The Battle of Tsushima (May 27 - 28, 1905)

Battle flags flying, the Russian Second Pacific Squadron (i.e. the Baltic Fleet) approaches its clash with Togo after steaming halfway round the world. This still shows the leading Russian battleships simulated with scale models for a movie. To view an excerpt from this film -- Great Naval Battle in the Sea of Japan, 1969 -- use the link at the bottom of the page.

Earlier in the war, the Japanese had gradually reduced the Russian Far East Squadron (built around 6 modern battleships). They did this through mines, torpedo attacks, long-range bombardment, and one crucial fleet action in the Yellow Sea, August 10, 1904. The strategic prize of the war, the great fortress and naval base at Port Arthur, surrendered to the Japanese Army January 2. The Tsar responded by scraping together every available vessel from the Baltic and Black Sea fleets -- including 4 brand-new French-style battleships which had barely completed their trials, coast defense ironclads, obsolete battleships, river gunboats, 25-year-old cruisers with antiquated armor and full sailing rig, and the lovely Almaz (Diamond) -- a converted luxury yacht with clipper bow, elegant raked masts and funnels, and spoon-shaped counter stern. The Admiralty ordered them all to prepare for an 18,000-mile odyssey to relieve Port Arthur.
Russian fleet getting pounded at Tsushima, May 1905
At left, a scene from the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, in which the Japanese annihilated the Russian Baltic fleet, reinforced with any available ironclads in the Russian reserves. In this artist's conception, the Russian fleet, in two columns, plows through a storm of high-explosive fire from the waiting Japanese. Admiral Heihachiro Togo's Imperial Japanese fleet opposing them included 4 modern battleships and 8 armored cruisers, totaling about 60 vessels. Meantime in St. Petersburg, Vice Adm. Zinovy Rozhdestvensky -- a political admiral with good connections at court -- was placed in command of a motley 48-ship flotilla. The fleet included 38-year-old iron cruisers, vessels with unreliable engines, ships so new they had not completed their trials, ships so old that Lt. Semyenov (a staff officer on the flagship Kniaz Suvorov) likened them to "old flatirons and galoshes." Suvorov was a member of the newly-completed Borodino class, Russian-built copies of the French-made Tsesarevich, all of which completed 1,000-2,000 tons over weight. The Suvorov was so weighted down with luxurious fittings (e.g., marble slabs in the officers' quarters) that she was dangerously top-heavy and her speed was reduced by 2 kts; when overloaded with coal as all the fleet was during the journey, much of her scanty 6" thick/2' tall armor belt was submerged, leaving her with little or no waterline protection against enemy shellfire. If thus damaged, and burdened with accumulated water from the firehoses, the top-heavy ships were very prone to capsize.

In the "flat irons" category, the coastal ironclads (right) and older battleships added a quasi-comical look to the fleet's silhouette. Within days of departing Libau in the Baltic, the fleet nearly caused war with Great Britain. The Russian command had become spooked by fraudulent intelligence that Japanese torpedo boats were lurking in every fjord in Norway, every cove in Flanders. On the night of Oct. 21, 1904 the fleet was steaming some 40 miles off course through the North Sea when they blundered on the Gamecock fishing fleet with its trawls out. Mistaking well-illuminated British steam trawlers for Japanese torpedo boats, the panicky Russians floodlit the fishing craft and then opened fire on them without warning, killing 2 fishermen and sinking a trawler, inflicting wounds and damage on many others. Rozhdestvensky refused to render aid to his victims or offer any sort of explanation. Instead he steamed haughtily off for Spain, leaving the wounded to cope for themselves. Rozhdestvensky and his officers forever after insisted that enemy torpedo boats had been among the trawlers. Immediately the aggrieved fishermen hove into Hull on the 23rd, a major diplomatic incident mushroomed. The Russians were shadowed well down the coast of Africa by the British Home and Channel fleets, as the Foreign Office rumbled ominously. In the end, things simmered down and an apology and indemnity were eventually offered by the Tsar. Meanwhile, the fallout from the trawler incident closed British ports and many neutral ones to the Russians, aggravating the difficulty of refueling the fleet en route to the Far East. The Commander-in-Chief had negotiated for regular rendezvous with colliers owned by the Hamburg-Amerika Line -- an arrangement which worked quite smoothly and in fact, made the long trip possible.

