Battle of Tsushima (1905): Togo Destroys the Russian Baltic Fleet

The Battle of Tsushima, fought on 27-28 May 1905 in the strait between Korea and Japan, was the decisive naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War. Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō’s Japanese Combined Fleet destroyed the Russian Second Pacific Squadron, which had sailed some 18,000 nautical miles from the Baltic Sea. It was one of the most complete naval victories in history and pushed Russia to accept peace.

Background: the voyage of the Baltic Fleet

By mid-1904 Russia’s Pacific Squadron was trapped in Port Arthur and its Vladivostok cruisers had been beaten. To regain control of the sea, Tsar Nicholas II ordered most of the Baltic Fleet to the Far East under Vice Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky. Renamed the Second Pacific Squadron, it left the Baltic port of Libau (now Liepāja, Latvia) on 15 October 1904.

The voyage was an extraordinary feat of endurance. Russia had no coaling bases along the route, so the fleet relied on German colliers and on coaling at sea and in remote anchorages. Within days, nervous crews mistook British trawlers on the Dogger Bank for Japanese torpedo boats and opened fire, killing two fishermen; the incident nearly brought war with Britain.

The larger ships sailed around Africa, while older and smaller vessels went through the Suez Canal. The fleet reunited at Nossi-Bé in Madagascar, where it waited for about two months. There it learned that Port Arthur had fallen on 2 January 1905, removing its original purpose. Ordered on, it crossed the Indian Ocean, waited off French Indochina and was joined in May by Rear Admiral Nikolai Nebogatov’s Third Pacific Squadron of older ships. Its goal now was simply to reach Vladivostok.

The two fleets

The Russian force numbered about 38 ships, including eight battleships and three small coastal defence ships, but it was a mixed collection of new and outdated vessels. Its ships were overloaded with coal, fouled after months at sea and manned by many inexperienced crew.

Tōgō’s fleet, based in southern Korea near the strait, had four modern battleships and eight armoured cruisers, along with many cruisers, destroyers and torpedo boats. Its ships were faster, freshly repaired and well practised, and Japanese gunners had gained battle experience in 1904. Japan also had better shells and an efficient scouting system using wireless telegraphy.

Japanese shells were filled with Shimose powder, a picric-acid explosive that burst violently and started fires, and they were fitted with sensitive fuzes that exploded on contact. Russian armour-piercing shells, by contrast, often passed through lightly armoured parts of Japanese ships without exploding. Russian ships also carried large amounts of coal, wood and other flammable material on deck, which fed fires once they were hit.

The battle

Rozhestvensky chose to take the most direct route through the Tsushima Strait. In the early hours of 27 May 1905 the Japanese auxiliary cruiser Shinano Maru spotted the lights of a Russian hospital ship and radioed the alarm. Tōgō sailed at once.

The fleets met in the early afternoon. Tōgō’s flagship Mikasa raised the Z flag with a message that the Empire’s fate depended on this battle and every man should do his utmost. Tōgō then made a bold turn in front of the Russian line, the manoeuvre later known as “Tōgō’s turn”, which briefly exposed his ships but placed his fleet across the head of the Russian column.

Japanese fire quickly concentrated on the leading Russian battleships. The Oslyabya sank within about an hour, the first modern battleship sunk by gunfire alone. Rozhestvensky’s flagship Knyaz Suvorov was wrecked and he was badly wounded and taken off on a destroyer. By evening the battleships Imperator Aleksandr III and Borodino had also gone down with almost all their crews.

The night and the surrender

During the night Japanese destroyers and torpedo boats attacked the scattered Russian ships, sinking or crippling several more. On the morning of 28 May the Japanese fleet surrounded Nebogatov’s remaining group of battleships. Facing hopeless odds, he surrendered. Rozhestvensky, on the destroyer Bedovy, was also captured.

Of the whole Russian force, only the cruiser Almaz and two destroyers reached Vladivostok. Three cruisers escaped to Manila in the American-ruled Philippines and were interned.

Back in Russia, officers were tried for the defeat in 1906. Rozhestvensky, who had been unconscious from his wounds when his destroyer surrendered, accepted responsibility but was acquitted. Nebogatov and several of his captains were condemned to death for surrendering their ships without a fight, though the sentences were commuted and they were released after a few years.

By the numbers

Key people

• Tōgō Heihachirō (1848-1934): commander of the Combined Fleet, after Tsushima a national hero in Japan and admired abroad.
• Zinovy Rozhestvensky (1848-1909): Russian commander who led the voyage, wounded and captured in the battle.
• Nikolai Nebogatov (1849-1922): commander of the Third Pacific Squadron, who surrendered on 28 May and was later sentenced to death in Russia, a sentence commuted to imprisonment.
• Kamimura Hikonojō (1849-1916): commander of Japan’s armoured cruiser squadron in the battle.

Consequences

Tsushima ended Russia’s hopes of turning the war around. Coming after the defeats at Port Arthur and Mukden, it led Nicholas II to accept American mediation, and the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed on 5 September 1905. In Russia the disaster deepened the crisis of the Russian Revolution of 1905; a month later sailors of the battleship Potemkin mutinied in the Black Sea.

Russia lost most of its modern battleships and was weakened as a naval power for years. Japan’s prestige soared; it became the leading naval power in the western Pacific and the first Asian state in modern times to defeat a European great power at sea.

Legacy

Naval experts studied Tsushima closely. It showed the importance of speed, long-range gunnery and concentrated fire from big guns, ideas that fed into the design of the all-big-gun battleship HMS Dreadnought, launched in Britain in 1906. Japan’s naval leaders came to believe that a single decisive battle could win a war, a doctrine that shaped their thinking up to the Second World War.

Tōgō’s flagship Mikasa is preserved as a museum ship at Yokosuka, near Tokyo. A young officer wounded at Tsushima on the cruiser Nisshin, Yamamoto Isoroku, later commanded the Japanese fleet in the Second World War.

Timeline

• 1904, 15 October: the Second Pacific Squadron leaves Libau.
• 1904, 21-22 October: the Dogger Bank incident in the North Sea.
• 1905, January-March: the fleet waits at Nossi-Bé, Madagascar; Port Arthur falls on 2 January.
• 1905, 9 May: Nebogatov’s Third Pacific Squadron joins off French Indochina.
• 1905, 27 May, early morning: the Shinano Maru sights the Russian fleet.
• 1905, 27 May, afternoon: the main battle begins; several Russian battleships are sunk.
• 1905, 28 May: Nebogatov surrenders; Rozhestvensky is captured.
• 1905, 5 September: the Treaty of Portsmouth ends the war.

Why it matters

The Battle of Tsushima confirmed Japan’s victory over Russia and its rise as a world naval power. It accelerated revolution in Russia, changed battleship design worldwide and became, for Japan, a symbol of national achievement whose lessons would shape naval strategy for decades.