THE HECATOMB OF TSUSHIMA

The battleship Imperator Alexandr III

How and for what causes the Russian fleet was broken to pieces by the Japanese ships? Today we know that the worty Rogestvenski was betrayed by the absurd directions of the "Lords of St. Petersburg". And this was the epilogue, on 28th May 1905, of the first big naval encounter of XX Century.

The evening of 6th December 1904, the press-agencies Havas and Reuter roused great surprise throughout the world, by sending out the dramatic piece of news that the Japanese had destroyed the Russian 1st Pacific Squadron, within its base of Port Arthur, in Manchuria (a town on the Yellow Sea north of Korea, which has subsequently taken the ancient name of Lushun again). But the clamorous "naval" victory had not been merit of the Japanese fleet which, under the command of Admiral Togo, watched permanently off the harbour: it had been gained by land forces, namely the troops of General Nogi, which had besieged the citadel for months and fought fiercely in order to overcome the resistance of the garrison of the legendary General Kondratenko.

That 6th December, in fact, the Japanese soldiers had at last succeeded in seizing Height 203, the narrow top of the Golden Mountain which dominates Port Arthur Bay; and immediately, without a moment of rest, they had carried howitzers and mortars up there for bombarding the Russian ships, destroying them one by one, in a few hours. The price of the victory, yet, had been awfully high.

In that last attack only, the Japanese had spreaded Height 203 with 11000 dead, that is more than one tenth of the 100000 dead counted on the whole by the two adversaries during the nine months of the siege. In relation to the brief space in which it happened, this massacre puts the name of Port Arthur almost at the level of Famagosta, of Londonderry and of Verdun. General Nogi felt this horror to such an extent that finally killed himself according to the Japanese custom, to join the ranks of soldiers that, with his ruthless orders, he had sent to death.

However, Nogi had obeyed not less ruthless strategic needs, which Togo had firmly pointed out to him. Two months before, a great Russian naval force, proudly named "2nd Pacific Squadron", had sailed from Kronstadt base, in the Baltic Sea: it had to reach Port Arthur urgently, to free the 1st Squadron (which Togo's superior forces had blocked), to join also the few ships of Vladivostok base and to form this way a naval Armada able to defeat the Japanese fleet or at least to keep it effectually in awe. At the first days of December 1904, under Admiral Rogestvenski's strong-handed command, the Russian 2nd Squadron had already done half trip and foresaw to arrive at Yellow Sea within the end of January.

The world press had described that Squadron as a huddle of "smoothing-irons" or "tin coffee-pots", with awkward, inept and seditious crews. But Togo didn't despise the opposing ships, and didn't underestimate Rogestvenski's fabulous tenaciousness as well: so he knew well that, if the two Russian squadrons had joined, the Japanese Navy would have lost the strategic supremacy it had at the moment, consequently the supplies would have stopped to the armies that were fighting against the Russians in Korea and Manchuria, and Japan would have definitely lost the war. But by that time the result of the conflict was tied strictly to the future of the whole Japanese people, who had prepared for that war with huge sacrifices, during twenty years, in order to take themselves on the same level of the major western countries.

Heihashiro Togo

Then, the rings of the strategic concatenation formulated by Togo were precise and ruthless: the destiny of Japan could actually depend upon the conquest of Height 203, since this was the only way of destroying the Squadron nestled within Port Arthur, before Rogestvenski's one joined it. Yet more, it was necessary to accomplish the destruction just at the first days of December, because Togo's ships needed the respite of two months at least, to face effectually the approaching Russian Squadron.

The war, in fact, had started on 6th February, with a treacherous attack against the ships moored in Port Arthur Bay, without the hostilities were declared (as it will happen on 6th December 1941 with the attack to the American ships moored at Pearl Harbour); and from that day on the Japanese fleet had not had one moment of rest. It had sustained victoriously several fightings with the Russian ships of Port Arthur and Vladivostok; and on 10th August it had won soundly the naval battle of Shiantung, compelling the opposing Squadron to shut itself up definitely under the protection of Port Arthur fortresses. Nevertheless, Togo's naval forces had suffered not slight losses and damages (especially over the Russian drifting mines), they had been constantly busy with supplying the armies in Manchuria and with blocking Port Arthur: therefore, the two months requested by Togo for maintenance and repairs were the shortest time necessary before giving battle to Rogestvenski.

