Those interested in the history of the Russian fleet are well aware of the caricatured image of Ch. Crump, derived in a number of sources, where the American shipbuilder is presented as an energetic businessman who came to St. Petersburg for profit with grandiose plans. Having learned about participation in the upcoming international competition of "the most famous shipbuilding firms in Europe" and realizing his uncompetitiveness, the unscrupulous American, in order to conclude contracts for the construction of an battleship and a cruiser, bypassing the competition, allegedly went to pay bribes to the head of the Main Directorate of Shipbuilding and Supply (hereinafter GUKiS), Vice Admiral B P. Verkhovsky and the Chief of the Fleet and the Naval Department, General-Admiral Alexei Alexandrovich. But what if, through the prism of that era, we try to look at the circumstances associated with the order of the future "Retvizan" and "Varyag" with an unbiased look?
After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and the "Triple Intervention" by Germany, Russia and France, which resulted in a humiliating refusal for the victorious country to annex the Liaodong Peninsula, Japan began to build up its military power in preparation for further confrontations. In December 1895, the Japanese parliament approved the "Postwar Program" to strengthen the navy, which provided for the commissioning by 1906 of 119 warships with a total displacement of about 146,495 tons, including four class I battleships, six class I armored cruisers, five class II cruisers, 11 fighters and 89 class I-III destroyers. Initially, during the implementation of the "Program" it was supposed to spend 93,978,509.00 yen, taken from the contribution received from China, the total amount of which was 364,482,305.00 yen. The process of implementing the program outlined by the Japanese could not fail to attract the attention of outside observers. So, in July 1897, an international congress of the British "Society of Naval Designers and Marine Engineers" was held in England, where, among others, Charles H. Cramp and an assistant class inspector at the Technical School of the Naval Department, a junior shipbuilder P E. Chernigovsky. As old acquaintances, later at the Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd shipyard, they jointly inspected warships under construction for foreign customers, including the battleships Yashima and Hatsuse, as well as the American-impressed armored cruiser Asama. The fact of the construction of these ships was known to the Russian naval agent in England, Captain 1st Rank K. I.
At the end of 1897, when the battleships Shikishima, Asahi and Hatsuse, as well as the armored cruisers Asama, Tokiwa, Adzuma and Yakumo were at the slipway stage of construction, at the ministry, chaired by General-Admiral Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, formulated the main requirements for the project of a new battleship (according to the plan, "enlarged" Poltava ""). Displacement no more than 12,000 tons, increased speed to 18 knots, the main armament of the ship had to be four 12 "and twelve 6" guns. A few weeks later, the Maritime Technical Committee (hereinafter MTK) began work on the "Design Program" of the battleship or, in modern terms, the tactical and technical assignment, in the final version of which, along with the above elements, a cruising range of up to 5,000 miles with a ten-knot stroke appeared and twenty 75-mm and 47-mm guns.
On February 23, 1898, Emperor Nicholas II approved the new shipbuilding "Program for the needs of the Far East" developed by the Naval Ministry, which provided for the construction of five squadron battleships, 16 cruisers, two minelayers and 36 destroyers. In addition to the financial estimate of the Maritime Ministry for 1898, which amounted to 67,500,000.00 rubles, according to the personalized imperial decree of February 24, 1898 for the needs of the "Program", a "Special Credit" was additionally released under § "Special" in the amount of 90,000,000, 00 rubles.
On the eve of the planned international competition on March 14, 1898, at a Special Meeting, it was "in principle decided" to use the Peresvet project as a prototype for new battleships with an increase in the caliber of the main artillery from 10 "to 12" copper plating of the underwater part of the hull. Competitive invitations were sent in advance to a number of foreign shipbuilding companies, to which two responded: the Italian “Gio. Ansaldo & C "and the German" Schiff- und Maschinenbau-AG "Germania" ", which were objectively outsiders of European shipbuilding at that time. Apparently, including for this reason, the competition was not held, since given the lack of experience of the outlined participants in the design and construction of modern battleships, there was no point in it.
