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''Varyag'' (also spelled ''Variag''; see Varangian for the meaning of the name) ((ロシア語:кре́йсер «Варя́г»)) was a Russian protected cruiser. ''Varyag'' became famous for her crew's stoicism at the Battle of Chemulpo Bay. ==History== The Imperial Admiralty contracted William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia to build the ship, and her keel was laid in October 1898. Launched on 31 October 1899, under Captain Vladimir Behr, she was commissioned into the Imperial Russian Navy on 2 January 1901. During her construction, an assistant physician, Leo Alexandroff, left the ship's advance party on 20 April 1899, and applied for U.S. citizenship. He was arrested for desertion. His case reached the United States Supreme Court, which ruled in ''Tucker v. Alexandroff'' that the ship, though not accepted for service in the Imperial Russian Navy, was a warship under the terms of the 1832 treaty between Russia and the United States.〔''Tucker v. Alexandroff'', 183 U.S. 424.〕 During the Battle of Chemulpo Bay at the start of the Russo-Japanese War, ''Varyag'' (under the command of Captain of the First Rank Vsevolod Rudnev) accepted a badly unequal battle with the Japanese squadron of Admiral Uriu (one armoured cruiser, five protected cruisers and eight destroyers) in a heroic attempt to break out from Chemulpo (Incheon) harbour 9 February 1904. Chemulpo was in neutral Korean waters. Admiral Uriu gave the Russian ships in harbor a written ultimatum to sail by 12:00 noon or be attacked in the harbor itself. Captain Rudnev sortied, accompanied by the gunboat ''Koreets''; having lost 31 men dead, 191 injured (out of 570) and outgunned, both ships returned to harbor by 1:00 p.m., the crew decided not to surrender, but to sink the ship. The crew was saved by transferring them to the British cruiser , the French cruiser ''Pascal'', and the Italian cruiser ; the captain of the US cruiser declined doing so as a violation of U.S. neutrality.〔(Port Arthur: Prologue ) materials of publishing house "Alexander PRINT"〕〔Report from Robert S. McCormack to Secretary of State John Hay, May 11, 1904, in ''Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1904'', Government Printing House, Washington〕 In 1907, Vsevolod Rudnev (by that time dismissed from Russian naval service in the rank of rear admiral) was decorated with the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun for his heroism in that battle; although he accepted the order, he never wore it in public. ''Varyag'' was later salvaged by the Japanese and repaired. She served with the Imperial Japanese Navy as light cruiser . During World War I, Russia and Japan were allies and several ships were transferred by the Japanese to the Russians. She was returned to the Imperial Russian Navy at Vladivostok on 5 April 1916 and renamed ''Varyag''. In June, she departed for Murmansk via the Indian Ocean, arriving in November 1916. She was sent to Liverpool in Great Britain for an overhaul by Cammell Laird in February 1917, and was due to re-enter service with the Arctic squadron of the Russian Navy. However, following the Russian October Revolution on 7 November 1917 crewmen who had remained onboard hoisted the red flag and refused to set sail. On 8 December 1917 she was seized by a detachment of British soldiers. Assigned to the Royal Navy in February 1918, she ran aground while under tow off of Ireland, but was refloated and used as a hulk until 1919. She was then sold to a German firm in 1920 for scrap, but ran aground on rocks near the Scottish village of Lendalfoot () in the Firth of Clyde, while being towed to Germany. She was scrapped in place from 1923-1925.〔Kowner, '' Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War'', p. 407-408.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Russian cruiser Varyag (1899)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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