Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1905 — MUTINYONA WARSHIP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MUTINYONA WARSHIP

RUSSIAN SAILORS SLAY OFFICERS AND SEIZE VESSEL. Raise the Red Flag of Revolution in the Unprotected Harbor of Odessa— Town Fired Upon and Ships and Buildings Burned. The red flag of revolution was hoisted at the masthead of the Kniaz Potemkin, Russia’s most powerful battleship in the Black Sea, when the vessel steamed into Odessa harbor Wednesday' in the bands of mutineers. The captain land most of the officers were murdered and thrown overboard in the open sea, and the ship was completely in the possession of the crew and a few minor officers w’ho had thrown in their lot with the mutineers. The guns of Kniaz Potemkin were trained on the city, and in the streets masses of striking workmen who on the preceding day fled before the volleys of the troops, now inflamed by the spectacle of open revolt on board an imperial warship made a bold front against the military. A dispatch from Odessa on Thursday said that all the shipping in the harbor was ablaze. The battleship Kniaz Potemkin, whose crew mutinied and killed the officers, was re ported to have fired on the city. It was rumored that the men of four other battleships mutinied at Sevastopol. The mutiny was precipitated by the brutally inconsiderate treatment of the crew by the commander of the Potemkin, On all Russian vessels of war the captain buys rations for the crew. The government allows an adequate fund to mess the crew properly, but the mess being the captain's perquisite he usually serves bad food to the crew, pocketing the difference between its cost and the generous sum the government allows him. The crew of the Potemkin had been victims of the captain’s greed. Finally, driven to desperation, the crew held a meeting forward and appointed a delegation to lay their grievances before the captain. The latter wasfurronsandshotthespokeshiah from the forecastle delegation dead. Then, adding insult to injury, the cap-

tain ordered the body tossed overboard. The crew demanded bls burial with full military honors. The captain scornfully refused the demand, whereupon the wrath of the sailors and marines burst out and the entire ship's complement of nearly 700 men mutinied and ran amuck. The sailors and marines rushed to the quarterdeck, where they shot and sabered the captain and all the commissioned officers. It is reported that out of all the officers only one midshipman escaped. He was spared in order that he might navigate the ship. The bodies of the officers were tossed overboard, then the imperial standard and the national flag were hauled down and tho red flag of revolution run up. Following the example of the crew of the Potemkin, the crew of the torpedo boat also mutinied, killed their officers and threw the bodies into the sßa. The midshipman who was spared navigated the Potemkin to Odessa, finishing the sanguinary voyage from Sebastopol. The insurgent torpedo boat, with its decks cleared for action, ran into the harbor and seized the Russian collier Esperanza, with a cargo of 2,000 tons of coal, and took it alongside the battleship. At the same time an armed pinnace which had been launched by the battleship steamed to the quay, where it landed an open coffin containing the body of a seaman to whose .uniform a written paper had been attached. This paper stated that the man’s name was Omiitchuk, and that he had been shot dead by the chief officer of the battleship for complaining about the bad quality of the soup served to the crew. It added that Omiitchuk had been murdered for telling the truth, and that the whole crew had avenged his death by killing the battleship’s officers. The police, supported by the Cossacks, tri<*d to disperse the crowd and remove the body, but the ■ crowd surrounded the coffin and defied them to touch it. Some scuffling followed, but before there was a definite result the Kniaz Potemkin Tvritchesky hoisted signals that the body was to be left on the quay, and that it would be retaken on board later for burial at sun down with full naval honors. If the authorities Interfered the insurgents on the battleship declared they would immediately bombard the city. Meanwhile the battleship was rapidly coaling from the Esperanze. The Governor of Odessa telegraphed to Bt. Petersburg and Sevastopol asking the authorities of the latter place to send the fleet

BIRDSEYE VIEW OF ODESSA.