On 29th December 1904, in spite of the huge difficulties encountered, the 2nd Pacific Squadron arrived timely in Madagascar, to take in a fresh supply of coal before the long jump across the Indian Ocean and the China Seas, to Port Arthur. Togo was very impressed of this, and hastened his preparation at the utmost. But just at that moment the plans of his antagonist fell: Rogestvenski had been betrayed by the flabbiness and myopic fatalism of the "Lords of St. Petersburg", i.e. by that gang of politicians and governors, of admirals and ministry bureaucrats, only worried about their own career, who didn't care a pin of the destiny of the 10000 mariners aboard the ships moored in that remote African locality.

In fact, the Madagascar halt, which the "Lords of St. Petersburg" obliged Rogestvenski to extend so more than expected, was determinant for the tragic end that awaited the Russian Squadron at Tsushima, after a migration through the seas that doesn't find comparison in the history of any other fleet. It seems that the fantastic idea of transferring that grand naval formation from Baltic Sea to Yellow Sea, through two oceans, came to the mind of Tsar Nicholas II himself, annoyed by that Rising Sun little emperor, to whom it was time to give a sonorous lesson. When the decision was proclaimed proudly to the whole world, on 30th April 1904, the Russian people became enthusiastic, but the others received it with many reserves, and the experts judged it absurd immediately.

How could those ships have faced victoriously the opposing ones, after a trip of almost 20000 miles (nearly a world tour), through the most dangerous and farthest seas? They were ships built to operate almost only in the chilly, enclosed Baltic waters, they had very dissimilar characteristics, scarce technical and military efficiency, scarcely and badly trained crews, moreover shaken by the revolutionary ferments that were spreading all over Russia. However, just the transfer itself to Port Arthur involved awfully complex problems concerning organization, transport, supply and navigation. In short, there was such a heap of adverse factors that any government would have been deterred from commanding its own fleet such an adventure (but, let's say immediately, all this increases beyond measure the value of what Rogestvenski's crews, and the Admiral himself in the first place, did).

On the other hand, for the 1st Pacific Squadron, that is for the other huddle of ships which at the beginning of the war was stationed at Port Arthur, things stood even worse. The government of St. Petersburg had neglected and nearly forgotten them for years: if they had kept any war capability, the merit was only of few young officers and some commanders. As soon as these ships suffered the mortifying action by which the Japanese began hostilities, the Admiralty urgently sent to Port Arthur Admiral Makarov, a chief of fascinating character and of prodigious energy, who rapidly took the 1st Squadron out of its deep lethargy. But after two months only, on 13th April, gone out of the base at the head of his ships in order to face Togo's ones that had come closer than usual to Port Arthur, Makarov sank with his battleship, over the floating mines that the Japanese destroyers, hidden by a snow storm, had spreaded along his route.

The loss of this prestigious admiral was very heavy for the Tsar's empire. The new Squadron commander, Adm. Witthoft, was of a quite different temper and, just a month later, nearly caused a mutiny among the officers of his ships. That day, in fact, Togo's Squadron found itself in serious difficulties short off Port Arthur, having got into a Russian minefield, which caused two battleships and two cruisers to sink: but Witthoft refused to go out and give battle.

The decision to send the Baltic naval forces to Far East was born just to react to these adversities. The boundless Tsars' Empire, with its uncomputable economic and demographic power, couldn't bear to be stung more than much by those Japanese "little monkeys". The shipyard of Kronstadt was crammed with ships: what did it matter if they were good or bad, efficient or decrepit? That they went 20000 miles far to face the enemy as soon as possible!

