Background
Conflict in the Far East
On 8 February 1904, destroyers of the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on the Russian Far East Fleet anchored in Lüshunkou District, Port Arthur; three ships – two battleships and a cruiser – were damaged in the attack. The Russo-Japanese war had thus begun. Japan's first objective was to secure its lines of communication and supply to the Asian mainland, enabling it to conduct a ground war in Manchuria. To achieve this, it was necessary to neutralize Russian naval power in the Far East. At first, the Russian naval forces remained inactive and did not engage the Japanese, who staged unopposed landings in Korea. The Russians were revitalised by the arrival of Admiral Stepan Makarov and were able to achieve some degree of success against the Japanese, but on 13 April Makarov's flagship, the battleship , struck a mine and sank; Makarov was among the dead. His successors failed to challenge the Japanese Navy, and the Russians were effectively bottled up in their base at Port Arthur. By May, the Japanese had landed forces on the Liaodong Peninsula and in August began the siege of Port Arthur, siege of the naval station. On 9 August, Admiral Wilgelm Vitgeft, commander of the 1st Pacific Squadron, was ordered to sortie his fleet to Vladivostok, link up with the Squadron stationed there, and then engage the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in a decisive battle. Both squadrons of the Russian Pacific Fleet would ultimately become dispersed during the battles of the Battle of the Yellow Sea, Yellow Sea, where Admiral Vitgeft was killed by a salvo strike from the , on 10 August; and the Battle off Ulsan, Ulsan on 14 August 1904. What remained of Russian Pacific naval power would eventually be sunk in Port Arthur.Departure
With the inactivity of the First Pacific Squadron after the death of Admiral Makarov and the tightening of the Japanese noose around Port Arthur, the Russians considered sending part of their Baltic Fleet to the Far East. The plan was to relieve Port Arthur by sea, link up with the First Pacific Squadron, overwhelm the Imperial Japanese Navy, and then delay the Japanese advance into Manchuria until Russian reinforcements could arrive via the Trans-Siberian railroad and overwhelm the Japanese land forces in Manchuria. As the situation in the Far East deteriorated, the Tsar (encouraged by his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II), agreed to the formation of the ''Second Pacific Squadron''. This would consist of five divisions of the Baltic Fleet, including 11 of its 13 battleships. The squadron departed the Baltic ports of Tallinn, Reval (Tallinn) and Liepāja, Libau (Liepāja) on 15–16 October 1904 (Rozhestvensky and von Fölkersahm fleets), and the Black Sea port of Odessa on 3 November 1904 (armored cruisers ''Oleg'' and ''Izumrud'', auxiliary cruisers ''Rion'' and ''Dnieper'' under the command of Captain Leonid Dobrotvorsky), numbering 42 ships and auxiliaries.Dogger Bank
The Rozhestvensky and von Fölkersahm fleets sailed through the Baltic into the North Sea. The Russians had heard fictitious reports of Japanese torpedo boats operating in the area and were on high alert. In the Dogger Bank incident, the Russian fleet mistook a group of British fishing trawlers operating near the Dogger Bank at night for hostile Japanese ships. The fleet fired upon the small civilian vessels, killing several British fishermen; one trawler was sunk while another six were damaged. In confusion, the Russians even fired upon two of their own vessels, killing some of their own men. The firing continued for twenty minutes before Rozhestvensky ordered firing to cease; greater loss of life was avoided only because the Russian gunnery was highly inaccurate. The British were outraged by the incident and incredulous that the Russians could mistake a group of fishing trawlers for Japanese warships, thousands of kilometres from the nearest Japanese port. Britain almost entered the war in support of Japan, with whom it had Anglo-Japanese alliance, a mutual defense agreement (but was neutral in the war, as their treaty contained a specific exemption for Japanese actions in China and Korea). The Royal Navy sortied and shadowed the Russian fleet while a diplomatic agreement was reached. France, which had hoped to eventually bring the British and Russians together in an Triple Entente, anti-German bloc, intervened diplomatically to restrain Britain from declaring war. The Russians were forced to accept responsibility for the incident, compensate the fishermen, and disembark officers who were suspected of misconduct to give evidence to an enquiry.Routes
Prelude
Battle
First contact
Beginning of the battle
