Recalling her ambassador on February 6, 1904, Japan was ready to strike simultaneous blows at two points.  On February 8, Admiral Uriu challenged two Russian cruisers at Chemulpo to come out and fight, otherwise he would attack them in the harbour.  Steaming out they fired the first shots of the war, and both were captured or destroyed.  A little later on the same day Admiral Togo opened his broadsides on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, and resumed the attack the following morning.  Without challenge or notification of any kind, his attack had the effect of a genuine surprise.  The Russians, whether from confidence in their position or contempt for their enemy, were unprepared and replied feebly.  They had seven battleships to Togo’s six, but the big ships of Japan were supported by a flotilla of torpedo-boats which outnumbered those of Russia.  These alert little craft did great execution.  Creeping into the harbour while the bombardment kept the enemy occupied they sank two battleships and one armoured cruiser.  Other Russian vessels were badly damaged; but, according to Togo’s report, on the side of Japan not one vessel was incapacitated for actual service.

Land forces, fully equipped and waiting for this [Page 185] special service, commenced operations without delay and began to cut off communication from the land side while Togo’s squadron corked up every inlet from the sea.  Alexieff, whose title of viceroy revealed the intentions of Russia in regard to Manchuria, taking alarm at the prospect of a siege, escaped to Harbin near the Siberian frontier—­a safer place for headquarters.  To screen his flight he made unwarrantable use of an ambulance train of the Red Cross Society.  Disagreeing with General Kuropatkin as to the plan of campaign, he resigned the command of the army in April, and Kuropatkin was promoted to the vacant place.  Beaten in several engagements on the Liao-tung peninsula, the Russians began to fall back, followed by the Japanese under Field-Marshal Oyama; and the siege of the fortress was prosecuted with unremitting vigour.

By July the Japanese had secured possession of the outer line of forts, and, planting heavy guns on the top of a high hill, they were able to throw plunging shot into the bosom of the harbour.  No longer safe at their inner anchorage, the Russian naval officers resolved to attempt to reach Vladivostok, where the combined squadrons might assume the offensive or at least be secure from blockade.  Scarcely had they gained the open sea when (on August 10) the Japanese fell on them like a whirlwind and scattered their ships in all directions.  A few reentered the harbour to await their doom; two or three found their way to Vladivostok; two sought refuge at the German port of Tsing-tao; two put into Shanghai; and one continued its flight as far south as Saigon.