The Russians' guns fell curiously silent after the fishing fleet fiasco. During the grueling 7-month voyage out, Rozhdestvensky made only one attempt at target practice. Indeed, he showed little true leadership ability, unless ceaselessly badgering and intimidating one's subordinates be reckoned leadership. In truth, he had taken on a Herculean task, did not know how to delegate or build a team, was cursed with corrupt and incompetent subordinates, and was being crushed by his responsibilities. He suffered 2 apparent breakdowns already during the voyage, which for all its flaws stood as a great triumph of logistics and seamanship -- and a great triumph of the will of Rozhdestvensky, to be sure. Longer than most, he had long recognized the futility of the mission and, a true patriot, was devoured by feelings of guilt and inadequacy; still by retreating into his gruff persona, he did not prepare as he might for the day of reckoning. As the Russian armada neared the end of its journey, the men were worn out and morale was poor. As always low on coal, Rozhdestvensky decided on the shortest route: cutting west of Japan, then northwards across the Sea of Japan to Vladivostok, gambling that his formation could slip past Togo in the mist. Typically, Rozhdestvensky did not confide in his staff or commanders what the plan of action was to be.

General map of the action at TsushimaThe battlefield was to be the eastern strait between Kyushu and Korea, a natural choke point to intercept ships running through from either direction. There Japanese Admiral Togo Heihachiro waited with steam up, ready to sortie when his scouts reported the Russians heading into the Strait (Tsushima Kaikyo). The morning weather was misty, with visibility only a mile, but the Russians had been tailed since the previous night, betrayed by the glow of their hospital ship Kostroma, blazing with light while the rest of the fleet was blacked out. The Russians were traveling in two columns, most of their strength in the starboard column; cruisers, transports, and auxiliary vessels to port. As the weather cleared after noon, Togo led his fleet across the enemy's "T" and then performed a U-turn in sequence, deploying in a single line on a course parallel to the Russians' port column. This had the effect of allowing Togo to use his full broadsides while the Russians could only reply with their forward turrets, halving their artillery power. After assuming their parallel course, broadside to broadside, the Japanese were firing downwind and with the light behind them, while the Russians fired into the wind and squinted to see into the light and haze. Togo skillfully used his superior speed (the Russians were plodding along at 11 knots, the speed of their slowest ship) to choose an advantageous position to open. The Russians opened a surprisingly accurate fire at long range while Togo's line was still deploying, scoring one hit on Mikasa, but failing to cause decisive damage. Commencing at 1:47 p.m., from a range of 4,000 yards, the Japanese began a sustained and deadly rain of shell that soon wrought havoc on the Russian ships.

The Japanese gunnery was superb, and was aided by a new type of shell which exploded on the slightest contact and burned white-hot, setting fire to the paintwork and stored longboats of the Russian fleet. Though the Russians returned fire doggedly, their formation -- chaotic from the first -- crumpled under the relentless bombardment of their enemy. The raw crews' rate of fire was slowed by their own propellant: black powder that left a lingering cloud of smoke after every shot, making it difficult to spot their fall of shot or correct aim. After fighting manfully for 40 minutes or so, the Russian crews were transfixed by the wholesale slaughter and destruction, their ever-worsening predicament, the distinct likelihood of imminent death. At ranges down to 2,400 yards the Japanese gun crews pelted away mercilessly. With the vacuum of command from the doomed flagship, and the difficulty of organizing an adequate damage control amid the frequent hits on the ships' vulnerable high topsides and unarmored waterlines, the battle quickly degenerated into a rout.