At 06:34, before departing with the Combined Fleet, Tōgō Heihachirō, Admiral Tōgō wired a confident message to the navy minister in Tokyo: The final sentence of this telegram has become famous in Japanese military history, and has been quoted by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe. At the same time the entire Japanese fleet put to sea, with Tōgō in his flagship ''Mikasa'' leading over 40 vessels to meet the Russians. Meanwhile, the shadowing Japanese scouting vessels sent wireless reports every few minutes as to the formation and course of the Russian fleet. There was mist which reduced visibility and the weather was poor. Wireless gave the Japanese an advantage; in his report on the battle, Admiral Tōgō noted the following: At 13:40, both fleets sighted each other and prepared to engage. At around 13:55, Tōgō ordered the hoisting of the Z flag, issuing a predetermined announcement to the entire fleet: By 14:45, Tōgō had 'Crossing the T, crossed the Russian T' enabling him to fire broadsides, while the Russians could reply only with their forward turrets.Daylight action
Night attacks
At night, around 20:00, 21 destroyers and 45 Japanese torpedo boats were thrown against the Russians. The destroyers attacked from the vanguard while the torpedo boats attacked from the east and south of the Russian fleet. The Japanese were aggressive, continuing their attacks for three hours without a break, as a result during the night, there were a number of collisions between the small craft and Russian warships. The Russians were now dispersed in small groups trying to break northwards. By 23:00, it appeared that the Russians had vanished, but they revealed their positions to their pursuers by switching on their searchlights – ironically, the searchlights had been turned on to spot the attackers. The old battleship struck a chained floating mine laid in front, and was forced to stop in order not to push the chain forward, inviting other floating mines on the chain in on herself. She was consequently torpedoed four times and sunk. Out of a crew of 622, only three survived, one to be rescued by the Japanese and the other two by a British merchant ship. The battleship was badly damaged by a torpedo in the stern, and was scuttled the next day. Two old armoured cruisers – and – were badly damaged, the former by a torpedo hit to the bow, the latter by colliding with a Japanese destroyer. They were both scuttled by their crews the next morning off Tsushima Island, where they headed while taking on water. The night attacks placed a great strain on the Russians, as they lost two battleships and two armoured cruisers, while the Japanese lost only three torpedo boats.''XGE'' signal and Russian surrender
At 05:23 on 28 May, what remained of the Russian fleet was sighted heading northeast. Tōgō's battleships proceeded to surround Nebogatov's remaining squadron south of the island of Takeshima and commenced main battery fire at 12,000 meters. The then turned South and attempted to flee. Realising that his guns were outranged by at least one thousand metres and the Japanese battleships had proven on the day before to be faster than his own so that he could not close the distance, Nebogatov ordered the six ships remaining under his command to surrender. ''XGE'', an international signal of surrender, was hoisted; however, the Japanese navy continued to fire as they did not have "surrender" in their code books and had to hastily find one that did. Still under heavy fire, Nebogatov then ordered a white table cloth sent up the masthead, but Tōgō, having had a Chinese warship escape him while flying that flag during the First Sino-Japanese War, 1894 war, did not trust them. Moreover, his lieutenants found the codebook that included XGE signal and reported that stopping of engines is a requirement for the signal to mean 'surrender' and all the Russian ships were still moving, so he continued firing while response flag signal "STOP" hoisted. Nebogatov then ordered Ensign of the Russian Navy, St. Andrew's Cross lowered and the Hinomaru, Japanese national flag raised on the gaff rig, gaff and all engines stopped. Seeing the Japanese flag raised as the ensign, Tōgō gave the cease fire and accepted Nebogatov's surrender. Nebogatov surrendered knowing that he could be shot for doing so. He said to his men:Contributing factors
Commander and crew experience
Admiral Rozhestvensky faced a more combat-experienced battleship admiral in Tōgō Heihachirō. Admiral Tōgō had already killed two Russian admirals: Stepan Makarov outside of Port Arthur in the battleship ''Petropavlovsk'' in April 1904, then Wilgelm Vitgeft in his battleship in August of the same year. Before those two deaths, Tōgō had chased Admiral Oskar Starck, also flying his flag in the ''Petropavlovsk'', off the battlefield. Admiral Tōgō and his men had two battleship fleet action experiences, which amounted to over four hours of combat experience in battleship-to-battleship combat at Battle of Port Arthur, Port Arthur and the Battle of the Yellow Sea, Yellow Sea. The Japanese fleets had practiced gunnery extensively since the beginning of the war, using sub-caliber round, sub-calibre practice guns mounted in their larger guns. In contrast, underwent sea trials from 23 August to 13 September 1904 as a brand new ship upon her completion, and the new