounds that would explode on a timed fuse. The problem was, this was the early 1900s, and those were incredibly unreliable, as was the armor-piercing capabilities of those shells.

As soon as it leans a barrel, it just explodes. That would suck. A lot of the reason why they were really unreliable is some of the stuff that we talked about last episode with Russian materials or manufacturing and their economy tanking. So their manufacturing abilities sank. So the shells are made using cheap materials, meaning they weren't very armor piercing and explode on a very unreliable timer.

Our armor piercing shells seem to be made of cotton. This is wood, sir. That meant a large percentage of Russian direct hits did absolutely nothing to Japanese ships while the Japanese were setting shit on fire and blowing up deck crews. Though more than a few of the 20 shells that hit the Mikasa found their mark and badly damaged it

to the point that Togo was going to have to withdraw for fear it would sink. Not Togo! Not that Togo. Oh, okay. We're good. Though this whole thing is better if you think Togo the Disney dog is the Admiral. Hey, that would be the cutest Admiral ever.

That's canon now. He's dog Admiral. That's a shirt idea. I'm going to go ahead and put that one in the bank. That's fucking awesome. that's a shirt idea i'm gonna go and put that one in the bag awesome yeah that's a shirt but before he did he fired one last barrage of gunfire at the jar at the zarovich a barrage that just so happened to kill the russian admiral outright as well as his entire command staff instantly oh god who the fuck would lead like imagine one last time togo's like kobe and just

fires the shell and immediately like lands directly through the window of where the entire command staff is you think he was looking from a distance like oh yeah i meant to do that this also had a hilariously unintended side effect of

jamming the control wheel of the Tsarevich to the left. This spun the ship around at 180 degrees uncontrolled and unmanned and sent it careening back towards its own fleet. On fire and full of corpses.

Jesus Christ. By this point, it was clear that the attempt of the fleet to reach Vladivostok was a suicide mission, and the surviving remnants of the Russian Navy turned and followed the out of control zombie ship of their dead commander backwards the port. The dead is fucking punishing the living now. Russia reached the bottom of the barrel when it came to commander, so now the zombie's in charge, the Japanese originally intended to stop them from doing this,

but the running gun battle left too many of their ships damaged for them to run a risk of running into the Russian coastal defenses. So they kind of had to just let them run. Um, and also to buy them time, uh, one Russian ship continued towards the Vladivostok alone through all of this how uh the through all the chaos it just slipped away by that i mean it abandoned all of its friends

do you think the japanese are like look there's one going right now should we get it no no no let that one tell its story it's it's that scene from star wars like there's no sign of life let it leave yeah we're just gonna we're just gonna let that ship leave okay i mean technically the russian conscript is dead already so this ship was called the novik it was alone and heavily damaged but it managed to limp its away to the sakhalin islands off the coast of the japanese home islands before being intercepted it fought off two more japanese shipments before yeah before running back to the port of the Japanese home islands before being intercepted. It fought off two more Japanese shipments before running back to the port of Korsakov.

At that point, it fucking deserves to go. Well, they were afraid they were going to be captured, like their ship was going to be captured, so they ran into a nearby port and then sank their own ship before surrendering. Hmm. Now, neither side really achieved anything that they set off to this like the russians

wanted to reach vladivostok while the japanese wanted to finally crush this fleet once and for all um so you could call this like a strategic stalemate though the japanese definitely won um it would be the end of the line for the far east fleet the japanese had now killed two different of two different admirals and smacked them around to the point they could no longer really function as a navy. So, when they got back to Port Arthur, the few

functioning guns that could be salvaged were stripped from the ships and pressed into service on the ground. And then, so were their crews. Fuck, that sucks. You guys did a great job. of that imagine surviving all that they're like here's your rifle sir like wait what's what's this like oh you there's a trench for you to sit in like no no no i'd rather go to my shitty zombie ship full of dead admirals it'll be uh kind of

like no it's all right your your trench is kind of shaped like a boat so you'll feel kind of like at home you can fit just as many corpses in there and it's a. Your trench is kind of shaped like a boat, so you'll feel kind of like at home. You can fit just as many corpses in there. And it's a little flooded, a little muddy. So this battle was known as the Battle of the Yellow Sea, and it was the first modern naval engagement between steel battleships. And because of that, there was a lot of growing pains. For instance, their guns could reach out and touch an enemy from eight miles away,

