Led by the Suvorov and Osliabya, the Russian fleet steams to disaster in two columns. A third column consisted of auxiliary ships. Adm. Rozhdestvensky threw his entire formation into confusion just before action commenced, ordering the columns to converge into one, and then countermanding the order as his ships veered into a series of collisions and near-misses. Preoccupied with sorting out their stations and avoiding crashes, his captains missed their best opportunity of hitting Togo's ships as they crossed the Russians' "T" and deployed for battle. Several hits were scored on the flagship Mikasa at this point, delivering a slight wound to Togo, who nevertheless insisted on remaining on his bridge throughout the action.
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Battleships | ||||
Name | Class | Date Completed | Main Armament | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Kniaz Suvorov | Borodino | 1904 | 4 x 12"/40 | Sunk 5/27/05 |
Alexander III | Borodino | 1904 | 4 x 12"/40 | Magazines blew |
Borodino | Borodino | 1904 | 4 x 12"/40 | Sunk 5/27/05 |
Orel | Borodino | 1904 | 4 x 12"/40 | Surrendered 5/28/05 |
Osliabya | Peresviet | 1902 | 4 x 10"/40 | Sunk 5/27/05 |
Navarin | Based on | 1896 | 4 x 12"/40 | Sunk 5/27/05 |
Sissoi Veliky | One-off | 1896 | 4 x 12"/35 | Scuttled 5/28/05 |
Nikolai I | Alexander II | 1888 | 2 x 12"/35 | Surrendered 5/28/05 |
Coast-Defense Battleships | ||||
Adm. Ushakov | Admiral | 1898 | 4 x 10"/40 | Sunk 5/27/05 |
Adm. Senyavin | Admiral | 1898 | 4 x 10"/40 | Surrendered 5/28/05 |
Gen'l Adm. Apraksin | Admiral | 1899 | 4 x 10"/40 | Surrendered 5/28/05 |
Armored Cruiser & Old Belted Cruisers | ||||
Admiral Nakhimov | One-off | 1888 | 8 x 8"/40 | Sunk 5/27/05 |
Dmitri Donskoi | One-off | 1885 | 6 x 6"/45, 10 x 4.7" | Scuttled 5/28/05 |
Vladimir Monomakh | One-off | 1880 | 5 x 6"/45, 8 x 4.7" | Sunk 5/27/05 |
Protected Cruisers | ||||
Oleg | Bogatyr | 1902 | 14 x 6" QF | Interned @ Manila |
Avrora | Pallada | 1902 | 12 x 6" QF | Interned @ Manila |
Izumrud | Improved Novik | 1904 | 6 x 4.7"/45 | Scuttled 5/28/05 |
Zhemchug | Improved Novik | 1904 | 6 x 4.7"/45 | Interned @ Manila |
Svietlana | French DuChayla | 1896 | 6 x 6.4"/45 | Sunk 5/27/05 |
Almaz | One-off | 1903 | 4 x 12-pdr | Made Vladivostok |
Destroyers | ||||
Biedovy, Bystryi | Buinyi - early | 1904 | 3 x 18" TT | Scuttled 5/27 or 5/28/05 |
Buinyi, | Buinyi | 1903 | 3 x 18" TT | Sunk, exc. Buinyi |
Gromkyi | Grozny | 1904 | 3 x 18" TT | Sunk 5/27/05 |
Grozny, Bravy | Grozny | 1904 | 3 x 18" TT | Made Vladivostok |
 The Imperial Japanese Battle FleetBattleships | ||||
Mikasa | London class | 1902 | 4 x 12"/40 | Museum Ship |
Asahi | Formidable | 1901 | 4 x 12"/40 | Torpedoed, |
Shikishima | Improved | 1900 | 4 x 12"/40 | Scrapped 1924 |
Fuji | Improved | 1897 | 4 x 12"/40 | Scrapped 1922 |
Old Battleship | ||||
Chin Yen | Ding Yuen | 1885 | 2 x 12"/35 | -- |
Armored Cruisers | ||||
Nisshin | Garibaldi | 1904 | 4 x 8"/45 | Target 1942 |
Kasuga | Garibaldi | 1904 | 1 x 10", 2 x 8" | Target 1928 |
Yakumo | Yakumo | 1904 | 4 x 8"/40 | -- |
Azuma | Yakumo | 1901 | 4 x 8"/40 | -- |
Iwate, Idzumo | Idzumo | 1900 | 4 x 8"/40 | -- |
Tokiwa, Asama | Tokiwa | 1898 | 4 x 8"/40 | -- |
Protected Cruisers | ||||
Niitaka, Tsushima | Niitaka | 1902 | 6 x 6"/40 | -- |
Kasagi | Kasagi | 1898 | 2 x 8"/40 | -- |
Akashi | Improved Suma | 1897 | 2 x 6"/40 | -- |
Suma | Suma | 1896 | 2 x 6"/40 | -- |
Akitsushima | One-off | 1892 | 6 x 6"/40 | -- |
Naniwa, Takachiho | Naniwa | 1886 | 2 x 10.2" Krupp | -- |
Matsushima | One-off | 1890 | 1 x 12.6" Canet | -- |
Itsukushima | Itsukushima | 1889 | 1 x 12.6" Canet | -- |
Hashidate | Itsukushima | 1891 | 1 x 12.6" Canet | -- |
Idzumi | Elswick Cruiser | 1886 | 2 x 10"/35 | -- |
Destroyers and Torpedo Boats | ||||
21 Destroyers | Mostly Thornycroft type | 1898-1904 | 2 x 18" TT | -- |
31 TBs | Japanese-built | 1898-1905 | 2 or 3 x 18" TT | 3 Boats Sunk 5/27/05 |