Long before the events described above, the Russian side initiated a lengthy business correspondence with Ch. Kramp, which was conducted by Vice Admiral N. I. he was replaced by Vice Admiral N. O. Makarov) and other senior officials of the fleet, as a result of which, in the early spring of 1898, the head of the American shipyard received a message that the Naval Ministry of the Russian Empire "would be glad to consider" his plans and proposals for the construction "At least two battleships of the 1st class, two protected cruisers of the 1st class with the highest speed and thirty destroyers" in accordance with the new shipbuilding program, which has already been finally authorized by the ministry and approved by Emperor Nicholas II a few weeks ago.
Ch. Crump arrived in St. Petersburg at the beginning of March 1898, where over the next several weeks, bilateral discussions of the widest possible range of topics were held with the chief inspectors of shipbuilding, mechanical part, artillery, mine work and the construction part of the ITC, as a result of which a common agreement on all important issues and Crump was transferred to the "Program for the design" of the battleship. Also discussed was the construction of a shipyard in Port Arthur: T. Seligman (Theodore Seligman), a member of the board of the Belgian society "John Cockerill", shortly before leaving Crump to Russia, told the latter about the proposal made by the Russian side to build his company a shipyard in the Far East, the amount the deal was tentatively estimated at 30,000,000.00 francs (about 7,500,000.00 rubles). The American's visit took place against the background of increased business activity of agents and experts representing the interests of the French and German shipyards in Russia, supported by the embassies and banks of their countries that had influence at the royal court, and here I. Hitchcock provided all possible support and assistance to Ch. Crump (Ethan Allen Hitchcock), Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to Russia, who vigorously stood up to defend the interests of American industrial circles. As a result of the meetings with Ch. Crump held at the end of March, Admiral-General Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich and Chief of the Main Naval Staff F. K. of the year. A few weeks later, St. Petersburg was once again visited by A. Lagane (Antoine-Jean Amable Lagane), the chief designer and director of the shipyard of the society "Forges et chantiers de la Méditerranée", and already on May 26, 1898 by the chairman of the ITC, Adjutant General I. M Dikov, together with a cover letter, received a draft design and a preliminary specification of the battleship, drawn up by a French engineer in accordance with the requirements of the ministerial "Program for Design". Ignoring the "decision in principle" of the Special Meeting, Lagan used as a prototype the battleship Jauréguiberry with a turret arrangement of medium artillery, which, in turn, did not raise any objections from the ITC, two months ago in pursuance of the "decision in principle" of the Special Meeting, which rejected the proposed by Crump as a prototype the tower battleship "Iowa" in favor of the tower-casemate "Peresvet". Soon the French project was approved by the ITC, after which on July 8, 1898, the head of the GUKiS, Vice Admiral V. P. Verkhovsky, signed a contract with Lagan for the construction of a battleship squadron, which was officially named "Tsesarevich" on January 11, 1899.
In addition to two foreign firms, the ministerial "Program" was received by the Baltic and Mechanical Plant of the Maritime Department. The four variants of the project presented later for consideration by the MTC, developed by the senior assistant of the shipbuilder V. Kh. Offenberg, the captain of the corps of naval engineers K. Ya. Averin, as well as the junior assistants of the shipbuilder M. V. Shebalin and N. N. development of the battleship "Peresvet", however, even before the signing of the contract with A. Lagan, were outright rejected by the admiral-general, who, on an uncontested basis, appointed the French project as a prototype in the development of the design for the program "Battleships No. 2-8" of a series of five battleships (battleship number 1 - "Victory").
It is not known, formally, what actually underlay this decision.
However, the unequal conditions in which the two foreign shipyards lived, as well as the fundamental rejection of the idea of a domestic project of a promising battleship, allow us to make an assumption about the political background of the order of the future Tsarevich in France, a country that periodically lent to the Russian government amounts in the hundreds of millions of gold rubles. and with which in 1892 Russia concluded a military convention and established close military-technical cooperation. In addition, there were rumors about corruption that had taken place on the part of Vice Admiral P. P. Tyrtov, head of the Naval Ministry, and Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, Chief of the Fleet and the Naval Department. Whether this is really so, will forever remain a mystery, but the patronizing and inexplicably condescending attitude of the Naval Department towards Lagan is a powerful circumstantial evidence in support of such an assumption.