Though it were by that time an immense dissolving body, ineluctably crumbled to pieces by a political class of inept aristocrats and corrupt officials, the Tsar's Russia, just because of its vast extent, didn't lack men of great talent, in all its social strata. In the Navy, besides the late Admiral Makarov, there was Admiral Rogestvenski; and on 5th May the Tsar himself entrusted him with the cross of the endless Calvary, appointing him commander of the future "2nd Pacific Squadron": future, because it was still to be formed.

Rogestvenski had to choose the ships for it, make them repair, and furnish them with all the necessary to the unprecedented enterprise; he had to select and train its officers; he had to transform thousands of Baltic peasants, called to arms, in able seamen and in valiant fighters.

Zinovij Rogestvenski

The sulky Rogestvenski, after making his estimations, declared that the new Squadron would sail by the middle of October and put only one condition: to leave at the base the most decrepit ships, which had returned from Vladivostok three years before just because of their oldness and which on converse the Admiralty wanted to lay on him just to make number. As for the 10000 and more men whom he would have taken to die (because he had ever been persuaded of this end), Rogestvenski founded his commanding action on the principle that they would have had to face the long odyssey and to fight at the last, solely and only for the Holy Russia.

In fact, like all the sea combatants, of any nation, Rogestvenski was intrinsically unconcerned in politics, in the consciousness that the governments fall, the regimes transform or die, but nations remain and perpetuate; and that their achievements, their glories, in the good or in the bad fortune, remain in History. The Tsar's government, however, after wanting the war against Japan in the vain hope it would serve to stifle the bursting wave of revolution, had come to the point of considering the military operations in Manchuria as a boring and remote matter.

In the grey and chaotic atmosphere of the Russia of that time, in that gangrenous organism shaking here and there only because of the extremists' bombs, which other faith would have Rogestvenski needed to encourage his crews, other than the one of fighting solely for everlasting Russia's glory? In fact, like in the whole Tsar's Navy, aboard his ships bursted here and there revolutionary riots as well, and during the long trip not few cases of insubordination and revolt happened: but Rogestvenski always refused to ratify the sentences to death uttered by the board Councils, convinced, as he firmly was, that those extremists, in the supreme moment, would have been able to fight and die like the other seamen, or even better (a prevision, this one, fully confirmed by facts).

Rogestvenski didn't let himself be discouraged even by the news, arrived by middle August, of the shameful defeat suffered by the 1st Squadron in the Shantung battle, while attempting to reach Vladivostok. After five months of frantic work, in all the sectors of preparation and naval organization, the 2nd Pacific Squadron, moved to Liepaja, sailed from this base exactly in the appointed day, on 14th October 1904. They were about 15 battleships and cruisers, that is "ships of the line", as they were called at the time, besides a dozen of destroyers and about 10 auxiliary ships (logistic transports, steamships to be used as scouts, two hospital ships, a work ship and a steamer loaded with a "balloon-park" to be landed at Port Arthur).

This slow and indisciplined convoy hindered the march of the main formation, but it had become necessary because, to make the enterprise difficulties worse, during the route the Russian squadron couldn't have relied on any truly friendly harbour, except one or two under German flag.

Though allied to Russia, France didn't want international complications; and all the other harbours were directly or indirectly controlled by England, allied and supporter of Japan. Therefore Rogestvenski had had to organize also a vast and complex net of coal-ships, hired from the German "Hamburg-Amerika Linie", which would have made themselves find in appointed points, to supply the squadron with combustible.

The first two or three days of the voyage were among the most difficult ones, due to the inexperience of the ships to march in formation, nay simply to sail, and due to the numerous failures at the engine apparatuses (so many to make suspect predetermined acts of sabotage). But Rogestvenski didn't let himself be delayed and immediately sent back three or four too slow and indisciplined ships: one was sent back to Russia even by gun-fires. His word was that the squadron should always go ahead, anyhow and as quickly as possible.

After an "experimental" coal supply, hardly made anchoring the ships off the Danish coast of Skagerrak, the first big trouble happened in the night of 22nd October, in the middle of the North Sea, abeam the British harbour of Hull. Some ships, in the tail of the formation, got into a group of English fishing-boats, behind which they saw, or believed to see, a squadron of Japanese torpedo-boats delivering an attack, and they began firing: Russians, in fact, knew that four Japanese torpedo-boats, built in the North Sea shipyards, had sailed to the Far East but they purposed to attack the opposing ships along the way.

