Admiral Stark at Port Arthur 1904

Scapegoat Naval Commander in the Russo-Japanese War

Apr 26, 2007

cruiser pallada sunk 1904, authors collection

Like Admiral Kimmel at Pearl Harbor in 1941, Russian Admiral Stark was the incorrect scapegoat for defeat in 1904 at the hands of the same attacker.

With a three hundred year naval heritage the Russian Navy had its share of heroes. One of these was Oskar Victorovich Stark. Stark was born August 16, 1846. He attended the Naval Kadetsky School in 1864 with an appointment to the Tsar’s Navy. He commanded the research frigate Vostok from 1874-77 in which he made several Polar explorations. During this time he became an explorer of note. Two straits in the Pacific Ocean are still named for Stark to this day. Later service included command of the gunboat Weasel in the Russo-Turkish War and later the gunboats Sivuch and Pervenets and the cruiser Vladimir Monomakh. By 1898 he was promoted a Rear Admiral and made junior commander of the Pacific Squadron and then Commander of the naval base at Port Arthur. In December 1902 he was made a Vice Admiral and given command of the whole of the Tsar’s newly expanded Pacific Fleet. This was to prove a monumental assignment as conflict threatened the region over Russia and Japan’s competing designs for it.

Stark’s fleet was impressive as it contained 7 modern battleships and 11 cruisers with reinforcements arriving everyday from the shipyards of Europe and America. The Imperial Japanese Navy under Admiral Togo was comparable, with six battleships and 13 cruisers, but Japan was near the limit of its treasury whereas Imperial Russia was undergoing incredible industrial growth. Stark, however, was confronted with several difficulties that could not be seen on paper. The Russian Navy had expanded greatly in a twenty year period and while it had excellent ships and equipment it suffered from a lack of trained officers and more importantly non-commissioned officers. Stark also found that he was undermined by the Viceroy of the region, Grand Admiral E.I. Alekseev, who as a shareholder in a major land company with holdings and ventures that depended on Russian designs on Korea. Admiral Alekseev constantly ordered the fleet around to accommodate those plans to his own personal benefit.

Admiral Togo decided that the best way to influence the naval war was to mount a preemptive strike to cripple or shock the Russian fleet into inaction and therefore achieve local naval superiority. The opening salvo of the war was when he drew his combined fleet together and launched a torpedo boat attack on the night of February 8/9 1904 on the Russian fleet as it lay at anchor off of Port Arthur. Contemporary reports of the attack describe the Russians as being completely unready with Admiral Stark even throwing a Nero-like party for his wife during the attack. The party actually did occur but had in fact ended long before the Japanese torpedo boats wrecked their havoc. The story of Admiral Stark and his wife dancing to the sounds of the fleet being sunk at its moorings is simply a lurid exaggeration that has been accepted as fact. Admiral Stark had in fact passed orders to his captains to be wary of pending hostilities with the Japanese. He had even instructed the cruiser Pallada to make steam and prepare to travel to Japan to remove the Russian Embassy Staff. It must be remembered that Imperial Japan began the war with the attack on Port Arthur while it was at peace, a tactic that would be repeated on December 7, 1941.

The night raid caused slight damage to the fleet (two Russian battleships and one cruiser damaged but repairable and about fifty casualties) and it promptly made itself ready for battle. When the Japanese fleet of Admiral Togo approached Port Arthur during the dawn hours to finish it off it only narrowly avoided a major fleet engagement when the Russians came out shooting. This engagement was fought by fleets which were still roughly equal but the Russians had the benefit of being inside the range of their own coastal artillery that could have tipped the scales in their favor. Admiral Togo broke off the engagement as the Russian shells began to find their range and wisely withdrew. If Admiral Stark’s plan had succeeded the Russo-Japanese war may have only lasted two days. It wasn’t until the day after this battle, February 10th that war was actually declared.

Stark was loudly criticized in the Russian and later the world press as incorrectly having suffered a huge defeat and was replaced by the equally unlucky Vice Admiral Stefan Makarov on March 8, 1904. Admiral Stark was given the Order of St Vladimir and sent back to Europe with a staff assignment with the Black Sea Fleet as a scapegoat for failed Russian policy in the Far East. In 1908 he was made commander of the Obuhovskogo naval steel foundry and allowed to retire that same year. During world war one he was brought back from retirement, but that is another story.

Sources

The Tarasov Saga: From Russia Through China to Australia Gary Nash Rosenburg publishing 2002

Russian White Guards Mordwinkin, George Trafford Publishing 1923

The Russo-japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero David Wolff, Steve G. Marks, Bruce W. Menning, and David Schimmelpenninck Van Der Oye 2007

The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05 Peggy Warner 1995

The copyright of the article Admiral Stark at Port Arthur 1904 in Military History is owned by Christopher Eger. Permission to republish Admiral Stark at Port Arthur 1904 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.