an incredible distance for the day but the problem was that their range finders couldn't uh couldn't lead them from one to another so like their guns could reach out and touch you from eight miles away but their range finders could only like effectively target things at four miles away some of them only three miles away so while both fleets opened fire from eight miles away their aim was total dog shit but it still wowed the international naval community that they actually managed to hit one another at all jesus but this also led to them coming up really close to one another with incredibly powerful guns that would suck too yeah just blew massive holes in each other's ships. Fuck that. While the Japanese had achieved naval supremacy around Port Arthur,

they still had not quite figured out how to crack the port itself. The siege had now gone on for months, and the dwindling Russian defenders had been holding them off every step of the way. Then Baranogi had been continually reinforced, meaning he could continually attack. Though this mostly just replaced his losses rather than built up his strength anymore, because all of the losses, you see. He was really good at that. But he had also managed to be given massive siege cannons that could fire a 500-pound shell for five miles.

Fuck. He began to rain this giant bastard down the Russians all day for weeks. They were so huge and made so much noise as they flew over their targets that the Russian soldiers nicknamed them the Roaring Trains. I can't

even imagine that. And the Japanese fired 30,000 of these over the course of just a couple months. They said the flying train? The roaring train. Oh, the roaring train. All day.

Just never sleeping, constantly being worried about being snuffed out of existence by someone firing a goddamn Toyota Camry at you. It's fucking just huge. Despite this, Nogi had lost his appetite for frontal assaults. Probably on account of all the thousands of soldiers that had died due to Russian machine gun fire at this point.

He had begun a campaign of tunneling, much like our Battle of the Crater episode, if anybody remembers that. Japanese soldiers began tunneling under the trenches in the walls of Port Arthur and filling them with tons of explosives. Jesus Christ. Inside the

port, the Russians were holding, but only barely. The port's commander, General Anatoly Stessel, was beginning to lose faith. The defenders were running low on food, water, and ammo, and because of the tens of thousands of people that were shoved into such a small space, disease was running rampant through the ranks of the defenders, as well as the tens of thousands of people that were shoved into such a small space, disease is running rampant through the ranks of the defenders, as well as the tens of thousands of civilians that were still trapped inside with them.

Like just lice and cholera and all sorts of awful shit on top of having to like shoot people as they tried to kill you. And then hopefully not get hit by a giant train. Yeah. get hit by a giant train. Yeah. He spent his time sending countless letters to the Tsar complaining for the total lack of support he was receiving, not only from the government, but from the naval officers who thought they didn't need

to listen to him because he wore a different fancy hat. Ah, yes. While this was happening, Nogi was moving to drive another nail into his coffin. The so-called 203-meter hill overlooked the harbor itself. With the damaged remnants of the 1st Pacific Squadron were moored within and repairs were being attempted, mostly in order to turn them

into gun platforms like they weren't going to be a naval force anymore. The Russians knew how important this hill was and dug in miles of trench lines all around it, reinforcing them with timber and steel beams, hardened command structures, and intersecting and supporting fields of cannon and machine gun fire. It was through all of this that Nogi ordered dozens of frontal assaults. With anything? Big Cadorna energy in this one.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. The Battle of the Isonzo, before the Isonzo. Because Luigi Cadorna read this, because Nogi's going to end up winning. I like to think that Cadorna read this and no, he's going to end up winning. Like, I like to think that like Kadorna read this and was like, ah, but this will eventually work.

Oh, yes. Each one of these offensives and assaults were met with withering fire, no matter how many hours and how many times they tried. The Japanese soldiers ran into killing fields where they were a pulse.

At one point, Nogi threw thousands of soldiers to their death because he wanted to finally capture the hill on the emperor's birthday, and said he gave the emperor 4,000 dead soldiers. Good enough. We brought you these

tons of dead people. It's like a cat that brings you a dead mouse. Oh, yes. That's a good way to put it. Nogi's insane meat grinder battle plan killed so many of his soldiers that protests in Japan began to demand

that he be relieved of command. Really? The only thing that stopped him was the president of the Imperial Privy Council and the Imperial Prince General Yamagata Iratomo, who told the emperor that nogi should be brought up on charges for his failures um uh finally the thing that saved nogi from what was probably a date with his own ritual suicide was the emperor himself who intervened to save him

because he was an aristocrat to be fair um But all of the other generals who were above Nogi warned him that, like, look, the emperor may have stepped in to save you this time, but you're not going to have more than one more chance before he has no choice but to order you to kill yourself, which was absolutely something that the emperor still did back then. Oh, yeah. Nogi's army was reinforced again, now numbering around 100,000 men.