Lagan, unlike Crump, was spared the need for weeks of grueling discussions at the ITC. The project of the main caliber towers proposed by the American firm for the sake of observing the "uniformity of the material part" was rejected by the customer in favor of domestic installations. is deprived of a profitable order (502,000, 00 rubles), and the fleet is deprived of the uniformity of the material part. The contractual deadline for the delivery of Retvizan was calculated from the moment the supervising commission arrived in America (which arrived in Philadelphia two months after the contract was signed), and the Cesarevich - from the date of the final approval of the MTK drawings (ten and a half months after the contract was signed). If "William Cramp & Sons" undertook to build "Retvizan" in 30 months, then "Forges et chantiers de la Méditerranée" immediately announced a 48-month period, later reduced to 46 months. The explanation given by R. M. Melnikov is in.
However, this hypothesis is refuted by the practice of William Cramp & Sons, which in forty-six months built the tower battleship Iowa and the tower-casemate battleship Maine in forty-six and a half months.
At the same time, the contract value of the two battleships was comparable (3,010,000.00 and 2,885,000.00 dollars, respectively). Threats to fine Crump caused by the failure of the contract terms were lifted only after the latter declared to the admiral-general that there were already buyers for the Retvizan, including Vickers, Sons and Maxim, Limited, which offered one million dollars more than the contract value of the ship. Lagan, who also missed the contract terms, did not receive any threats of fines. But Tsesarevich, accepted with gross violations of contractual norms, unlike Retvizan, went to Port Arthur with an extensive list of imperfections, which served as the basis for delaying the last payment of 2,000,000.00 francs. It is not known when all the problems were finally eliminated, but to eliminate the main one (the capriciousness of the ammunition supply system for the main caliber guns), the French specialists who arrived in Port Arthur aboard the battleship began to prepare in mid-December 1903, that is, fifty-five months after the beginning of the countdown of the contractual deadline for the delivery of the "Tsarevich". On the payment of the last, delayed payment for the "Tsarevich" Vice Admiral F. K. Attention is drawn to the higher, in comparison with the "Retvizan", the cost of a ton of displacement of the "Tsesarevich".
This contrast is all the more striking since the wages of workers at the two shipyards were different. The minimum daily wage at the French shipyard ranged from one to three francs, the maximum - from four to seven. At the same time, at the American shipyard, chasers, ship carpenters, blacksmiths, etc. received $ 18 (93, 29 francs) per week, and coachmen and drillers - from 10 to 10, 5 dollars (from 51, 82 to 54, 42 francs) in Week. Lagan's personnel policy was that the overwhelming majority of his workers were Italian unemployed shipbuilders who came to work in France, accustomed to be content with little, as a result, they often received less for their labor than even their colleagues in Russia, where the workers of the New Admiralty, for example, employed in the construction of the battleship "Oslyabya", in 1897 received an average of 1.03 rubles (4 francs) per day, while the maximum daily earnings reached two rubles (8 francs).
Interestingly, to match the pay gap between American and French shipbuilders, there were daily allowances that the GUKiS paid to supervising the construction of two battleships for the same period of time, in 1900, which amounted to 244 days. Captain I rank IK Grigorovich received "travel allowances" in France for the total amount of 4,748.82 rubles, and captain I rank E. N. Schennovich in the USA - 7,417.40 rubles.
A common place in domestic sources has become accusations against Crump of bribing to conclude a contract bypassing the "international competition" and subsequent extortion by the "subtle sly" of over-contractual amounts for replacing the deck and vertical armor of the Retvizan, so we will consider these points in detail.
The correspondence with the American shipbuilder started by the Ministry of the Navy did not imply the latter's participation in the not even conceived "international competition", for this in the future it was enough just to send him an invitation. The idea to organize a competition appeared after a contact was initiated with an American for the construction of a number of warships in the United States for the Russian fleet.
As for vertical armor, the official documents of the US Congress and the US Navy at our disposal reveal a different picture, different from the familiar and long-standing textbook for the domestic reader. As you know, at the end of the 19th century, American metallurgical companies have repeatedly supplied Russia with armor at a lower price than for ships under construction in the US Navy. Krupp's armor for the Retvizan was no exception, the average price of which was several tens of dollars lower than the cost of Harvey's armor supplied to the battleships Kearsarge and Kentucky, for example. The latter carried garveized nickel armor, the price of which, depending on the manufacturer, as well as the configuration, thickness and weight of the plates, ranged from $ 525 to $ 638 per ton. An appeal to domestic sources supplements the above with details that are not available in American sources available to us.