crew did not have much time for training before she set sail for the Pacific on 15 October 1904. ''Borodino''s sister ship, started trials on 9 August, started trials the latest on 10 September 1904, leaving (the trials finished in October 1903) as the only Borodino-class battleship, ''Borodino''-class ship actually ready for deployment. As the Imperial Russian Navy planned on building 10 ''Borodino''-class battleships (5 were ultimately built) with the requirement for thousands of additional crewmen, the basic training, quality and experience of the crew and cadets were far lower than those on board the battleships in the seasoned Pacific Fleet. The Admiralty Board (Russian Empire), Imperial Russian Admiralty Council (Адмиралтейств-совет) and the rest of the Admiralty were quite aware of this disadvantage, and opposed the October dispatch plan for the following reasons:1. The Japanese navy has completed the battle preparations with all the crew having some combat experiences. 2. The long voyage is mostly through extreme tropical weather, so meaningful training is practically impossible on the way. 3. Therefore, the newly created Second Pacific Fleet should conduct training in the Baltic until the next spring while waiting for the Fitting out, rigging of another battleship, , and the purchase of Chilean and Argentine warships.However, at the council in the imperial presence on 23 August 1904 held at the Peterhof Grand Palace, this opinion was overruled by Admiral Rozhestvensky (Commander in Chief of the Fleet), Theodor Avellan, Navy Minister Avellan, and Nicholas II of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II; for it was deemed impossible to re-arrange the massive coaling for the long voyage if the navy broke the contract that was already signed with Hamburg America Line, Hamburg-American Steamship Line of Germany.
Salvo firing director system
Up to the Battle of the Yellow Sea on 10 August 1904, naval guns were controlled locally by a gunnery officer assigned to that gun or a turret. He specified the elevation and deflection figures, gave the firing order while keeping his eyes on the artificial horizon gauge indicating the rolling and pitching angles of the ship, received the fall of shot observation report from the spotter on the mast, calculated the new elevation and deflection to 'walk' the shots in on the target for the next round, without much means to discern or measure the movements of his own ship and the target. He typically had a view on the horizon, but with the new 12" gun's range extended to over , his vantage point was lower than desired. In the months before the battle, the Chief Gunnery Officer of ''Asahi'', Commander 3rd rank Kanji Kato, Katō Hiroharu, aided by a Royal Navy advisor who introduced him to the use of the early mechanical computer Dumaresq in fire control, introduced a system for centrally issuing the gun-laying and salvo-firing orders. Using a central system allowed the spotter to identify a salvo of distant shell splashes much more effectively than trying to identify a single splash among the many in the confusion of a fleet-to-fleet combat.Imperial Japanese Navy Records, Report from Battleship ''Mikasa'', Nr.205, Classified, 1904 (in Japanese) Further, the spotter needed to keep track of just one firing at a time as opposed to multiple shots on multiple stopwatches, in addition to having to report to just one officer on the bridge. The 'director' officer on the bridge had the advantage of having a higher vantage point than in the gun turrets, in addition to being steps away from the ship commander giving orders to change the course and the speed in response to the incoming reports on target movements. This fire control director system was introduced to other ships in the fleet with Katō being promoted to the Chief Gunnery Officer of the fleet flagship ''Mikasa'' in March 1905. The training and practice on this system were carried out in the months waiting for the arrival of the Baltic Fleet while its progress was reported by the British intelligence from their naval stations at Gibraltar, Mediterranean Fleet, Malta, Aden Colony, Aden(Yemen), Naval Base Simon's Town, Cape of Good Hope, East Indies Station, Trincomalee(Sri Lanka, Ceylon), China Station, Singapore and British Forces Overseas Hong Kong, Hong Kong, among other locations. As a result, Japanese fire was more accurate in the far range (), on top of the advantage they held in the shorter distances using the latest 1903 issue Barr and Stroud FA3 coincidence rangefinders of baselength 5ft, which had a range of , while the Russian battleships were equipped with ''Liuzhol'' Stadiametric rangefinding, stadiametric rangefinders from the 1880s (except battleships ''Oslyabya'' and ''Navarin'', which had the Barr and Stroud 1895 issue FA2 of baselength 4.5ft retrofitted), which only had a range of about .Wireless telegraphy