Notice that's 50,000 less than it was. Maybe, I don't know how to put it. Once again, he ordered them up the hill, this time sorted by 11-inch naval cannons, and they succeeded, though at a cost of another 8,000 men. Fuck. With 203-meter hill in their hands, the Russian fleet, or what remained of it, was now helpless.

The Japanese brought up their guns and one by one used indirect artillery, fire, and a spotter, which was considered revolutionary for its day. And the Russian fleet was killed one by one where it sat. This has gone down in modern military history, and maybe all of history, as the most destruction ever brought to bear by land-based weapons on a naval force. Fuck. Stessel watched unhelplessly as the Japanese destroyed the fleet and as other Russian military forces

that could be used to relieve him were instead sent to the city of Mukden to begin digging in rather than relieve him. Then, just when he thought his life couldn't get any worse, the Japanese blew up all those fucking mines I just told you about. Jesus. Under him? Yeah, it was like under a whole bunch of his hills.

And it killed thousands of people. And then the Japanese began coming into town. You just have those days where you just know it's not your day. You know he had to sit back, take off his officer's cap, and be like, man, today can't get any worse, and then, like, a damn near nuclear bomb goes off outside. Fuck, that sucks. Stessel decided the point of defending the port,

that being the fleet, was lost after they all became surprise submarines thanks to Japanese guns. So he reasoned probably rightly. That continued fighting was pointless and hopeless as he had no ability to lift the siege or even break out. Stessel, under a white flag, walked out to meet the Japanese general and surrendered without talking to anyone in his chain of command or talking to the, the, the minister of war or the czar first. This not only surprised the Japanese who assumed that the, uh,

the Russians had plenty of fight left in them, but it also surprised all of his officers. Um, but more surprised than anyone probably was our Nicholas himself who had never even been consulted about the idea of surrender. Now, Stessel probably knew this and that his request to surrender would be denied and just decided to do it himself.

This is also why he was sentenced to death by the Tsar for disobeying orders from the Tsar himself. Thankfully, this was later pardoned. But that is how the siege of Port Arthur would end and that is where we will pick up next week. That sounds fucking awful.

You're going to have to be more specific. On both ends. I wouldn't want to be on either side. Yeah, and that's something that I've noticed. This war is generally framed as the Japanese just ran roughshod over the Russians. And they didn't stand a chance. ran roughshaw over the russians and they didn't stand a chance which i mean if you look if you're like inhuman and like just look at the outcome of every battle that's largely true um but the japanese were like pretty much doing overdone every single battle like just throwing people

in refusing to take a step back and just hoping to drown the russians in their own blood i mean and like as we get to episode four which is where the series ends you're going to see why this ends up being a detriment to the japanese like because like eventually you run out of people right yeah um and like also the russians um but like they're all of these casualty are incredibly high, but like this is a direct reason and results of like the same thing that people would blame like the high casualty numbers of world war one on. And that is advanced weapons, not advanced technology or like advanced technology and weapons, not advanced tactics.

And a whole bunch of people like a good example is like when the Japanese commanders literally fought his first war with a fucking sword so like they're not exactly they don't have the most advanced tactics they have no understanding of modern modern combat and they have very little inclination of wanting to understand it because this is just how we've always done it now go die yeah like they don't really see the difference of like marching in line to go get got by a Maxim. And then they did like marching in line, like to give like a full volley if you were still using a muzzleloader or whatever. Like the tactics are virtually identical. But every once in a while you get someone to figure out like, wait, if we arch these machine guns up and these are pieces of artillery, they'll go over our soldiers and land on theirs.

And then we can march our soldiers right into that and not have any way to call the artillery off and also kill ours. Perfect. Great idea. Precisely. Yeah.

So, Nick, thank you for joining me. Everybody else, we will see you next week. But until then, don't attempt to take a Russian hill on the Emperor's birthday it's not a great one I got nothing