Japanese fleet firing at Tsushima, with Togo's calligraphyAfter an hour of punishment, the leading Russian units -- the flagship Suvorov and the 10-inch battleship Osliabya, had been pounded into wrecks and started to settle in the water. Osliabya was the first to sink outright around 4 p.m., after having her bows badly chewed and burnt. Nearly to the last she kept her bows doggedly turned into the storm of shellfire, leading her column; then suddenly she sheered off, capsized, and sank. The Suvorov had left formation and was enveloped in flame and smoke with only a few guns still firing. The new battleship Alexander III took her place at the head of the column and immediately suffered the brunt of the excellent Japanese gunnery. The new cruiser Svietlana was damaged; the old armored frigates Dmitri Donskoi and Admiral Nakhimoff were running for their lives. As the lead ships took the worst of it and their smoke masked the fire of the cruisers, still stationed toward the rear of the line, Enquist broke and ran with the best part of the cruiser fleet, leaving the older vessels to their fate. As Enquist blasted his way free at high speed, the Japanese fleet began to envelop the hapless remaining Russians in a ring of steel -- a ring blazing destruction from 500 gun barrels. The Borodino class battleship Alexander III, already burning fiercely, was hit below the bridge and perished in a thunderous explosion just as the red sun nicked the horizon. Within seconds, only a towering smoke cloud remained to mark where the battleship had been.

Russian warships foundering at Tsushima, May 1905In this Japanese artist's conception, Russian warships founder while lifeboats bear crewmen away between towering shell splashes; click here to enlarge. This clever woodblock print well depicts the panic and disarray on the Russian side. (Click image to enlarge.) As portrayed in Semyonov's account, Adm. Rozhdestvensky lay unconscious with shrapnel wounds piercing his scalp and leg -- the rest of the personnel in his battle bridge all killed by shellbursts -- while the Suvorov slowly sank beneath him: her fires raging out of control, her fire hoses cut to ribbons by shell splinters and abandoned by panicked crewmen. The comatose Commander in Chief was transferred first to the destroyer Buiyny; later when she developed engine trouble, he was taken into Buiyny's sister the Biedovi, followed by his full staff and 100 or more rescued survivors of the sunken Osliabya. Admiral Nebogatoff in the antique ironclad Nikolai I assumed effective command of the disintegrating fleet. The crew of the wounded cruiser Svietlana -- one of the 2 ships which had been ordered off without completing trials -- fought off 2 Japanese cruisers until her ammunition ran out, whereon the crew opened her kingston valves and sent her to the bottom rather than surrender. As dusk fell, Togo launched his torpedo boats on the Russian fleet. Despite stabbing Russian searchlights, high winds and seas that hampered their operation, some of the swift destroyers found their marks. The flagship Suvorov was finished with 4 torpedoes, capsizing around 6:30, her bottom remaining awash some 20 minutes before giving up the ghost. The 1889 battleship Navarin was sunk with 620 men after taking a spread of torpedoes (there were only 3 survivors). More whooshes and waterspouts signaled destruction for some three hours; the 1891 battleship Sissoi Veliky was hit but managed to hold on until dawn; the armored cruisers Nakhimoff (1884) and Vladimir Monomakh (1880) were badly damaged and later scuttled by their own crews to prevent capture. Meanwhile, the Japanese battle fleet retired and patiently awaited the dawn.

Battleship OREL after surrendering to Togo's forces at TsushimaDawn revealed the Russians scattered and limping, except for a core of five ships -- the battered Borodino class battleships Orel (left), the ancient flaship Nikolai I, and the protected cruiser Izumrud -- making a run for it. Straggling along astern were 2 Russian coast-defense ironclads, which struck their colours to the Japanese first. Next the Japanese battleships and cruisers surrounded Nebogatov's group and forced a surrender. In another corner of the strait, the coast defense ironclad Admiral Ushakov went down, ablaze from stem to stern but with her guns still firing. Many individual Russian vessels attempted to flee, only to run aground or opt to sink their own ships when capture appeared inevitable. The once-haughty Rozhdestvensky was bagged when the Japanese destroyer Sazanami captured the Russian destroyer Buiny bearing him towards Vladivostok. The comatose admiral was brought into a Japanese military hospital at Sasebo; suffering nerve, head, and leg wounds that would have killed a lesser man, Rozhdestvensky rallied strongly after a slow start and lived until 1909, though with diminished vigor. Publicly he became the scapegoat for the entire fiasco, and he gamely claimed sole responsibility in the many courts martial at which he testified (although the C-in-C was exonerated, 2 of his staff faced the firing squad and 2 others served lengthy prison sentences). Of the mighty armada he had once led from Libau, only the shapely Almaz and 2 destroyers gained the safety of Vladivostok's Golden Horn. Three protected cruisers (the Aurora, Oleg, and Zhemchug) ran to Manila, where they were interned until the end of hostilities. The Mikado's Navy inherited 2 serviceable battleships and 2 coast-defense ironclads mounting 10" guns, plus several cruisers, destroyers, transports and hospital ships. At summer's end, 5 more damaged Russian battleships and 6 cruisers were raised from the Port Arthur mud. All were restored and mustered into the Imperial Japanese Navy over the next few years: powerful but outdated warships. After less than 10 years of coping with these vessels' idiosyncrasies, the Japanese were glad to sell them back to the Russians when chance placed them on the same side in WWI. The ex-Russian Japan insisted on keeping was the American-built Retvizan. The reason was plain to see: Retvizan was a good sea boat, whereas the French-inspired Russian pre-Dreadnoughts were the poorest imaginable: many naval architects consider the 5 Borodinos the worst pre-dreadnoughts ever built.