The wireless telegraph (radio) had been invented during the last half of the 1890s, and by the turn of the century nearly all major navies were adopting this improved communications technology. Tsushima was "the first major sea battle in which wireless played any role whatsoever". Lieutenant Akiyama Saneyuki (who was the key staff to Admiral Tōgō in formulating plans and directives before and during the battle as a Commander, who also went onboard ''Nikolai I'' to accept Admiral Nebogatov's surrender as Tōgō's representative) had been sent to the United States as a naval attaché in 1897. He witnessed firsthand the capabilities of radio telegraphy and sent a memo to the Ministry of the Navy of Japan, Navy Ministry urging that they push ahead as rapidly as possible to acquire the new technology. The ministry became heavily interested in the technology; however it found the Marconi wireless system, which was then operating with the Royal Navy, to be exceedingly expensive. The Japanese therefore decided to create their own radio sets by setting up a radio research committee under Professor Kimura Shunkichi, which eventually produced an acceptable system. In 1901, having attained radio transmissions of up to , the navy formally adopted radio telegraphy. Two years later, a laboratory, a factory, and a radio communication school were set up at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal to produce the Type 36 (1903) radios, and these were quickly installed on every major warship in the Combined Fleet by the time the war started. Alexander Stepanovich Popov of the Naval Warfare Institute had built and demonstrated a wireless telegraphy set in 1900. However, technology improvement and production in the Russian empire lagged those of Germany, and "System Slaby-Arco", originally made by AEG, D.R.P. Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) and then produced in volume by its successor radio maker Telefunken in Germany (by 1904, this system was in wide use by Kaiserliche Marine) was adopted by the Imperial Russian Navy. Although both sides had early wireless telegraphy, the Russians were using German sets tuned and maintained by German technicians half-way into the voyage, while the Japanese had the advantage of using their own equipment maintained and operated by their own navy specialists trained at the Yokosuka school.British support
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom assisted Japan by building battleships for the IJN. The UK also assisted Japan in intelligence, finance, technology, training and other aspects of the war against Russia. At the time, Britain owned and controlled more harbor facilities around the world – specifically shipyards and coaling stations – than Russia and its allies (France, and to some extent Germany) combined. The UK also obstructed, where possible, Russian attempts to purchase ships and coal. At the end of the Argentine-Chilean naval arms race in 1903, two Chilean-ordered and British-built battleships (then called ''Constitución'' and ''Libertad'') and two Argentinean-ordered, Italian-built cruisers (then called ''Bernardino Rivadavia'' and ''Mariano Moreno'') were offered to Russia and the purchase was about to be finalized. Britain stepped in as the mediator of Pacts of May that ended the race, bought the Chilean battleships (which became and ), and brokered the sale of Argentinean cruisers to Japan. This support not only limited the growth of the Imperial Russian Navy, but also helped IJN in obtaining the latest Italian-built cruisers (IJN and ) that played key roles in this battle. Also, this support created a major logistics problem for around the world deployment of the Baltic Fleet to the Pacific in procuring coal and supplies on the way. At Nosy Be in Madagascar and at Camranh Bay, French Indochina, the fleet was forced to be anchored for about two months each, seriously degrading morale of the crew. By the time it reached the Sea of Japan after crossing the warm waters of the equator twice, the hulls of all the ships in the fleet were heavily Biofouling, fouled in addition to carrying the extra coal otherwise not required on deck. The Japanese ships, on the other hand, were well maintained in the ample time given by the intelligence. For example, battleship was under repair from November 1904 to April 1905 at Sasebo Naval Arsenal, Sasebo for two 12" guns lost and serious damage to the hull from striking a mine. They were divided into battle divisions of as much uniform speed and gun range so that a fleet would not suffer a bottleneck in speed, and the range of guns would not render some ships useless within a group in an extended range combat.High explosive and cordite
