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The final phase of the Russo-Japanese War was witness to three parallel sets of events, namely the culmination of the Japanese offensive into southern Manchuria that resulted in victory at the battle of Mukden (21 February –10 March 1905), the departure (from Libau and Reval on 15 October 1904) of the Baltic force that had reached Madagascar by the time that Port Arthur surrendered, and the onset of what was to become known as the 1905 Revolution within Russia that began with the Bloody Sunday demonstration of 22 January.1 These may have run more or less together but most certainly were not complementary. At the end of the battle for Mukden the Russian Army had incurred another defeat, but it was not yet defeated. Clearly the issues of continuing reinforcement of the armies in Manchuria, the continuation of the war, the role of the navy, and just what might be possible given the tide of civil disorder sweeping Russia vied with one another for position center stage. After the Mukden defeat, and with the situation within the country clearly threatening the national capacity to continue the war, the Russian high command recognized that Russia, by virtue of a strength in depth that Japan could not match, probably could reverse earlier defeats. In fact by this time Japan was within measurable distance of exhaustion, of both nation and army. But Russia could not afford a military commitment that would reach well into the future, and the Russian high command had little option but to rely upon the 2nd Pacific Squadron to redeem national fortunes though the latter’s role, given the destrucchapter six The russo-Japanese War: the battle of tsushima and its aftermath 112 from port arthur to bucharest tion of the naval formations in the Far East and surrender of Port Arthur, had been fundamentally, and disastrously, changed. The story of The Fleet That Had to Die,2 and the infamous Dogger Bank Incident of 21–22 October, have been told frequently enough to permit only basic recounting, though perhaps it needs noting, given the attention paid to this one incident in which Russian warships fired on British fishing boats in the mistaken belief that they were Japanese torpedo-boats, that prior to this incident the Russian forces had swept the Danish waters through which they passed in order to clear Japanese mines, that Japanese boats were known to have sailed from Norwegian ports, that balloons were sighted—and that all this happened, allegedly, before Russian formations entered the North Sea. Perhaps the only comment that is applicable would be to note the frenzy of irrationality that induces disaster.3 Certainly the Dogger Bank Incident and the unflattering portrayal of this Russian force have served to detract from proper consideration of three matters. First, the original force that sailed from Reval and Libau on 15–16 October 1904 numbered some forty-two warships and auxiliaries. The logistical problems inherent in sailing such a force a distance of some 18,000 miles/29,000 km were nightmarish. The fact that the Russian formations were able to reach French Indo-China—needing some five hundred thousand tons of coal and some thirty to forty re-coaling sessions—represented a major administrative triumph in its own right. The Hamburg-Amerika Company demonstrated remarkable capacity by providing the sixty colliers and coal that were needed to complete the voyage.4 Second, at the most charitable, the majority of the ships that were sent were of very dubious quality and indeed it could be argued that no more than the four battleships of the 13,566-ton Borodino class, five of the cruisers, and the destroyers really were fit for action.5 The other ships could have been left at home and scrapped because in truth they contributed next to nothing in either strategic or tactical terms, and such a statement leaves unaddressed questions of training and the level of professionalism of ships’ crews. Third, the inescapable fact was that by the time that the Russian force reached Madagascar, its raison d’être had changed and the subsequent holding of the force there was disastrous to morale and indeed to its very slender prospects of survival and success. On its journey to meet its nemesis the Russian force called at Vigo (26 October –1 November) and then at Tangiers (3–6 November), where two battleships, three cruisers, and all the destroyers were detached with orders to proceed to Madagascar via the Suez...

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