Today, it is still uncertain what really happened in that hurly-burly: the certain thing is that a fishing-boat was sunk, the British fleet was about to give battle, all the world blamed the "barbarity" of the Russians, Rogestvenski (who was at the head of the formation and knew the event only later) was pointed to the universal execration as pirate and murderer, at last the "Hull accident" costed St. Petersburg 65000 gold-pounds as indemnity for the English fishermen.

The effects of this disparaging campaign, led by London in order to favour Tokyo, already declared themselves at Vigo, where the Russian squadron appeared, unexpected, on 26th October: the Spaniards ordered it to go away within the 24 hours granted by international law, moreover forbidding it any contact with land and even to take in coal from the German steamships arrived on purpose. The Russian Admiral menaces to fire and, among a discussion and another, the squadron takes in a fresh supply of coal.

The following coal supply is made at Tangeri, without troubles; but at the departure Rogestvenski surprises the whole world with a move that nobody had imagined. While the Division of Rear Adm. Folkersam (the five minor "ships of the line", the destroyers and some auxiliary ships) enters regularly the Strait of Gibraltar, to go to the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal, Rogestvenski with all the other ships undertakes the circumnavigation of Africa, since the briefer route (London willing) could transform in a trap.

In the following three stops - in French waters at Dakar and Libreville, and in the Portuguese Twin Tiger Bay - Rogestvenski's ships are denied every assistance, more or less menaced, and compelled to take in coal in a hurry or stealthily. Meanwhile, to render the odyssey more painful, the tropical climate has arrived, faced by the Baltic mariners for the first time, and which the ships are unfit for. Life onboard becomes a hell, with temperatures that in the engine compartments rise to 70 °C, because of which some men die, and overheating deseases and a new series of mechanical failures happen. But Rogestvenski keeps on struggling against everything, and the ships continue advancing towards the very far goal.

After sustaining an awful storm, at last the Russian formation can re-order itself in peace and rest for three days in the German harbour of Luderitz Bay. But on 16th December, at the moment of putting to sea again, the Cape Town-arrived newspapers take the piece of news that, ten days before, the Japanese have destroyed the Port Arthur Squadron. This means that Togo is irrimediably stronger at this point: then why continuing that march towards death? But in the many telegrams of the "Lords of St. Petersburg" received by Rogestvenski at Luderitz, there is no word about that decisive reverse. The Admiral infers that, over there, nobody wants or can take the responsibility of giving him new orders. And then forward, for the immortal Russia, that the destiny be completed.

The squadron sails from Luderitz on 17th December and, though almost swept away by a cyclonic hurricane that has broken out while it was doubling the Cape of Good Hope, on 29th it anchors regularly in the Sainte Marie roadstead, a little island on the east coast of Madagascar. And here Rogestvenski feels himself really betrayed. According to his plans, in that retired locality he had to find Folkersam's Division, coming from Mediterranean Sea, waiting for him; and all the ships had to quickly take in coal and undertake the long crossing of Indian Ocean. The squadron couldn't afford to lose one minute: whichever the sort waiting for it in the Far East, every day gained would have improved it.

Instead, in Sainte Marie Rogestvenski finds neither Folkersam nor the colliers: unknown to him, St. Petersburg has already moved both to Nosy-Bé, a desert bay on the west coast of Madagascar. Worse: in Sainte Marie Rogestvenski finds the order to go to Nosy-Bé with his ships as well, he learns that Folkersam's Division needs fifteen days of repairs at least, and that at Kronstadt they are collecting all the "scrap-iron" left in the Baltic Sea to form a 3rd Pacific Squadron, which is to sail to the Far East as soon as possible.