The Japanese used mostly high-explosive shells filled with Shimose powder, which was a pure picric acid (as opposed to the French Picric acid, Melinite or the British Lyddite, which were picric acid mixed with collodion (French) or with dinitrobenzene and vaseline (British) for stability). Engineer Shimose Masachika (1860-1911) solved the instability problem of picric acid on contact with iron and other heavy metals by coating the inside of a shell with unpigmented Toxicodendron vernicifluum#Lacquer, Japanese lacquer and further sealing with wax.:ja:下瀬火薬, Shimose Powder (in Japanese) Because it was undiluted, Shimose powder had a stronger power in terms of detonation velocity and temperature than other high explosives at the time. These shells had a sensitive Ijuin fuse:ja:伊集院信管, Ijuin Fuse (in Japanese) (named after its inventor, Ijuin Goro) at the base as opposed to the tip of a shell that armed itself when the shell was spun by the rifling. These fuses were designed to explode on contact and wreck the upper structures of ships. The Japanese Navy imported cordite from Great Britain as the smokeless propellant for these Shimose shells, so that the smoke off the muzzle would not impede the visibility for the spotters. In the early 1890s, Vice Admiral Stepan O. Makarov, then the Chief Inspector of Russian naval artillery, proposed a new 12" gun design, and assigned a junior officer, Semyon V. Panpushko, to research the use of picric acid as the explosive in the shell. However, Panpushko was blown into pieces in an accidental explosion in experiment due to the instability. Consequently, high explosive shells remained unreachable for the Russian Navy at the time of the Russo-Japanese War, and the navy continued to use the older armour-piercing rounds with guncotton bursting charges and the insensitive delayed-detonation fuses. They mostly used brown powder or black powder as the propellant, except ''Sissoi Veliky'' and the four ''Borodino''-class ships that used smokeless gun powder for the main 12" guns. As a result, Japanese hits caused more damage to Russian ships than Russian hits on Japanese ships. Shimose blasts often set the superstructures, the paintwork and the large quantities of coal stored on the decks on fire, and the sight of the spotters on Russian ships was hindered by the large amount of smoke generated by the propellant on each uncoordinated firing. Moreover, the sensitivity difference of the fuse caused the Japanese off-the-target shells to explode upon falling on the water creating a much larger splash that sent destabilizing waves to enemy inclinometers, as opposed to the Russian shells not detonating upon falling on the water. This made an additional difference in the #Salvo firing director system, aforementioned shot accuracy by aiding the Japanese spotters to make an easier identification in fall of shot observations.Gun range and rate of fire
The Makarov proposal resulted in Russian 12-inch 40-caliber naval gun, Model 1895 12-inch gun that extended the range of the previous Model 1886 12-inch Krupp guns (installed on ''Navarin'') from 5–6 km to over 10 km (at 15-degrees elevation) at the expense of significantly limited amount of explosives that can be contained in the shell. Reload time was also improved from 2-4minutes previously to 90 seconds for the ''Borodino''-class. These guns were installed to ''Sissoi Veliky'' and the four ''Borodino''-class ships. The four Japanese battleships, ''Mikasa'', ''Shikishima'', ''Fuji'' and ''Asahi'', had the latest Armstrong Whitworth 12-inch 40-calibre naval gun, Armstrong 12-inch 40-calibre naval gun designed and manufactured by Elswick Ordnance Company, Sir W.G. Armstrong & Company ahead of its acceptance by the Royal Navy in the UK. These British-built 12" guns had the range of 15,000 yards (14 km) at 15-degrees elevation and the rate of fire at 60 seconds with a heavier 850 Lbs (390 kg) shell. One of the reasons for the Royal Navy's late adoption of this type of guns was the accidental in-Breechloader, breech explosions the Japanese battleships experienced up to the Battle of the Yellow Sea in August 1904, which were diagnosed and almost rectified by the Japanese Navy with the use of aforementioned Ijuin Fuse by the time of this battle.Aftermath
Battle damage and casualties
Source:Russian losses
Total Russian personnel losses were 216 officers and 4,614 men killed; with 278 officers and 5,629 men taken as Prisoners Of War (POW). Interned in neutral ports were 79 officers and 1,783 men. Escaping to Vladivostok and Diego-Suarez were 62 officers and 1,165 men. Japanese personnel losses were 117 officers and men killed and 583 officers and men wounded. The battle was humiliating for Russia, which lost all its battleships and most of its cruisers and destroyers. The battle effectively ended the Russo-Japanese War in Japan's favour. The Russians lost 4,380 killed and 5,917 captured with a further 1,862 interned. Two admirals, Zinovy Rozhestvensky, Rozhestvensky and Nikolai Nebogatov, Nebogatov, were captured by the Japanese Navy. The second in command of the fleet, Rear Admiral Dmitry Gustavovich von Fölkersahm, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage on 16 April, died in the night of 24 May 1905 onboard battleship . Vice Admiral Oskar Enqvist fled to Manila onboard cruiser and was interned by the United States.Battleships
