Page:At the Fall of Port Arthur.djvu/145

Rh The loss of the great battleship Petropavlovsk has already been recorded in "Under the Mikado's Flag." This vessel was sunk by a mine in Port Arthur harbor, April 13, 1904, and carried down with her Admiral Makaroff and about five hundred officers and men. At the same time the battleship Pobieda was also injured by a mine.

The loss of the admiral's flag-ship was a great blow to Russia, and while she was trying to recover, Port Arthur was vigorously shelled by the Japanese fleet, and many buildings were more or less damaged. Some warehouses were set on fire, but the local fire department, aided by the Russian garrison, succeeded in putting out the conflagration.

While the Japanese fleet was hammering at the city and the ships from beyond the harbor, the Japanese army encircled Port Arthur on land, taking possession of every available hill beyond the Russian line of defenses. As a consequence, by the middle of May the city was in a complete state of siege, nearly all communication with the outside world being cut off.

But now came a turn in affairs which, for a short while, made matters look favorable for Russia. While the fleet of Admiral Togo was patrolling the whole of the southeastern coast of Manchuria and protecting the Japanese transports which were