Night attack by Japanese TBs on Russian warships at TsushimaThe pastel drawing at right shows a moment from the night action,with Japanese torpedomen falling to a Russian hit. Sadly for the Russians, their gunnery was hardly ever this accurate. Seldom has there been so crushing and absolute a military victory. Of the 38 warships that had set out from the Baltic in October, only 3 made it to Vladivostok; 4 out of the 5 new Russian capital ships were sunk; in all 22 Russian ships were sunk and 7 surrendered. 4,000 Russians were killed and about 6,000 taken prisoner. The Japanese lost 3 torpedo boats; their 'butcher's bill' was 116 killed and 538 wounded.

The lopsided victory at Tsushima was looked upon as, in part, a victory for British naval technology, although the brilliant tactics of Adm. Togo and the superior discipline and gunnery of his command deserve most of the credit. They stood in sharp contrast to the bungling Russians. From the hare-brained inspiration of the Tsar to the incompetent leadership of his court-favorite commander, from the hasty construction and safety short-cuts in shipbuilding, from the diplomatic bungling to the logistical improvisation of the great voyage, the catastrophic adventure of Tsushima was one great cock-up by the Russians, from top to bottom. This bungling reflected a rotten regime on its last legs: self-absorbed, corrupt, and out of touch with reality.

Coming almost exactly 100 years after Nelson's Battle of Trafalgar, Tsushima was, like Trafalgar, a decisive victory accomplished against a nominally superior force.

The projection of naval power by upstart Japan and the fashionable theories about sea-power by American admiral and writer Alfred Thayer Mahan spurred the building of battleship fleets around the world: This was, after all, the high noon of European imperialism and "gunboat diplomacy." And the armored battleship -- majestic, invulnerable behind its armor, haughty with the unanswerable power of its fearful guns -- was the ultimate symbol of national prestige. The standard was set by Great Britain, the uncontested monarch of the imperial powers, whose Royal Navy "ruled the waves." But despite the orgy of battleship building that beggared nations for decades afterwards, true political hegemony eluded the hopeful builders.

Russian battleship Osliabya, sunk by Japanese shellfire at TsushimaTsushima turned out to be the last decisive, all-surface-fleet action in history. Everyone expected a repeat of the battle's sweeping victory, yet mastery was not decided on the seas in World War I, belying the enormous expenditure of treasure and planning to create the dreadnought fleets. In the whole war, the combined fleets fought only briefly and indecisively for a single explosive hour at Jutland, while submarine warfare stole the headlines. Mines and torpedoes proved effective, low-cost "equalizer weapons" against enormous and complex battleships, whose cost in the pre-dreadnought era hovered around £1M, but in the Dreadnought age could exceed £2M each (the five Queen Elizabeth class super-dreadnoughts cost around £4M each). And by the time of WWII, air power had eclipsed the battleship, in the process taking out a tremendous number of capital ships on both sides.

The Russian battleship Osliabya was the first vessel sunk by Japanese shellfire at Tsushima.

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