The Russians lost eleven battleships, including three smaller coastal battleships, either sunk or captured by the Japanese, or scuttled by their crews to prevent capture. Four were lost to enemy action during the daylight battle on 27 May: , , and . was lost during the night action on 27–28 May, while the and were either scuttled or sunk the next day. Four other battleships, under Rear Admiral Nebogatov, were forced to surrender and would end up as prize of war, prizes of war. This group consisted of only one modern battleship, , along with the old battleship and two small Coastal defence ship, coastal battleships and .Cruisers
The Russian Navy lost five of its nine cruisers during the battle, three more were interned by the Americans, with just one reaching Vladivostok. and were sunk the next day after the daylight battle. The cruiser fought against six Japanese cruisers and survived; however, she was scuttled on 29 May 1905 due to heavy damage. ''Izumrud'' ran aground on the Siberian coast. Three Russian protected cruisers, , , and , escaped to the United States Navy, U.S. naval base at Manila in the then-American-controlled Philippines where they were interned, as the United States was neutral. The armed yacht (classified as a cruiser) , alone was able to reach Vladivostok.Destroyers and auxiliaries
Imperial Russia also lost six of its nine destroyers in the battle, had one interned by the Chinese, and the other two escaped to Vladivostok. They were – ''Buyniy'' ("Буйный"), ''Bistriy'' ("Быстрый"), ''Bezuprechniy'' ("Безупречный"), ''Gromkiy'' ("Громкий") and ''Blestyashchiy'' ("Блестящий") – sunk on 28 May, ''Byedoviy'' ("Бедовый") surrendered that day. ''Bodriy'' ("Бодрый") was interned in Shanghai; ''Grozniy'' ("Грозный") and ''Braviy'' ("Бравый") reached Vladivostok. Of the auxiliaries, ''Kamchatka'', and ''Rus'' were sunk on 27 May, ''Irtuish'' ran aground on 28 May, ''Koreya'' and ''Svir'' were interned in Shanghai; SS Dekabrist, ''Anadyr'' escaped to Madagascar. The hospital ships ''Orel'' and ''Kostroma'' were captured; ''Kostroma'' was released afterwards.Japanese losses
The Japanese lost three torpedo boats (Nos. ''34'', ''35'' and ''69''). Total casualty of 117 men killed and 500 wounded.Political consequences
Imperial Russia's prestige was badly damaged and the defeat was a blow to the House of Romanov, Romanov dynasty. Most of the Russian fleet was lost; the fast armed yacht ''Almaz'' (classified as a cruiser of the 2nd rank) and the destroyers ''Grozny'' and ''Bravy'' were the only Russian ships to reach Vladivostok. In ''The Guns of August'', the American historian and author Barbara Tuchman argued that because Russia's loss destabilized the balance of power in Europe, it emboldened the Central Powers and contributed to World War I, their decision to go to war in 1914. The battle had a profound cultural and political impact in the world. It was the first defeat of a European power by an Asian nation in the modern era. It also heightened the alarm of "The Yellow Peril" as well as weakening the notion of white superiority that was prevalent in some Western countries. Mahatma Gandhi (India), Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Turkey), Sun Yat-sen (China) and Jawaharlal Nehru (India) were amongst the future national leaders to celebrate this defeat of a colonial power. The victory established Japan as the sixth greatest naval power while the Russian navy declined to one barely stronger than that of Austro-Hungarian Navy, Austria-Hungary. In ''The Guinness Book of Decisive Battles'', the British historian Geoffrey Regan argues that the victory bolstered Japan's increasingly aggressive political and military establishment. According to Regan, the lopsided Japanese victory at Tsushima:...created a legend that was to haunt Japan's leaders for forty years. Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, A British admiral once said, 'It takes three years to build a ship, but 300 years to build a tradition.' Japan thought that the victory had completed this task in a matter of a few years ... It had all been too easy. Looking at Tōgō Heihachirō, Tōgō's victory over one of the world's great powers convinced some Japanese military men that with more ships, and bigger and better ones, similar victories could be won throughout the Pacific. Perhaps no power could resist the Japanese navy, not even Britain and the United States.Regan also believes the victory contributed to the Japanese road to later disaster, "because the result was so misleading. Certainly the Japanese navy had performed well, but its opponents had been weak, and it was not invincible... Tōgō's victory [helped] set Japan on a path that would eventually lead her" to the Second World War. Takano Isoroku, the future Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Yamamoto Isoroku who would plan the attack on Pearl Harbor and command the Imperial Japanese Navy through much of the Second World War, served as a junior officer (aboard ) during the battle and was wounded and lost two fingers by an accidental explosion of an 8" shell in a forward gun. Had he lost a third, he would have been medically discharged from the Imperial Japanese Navy, IJN.
