IN CLIO'S CAUSE
Russians Attack Civilian Craft
"We Must Expect
to Be Attacked Tonight"
by Kenneth Maciver History may not repeat itself but the twisting circles it spins are patterned in familiar configurations. Just over 79 years ago a Russian battle fleet attacked unarmed British fishing boats in the North Sea , killing innocent civilians. The so-called "Dogger Bank Incident" has many similarities to the downing last fall of a KAL airliner by a Soviet missile. On a night when visibility was reasonably good and identification of target was probable, Russian naval units attacked without warning, setting off a shock wave of concern and anger throughout the world. Moreover, as in the recent episode, the Russian Government crudely and unsuccessfully attempted to redefine the affair through manipulation of the news. The roots of this scarefying " incident" ran back to the Russian attempt to secure their frontiers by occupying Manchuria . Upheavals in China, the fulcrum of Asia , seemed to offer this opportunity. Nationalist societies-translated as "Righteous Harmonious Fists" or Boxers-attacked missionaries and consulate staffs . In response an international contingent of troops, including some from Russia and the United States, intervened and put down the Boxer Rebellion. The real action was in the north, however. There the Czar's government took advantage of the Chinese crisis to pour thousands of troops into Manchuria. They showed no inclination to leave. Imperial Britain , whose fleet ruled the waves, responded to Russian aggression by signing a mutual aid pact with the Japanese ; in effect , the Japanese were given carte blanche to unleash their armed forces. They soon struck and Russia's Far Eastern adventure turned to a nightmare. The Japanese pounced on the Russians at Port Arthur and subsequently wiped out the Russian Pacific Squadron. Japanese armies invaded Korea and the Liaotung Peninsula and pounded disorganized Russian troops. Desperately the Russian High Command attempted to relieve the shambles in Asia by sending its European fleet round the world to join in the war. It was this navy, labelled the Second Pacific Fleet, that attacked the peaceful fishermen trawling on Dogger Bank, a long sand bar in the North Sea between England and Denmark. A fleet of some 150 trawlers, mostly from Hull, had set their trawls and were going about their work when suddenly searchlights from the Russian squadron of 40 ships flashed upon them. Some fishermen joked, some held up their freshcaught haddock and plaice to identify their purpose, others cursed , and then some died-for without warning the RusSEA HISTORY, SPRING 1984
sians opened fire and poured hundreds of shells into the flotilla of fishing boats. Russian guns fired and fired , hitting not only fishing boats but their own vessels. At last they concluded that they had driven the enemy away. When the guns fell silent there were no Japanese torpedo boats to be seen , only battered fishing craft. World opinion reacted forcefully to the outrage. As pressure mounted , the Russians issued a statement noting that their Second Pacific Fleet had been attacked by Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea , and that during the course of the combat, searchlights revealed the presence of several fishing boats. More news came in , and it became apparent that the Russian ships had also fired on two merchant steamers, one Swedish, one Danish , in the same day. They had even threatened to sink the Danish launch that brought news of Rozhenstvensky's promotion to Vice Admiral. British demands for compensation and apology brought only silence. And then the lion roared. In those days its roar was deafening. Eight battleships from the Channel Fleet , twelve from the Mediterranean, others from the Home Fleet, two score cruisers and seventy-five destroyers and gunboats were alerted. Reserves were called up and a fever of activity swept British naval bases and shipyards. Russia backed down; apologies came, compensation was promised and certain officers were dropped from the fleet to face punishment for the incident. As for the Second Pacific Squadron , it steamed to Qie Straits of Tsushima where in May 1905 it was destroyed by the guns of Admiral Togo's warships. Russia was forced to cede Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula , agreed to leave Manchuria and acceded to Japanese domination in Korea. It might have been worse but for President Theodore Roosevelt who would mediate the peace at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. If Russian tactics on that October evening in 1904 were similar to the actions of the Soviet Air Defense in September last year, it was because the mindset and strategy of the Russians were also comparable to current attitudes. Then as now, the Russian state saw itself hedged by hostile forces. She had been shaped by war and invasion and an archaic and autocratic social system. Russian paranoia, coupled with diplomatic inefficiency, established a deep-rooted case of jitters, a tendency to rely on widespread networks of spies and a muddled, bungling foreign policy. All these factors contributed to the slaughter of the trawlermen. u, u, U, .
Insight into the Russian view of the Dogger Bank attack is given in letters Eugene S. Politovsky, Engineer-in-Chief to the fleet , wrote home to his wife from aboard the fleet flagship Suvoroff. Killed when his ship was sunk at Tsushima the following year, he had no chance to revise his notes, which reflected the dense atmosphere of fantasy that prevailed aboard the warship. Starting with pity for the fishermen, he rapidly gets onto other concerns: "Imagine the feelings of the people in those ships! They were, no doubt , fishermen. Now there will be universal scandal. As a matter of fact they are to blame themselves. They must have known our fleet was coming, and they must have known the Japanese wished to destroy it. They saw the fleet. Why did they not cut adrift their nets, if they had them out, and get out of the way? The nets could be paid for afterwards."
The fishermen in fact had lights on , and sent up flares to advertise their presence; apparently the Russians took these as ruses by the wily Japanese. Politovsky, having unburdened himself of these circuitously embarrassed and pettish thoughts, concludes in mounting paranoia: " If it was not the Kamchatka, but the Japanese, who asked the position of the fleet [Kamchatka had strayed off and wirelessed in asking where the fleet was, shonly before the attack] , they will now know where we are to be found. If that is the case, we must expect to be attacked tonight."
Still more depressing is the considered testimony of Commander Semenoff in his famous book Rasplata ("The Reckoning"). He initially, quite sanely, had suggested that the Admiral verify the missing Kamchatka '.s signal by asking the name and birthday of the engineer-information hardly likely to be instantly available aboard a Japanese torpedo boat. This was ignored, and the debate on the flagship's bridge continued until , stumbling upon the fishing craft , the warships opened fire on them. Semenoff at first felt this was a mistake. Later, reading the shocked reaction of the world press, he reversed himself and decided Japanese torpedo boats had been present-and that one at least had been caught and damaged by the Russian fire! The "disciplined English press," who were fomenting all the trouble about the shootup, had presumably managed to keep these ships utterly hidden from the world. Final confirmation of Semenoffs suspicions came to him in the realization that people on five different Russian ships had seen the Japanese-could they all be "victims of the same hypnotic influence"? The answer is, tragically, yes. -ED.
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