S. A. Balakin:
“… Using insufficiently clear wording in the contract, I agreed to fulfill the customer's conditions only on condition of their additional payment. After another series of bickering, the parties somehow agreed. 229-mm Krupp plates were contracted to be made by the American company Bethlehem Steel Company, and 178-mm, 152-mm, 127-mm and deck armor - by Carnegie Steel Company. For this, the Russian Naval Ministry had to "fork out" $ 310 thousand in excess of the amount stipulated in the contract."
However, the facts are such that, in fact, the amount named by Balakin was paid only for the deck armor, and not only for the Retvizan, but also for the Varyag. As the historian of shipbuilding and the fleet R. M. Melnikov wrote in the magazine "Sudostroenie" almost half a century ago:
“The order of the deck armor of the cruiser caused a conflict with the firm. For the supply of it from the extra-soft nickel steel accepted by that time, Crump, referring to the contract, demanded an additional payment. Changing the type of armor on the battleship and cruiser cost the ministry $ 310,000."
For the deck armor of the Varyag, an additional $ 85,000 was paid; on the Retvizan, a similar surcharge was $ 225,000, a total of $ 310,000. For the replacement of Harvey's armor with Krupp's armor, we repeat, the Naval Department did not have to pay extra to the Americans.
The cheapness of the construction of the Retvizan (in comparison with the Tsarevich) against the background of higher than in France costs for American labor and American building materials cannot but raise reasonable doubts about the economic feasibility of the alleged bribe by the American. On the contrary, these circumstances allow us to say that by now the narrative, announcing the conclusion of contracts with Ch. Crump as a consequence of the personal interest of the head of the GUKiS V. P. Verkhovsky and General-Admiral Alexei Alexandrovich, has exhausted its credibility.
The limited information available in the sources available to us does not allow us to make a full-fledged comparison of "Tsarevich" and "Revizan", therefore we will have to limit ourselves to only a few aspects. The design features of the compared battleships are such that in a real combat situation, the "Tsesarevich", despite the presence of the original mine protection, was in a more distressing position than other torpedoed Port Arthur ships. The torpedo hit the stern part of the left side of the "Tsarevich" in the area of the beginning of the stern tube, the epicenter of the explosion was below the waterline by about 2, 74 meters and fell against the premises of the ship's arsenal. As a result of the explosion, a hole was formed with an area of 18, 5 square meters, the total area of the deformed section is 46, 45 square meters. "Tsesarevich" received up to 2,000 tons of water, its maximum roll reached 18 degrees, at the same time, according to the calculations of the chief ship engineer of the port RR Svirsky and the French engineer Coudreau, an additional increase in the roll by half a degree. Vigorous counter-flooding of nine compartments at once, carried out before the threshold of loss of stability, helped to avoid the disaster.
As a result of a torpedo hit on the left side of the Retvizan, a hole of about 15 square meters was formed in the area of the underwater torpedo tube and the adjacent torpedo cellar. The epicenter of the explosion was about 2.5 meters below the waterline, the total area of the area deformed by the explosion was about 37 square meters. Three compartments with a total capacity of 2,200 tons were filled with water (according to other sources, 2,500 tons), by the time the ship began to straighten as a result of counterflooding of the right cellars, the roll reached 11 degrees (the artillery ports of the Retvizan entered the water at 12 degrees).
The weight of the Tsesarevich's booking was 3347.8 tons, while the Retvizan had a similar figure of 3300 tons. The Tsesarevich's belt armor (490 square meters and 346 square meters, respectively) covered a much larger freeboard area than that of the Retvizan. But at the "Retvizan" casemates of 6 "guns from the outside were protected by armor plates with a total area of about 128 square meters; in addition, the side of the battleship in the extremities on an area of about 170 square meters was covered with armor plates 51 mm thick. caliber "Tsesarevich", depending on the angle of rotation, ranged from 33 square meters to 27 square meters. Thus, the total areas of the armor of the two battleships, excluding the towers of the main caliber, significantly differed from each other, amounting to 517-523 square meters at " Tsarevich "and 644 square meters at the" Retvizan ". Which of the two systems is better, it is impossible to say unequivocally, since both have their own advantages and disadvantages. the slightest delay, the distribution of armor on the Retvizan looks more preferable.