Dreadnought arms race
Britain's First Sea Lord, Admiral Jackie Fisher, reasoned that the Japanese victory at Tsushima confirmed the importance of large guns and speed for modern battleships. While William Pakenham (Royal Navy officer), Captain William Pakenham of the British Royal Navy, who had been present aboard the Japanese battleship ''Asahi'' as an official observer during the Tsushima Battle, "famously remarked...the effect of the fire of every gun is so much less than that of the next larger size, that when 12in guns are firing, shots from 10in pass unnoticed...everything in this war has tended to emphasize the vast importance to a ship, at every stage of her career, of carrying some of the heaviest and furthest shooting guns that can be got into her." In October 1905 the British started the construction of , which marked the beginning of a naval arms race between Britain and Germany in the years before 1914. The battle also accelerated the naval arms race on a geopolitical level; though the Anglo-German naval arms race had begun in 1897, the collapse of Russian naval power in 1905 allowed Britain to send the bulk of its naval forces to other regions, reassured by the naval superiority of its ally Japan in the Far East. In turn, the presence of a larger British fleet in Europe meant that the Germans must build a proportionally larger fleet to maintain the same relative power, in accordance with Alfred von Tirpitz, Tirpitz' fleet in being principle. The Royal Navy, in turn, must increase its fleet size to maintain the relative power as set out by its two-power standard. This positive feedback meant that any external increase in the regional naval power of one side - in this case, the British - would precipitate not just a proportional increase in naval power from the opposing side, but rather a ''mutual'' multi-stage build-up in naval power on both sides, before settling to a higher equilibrium. Ultimately, the Germans passed three of its five German Naval Laws, Fleet Acts after Tsushima within a span of 6 years. Upon the breakout of World War I, the British and Germans were both aware of the potentially devastating consequences of a naval defeat on the scale of Tsushima. Britain needed its battle fleet to protect its empire, and the trade routes vital to its war effort. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, described British Admiral John Jellicoe as "the only man who on either side could lose the war in an afternoon." German naval commanders, for their part, understood the importance Kaiser Wilhelm II attached to his navy and the diplomatic prestige it carried. As a result of caution, the British and German fleets met in only one major action in World War I, the indecisive Battle of Jutland.Timeline
On film
The battle has been the main focus for two historical films in Japan. The first, 1969's ''Battle of the Japan Sea (film), Battle of the Japan Sea'' (日本海大海戦, ''Nihonkai Daikaisen''), directed by Seiji Maruyama, starring Toshiro Mifune as Admiral Tōgō, with music by Masaru Sato and special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. It was dramatized again in 1983's ''Battle Anthem'' (日本海大海戦・海ゆかば, ''Nihonkai Daikaisen—Umi Yukaba'') with Mifune reprising his role. Another, more recent, depiction is episode 4, season 3 of the 2009–2011 NHK taiga drama series (lit. "Clouds Above the Slope").See also
* Order of battle at the Battle of Tsushima * Imperial Japanese Navy#Naval Buildup and tensions with Russia * Baltic Fleet#Russo-Japanese War * Military attachés and observers in the Russo-Japanese War * Naval history of Japan * Nicholas II of RussiaExplanatory notes
Citations
General bibliography
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* * * * * * Lardas, Mark. (2018) ''Tsushima 1905: Death of a Russian Fleet'' (Osprey, 2018External links