Above, the Japanese fleet practices its gunnery and maneuvers in preparation for meeting the Russians at Tsushima. With the country running out of money and credit, Togo was in a win-or-else situation and left little to chance. His plan succeeded brilliantly. The final count after the battle was: Japan: 117 dead, 583 wounded, and 3 torpedo boats sunk; Russia, 4,380 killed and 5,917 captured. Of the Tsar's fleet of 40 warships and 56 support vessels, 21 were sunk, including 6 battleships and 1 coast-defense battleship; 7 were captured; 3 minor craft made port at Vladivostok, and 6 cruisers were interned in neutral ports. And if that victory were not sweeping enough, Japan had captured both the Russian Commander-in-Chief, Adm. Zinovy Rozhdestvensky, and his second-in-command, Adm. Nebogatoff.
No more convincing win has ever been chalked on the scoreboard of naval warfare. Captain W. C. Pakenham, the Royal Navy's official military observer under the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, took detailed notes of the battle's progress from a deck chair on the exposed quarterdeck of the Asahi. His reports confirmed the superiority of Japanese training and tactics and publicized the historic victory within Western naval circles. His observation of the dominance of big guns led, in part, to the adoption of the all-big-gun battleship in the Royal Navy, beginning with the 1906 Dreadnought. Other navies followed suit.It was widely expected that further battles between armored warships would ensue and that they would have comparable strategic importance. However, this was the last battle of its type; the rapid development of cheaper, smaller weapons like the submarine and the airplane quite rapidly made the armored battleship obsolete. Nevertheless, larger and more elaborate battleships (with various fool-proof defenses against torpedoes and aerial bombs) continued to be built right through the Second World War, 40 years after Tsushima.
In Japan, the victory fed delusions of grandeur. Enhanced by captured and salvaged vessels, Japan's navy swelled to become the world's fourth largest, while Russia's fleet, once the third largest, declined to eighth place: near parity with the Austro-Hungarian Kriegsmarine. It strengthened the hand of the militarist clique and led, in time, to the aggressions of the 1930s and the suppression of parliamentary government at home. In Russia, the disaster capped a war that was little more than one defeat piled on another. Revolution and mutiny flared across Russia, and the Tsar only held onto his throne with difficulty. In fact, he had to make considerable concessions to representative government (the October Declarations); his loyal military leaders helped with repression and distractions (pogroms) and Nicholas just managed to hang on.
Admiral Togo became a national hero of the first degree in Japan, celebrated in a triumphal parade through the streets of "Tokio" on Oct. 22, 1905. A hundred-foot lighthouse was erected by subscription on Tsushima Is., lighting the strait between the home islands and Japan's new colonies in Korea and southern Manchuria, and named after the victor of Tsushima. The admiral was an early mentor to Hirohito in the years immediately following the great victory. The wiry admiral lived until 1934 and was instrumental in charities for retired seamen and for the preservation of his flagship, the Mikasa. A shrine to his spirit, Togo Jinja, exists to this day in Tokyo. Meantime Rozhdestvensky had his wounds ministered to by Japanese doctors at the naval hospital in Sasebo after the battle and, with his iron constitution, largely recovered. On his return to Russia, he was made the scapegoat for the fiasco, as he had feared all along. He was court-martialed and cleared and spent much of the next few years appearing at others' courts-martial. Showing remarkable dignity and strength of character, he assumed all the blame for the disaster and vigorously asserted the loyalty and good conduct of all his subordinates who came under a cloud. Rozhdestvensky died in 1909.