After a week vainly spent trying to mend those despairing circumstances, Rogestvenski resigns himself to taking his ships to Nosy-Bé, where he arrives on 8th January (1905). Here he finds Folkersam's Division in deplorable conditions and its admiral reduced to extreme weakness by a desease. In a few days the morale and the discipline of the whole squadron drop below zero: exhausting climate, malaria, dysentery, quarrels, poor quality coal, suicides, sudden madnesses, serious insubordinations. Moreover, the piece of news arrives that, Gen. Kondratenko dead, Port Arthur has surrendered: the squadron primary goal is in the enemy's hands now, and it'll be necessary to go as far as Vladivostok, crossing the seas of Japan wholly.

But what does it matter, at this point? Nothing really matters anymore, excepted going ahead as quick as possible: St. Petersburg hasn't changed this order. With a titanic effort, Rogestvenski succeeds in overcoming all the obstacles once again and on 18th January the whole squadron is ready to sail: within a month it could reach Vladivostok. The admiral, in fact, has taken a decision which nobody imagines possible: he will make his ships take in coal quite in the middle of the ocean, in order not to lose time in further harbours. To this purpose, he orders some colliers to follow the squadron.

An unexpected event takes place then. The "Hamburg-Amerika Linie" forbids the colliers to follow Rogestvenski. Unknown to the admiral, St. Petersburg has accepted a contractual clause which allows that refusal. Rogestvenski insists: approaching the enemy seas, his routes must remain secret, so he must avoid further harbours. St. Petersburg informs him that there will be negotiations with the Germans and, for the time being, orders him to wait in Nosy-Bé. But from day to day, from a telegram to another, the forced stop continues until middle March: two months disastrous in every respect.

In that desert bay forty-five Russian ships are gathered at that point, and even provisions begin to lack: so in a few days a bidonville has risen there, where the worst human scraps, male and female, of all Madagascar and beyond, have gathered. Mariners get drunk and degrade themselves to a brute state: at this point, they know well that their mother country has completely abandoned them. And from up there more and more alarming news arrive: Grand Duke Sergej's assassination, the massacre of one thousand unarmed citizens in front of the Winter Palace, the Black Sea fleet rebellion.

The revolution spreads all over Russia, and its effects make themselves felt even at Nosy-Bé: aboard the cruiser Nakimov a riot breaks out, which Rogestvenski in person, and only thanks to his ascendancy over crews, succeeds in putting down hardly.

Blows over blows. How many of them has Rogestvenski borne, from the day he assumed the squadron command? And now, in that hellish anchorage, even that granitic man is disheartened by them. Rogestvenski falls ill, nobody knows of what desease: he has shut up in his cabin and he doesn't want to see anyone more. The crews believe he is dead. The piece of news that those ship-trifles of the 3rd Squadron have sailed from Kronstadt arrives at Nosy-Bé. Rogestvenski wires the Tsar asking for the exoneration from command. Nicholas II refuses firmly. There is no escape, it needs to drink to the dregs: and the admiral recharges himself of energies, he recovers, he takes the squadron off-shore for training.

At this point Rogestvenski fights a war of his own. He is not disturbed even by the piece of news that on 10th March the Russian army has been put to rout by the Japanese, in the great battle of Mukden. The war is already virtually lost: yet someone has to pay for all those huge errors. Rasplata is the Russian for the expiation price. Rasplata: it will be the 2nd Squadron to pay it. In order that Russia rises again, someone has to die yet: it will be the 2nd Squadron to die. We'll die in order that Russia lives again: this is a way to join the revolution, too. And this spirit, coming from their admiral, now pervades the 2nd Squadron crews, reanimates them miraculously, makes them able to face any other trial, up to the sacrifice of Tsushima.

On 16th March, as soon as the permission arrives to drag the colliers after, the squadron sails immediately from Nosy-Bé; it crosses the Indian, overcomes the extraordinary fatigue of the off-shore coaling. Rogestvenski has told none what route he will follow, but everyone in the world expects he will pass through the Sunda Strait: a Japanese naval force is waiting for him in that gate as well.

On the contrary, on 8th April the astonished English see the 2nd Squadron pass in good order in front of Singapore. Rogestvenski has gone 4000 miles from Nosy-Bé, without landing and in the most absolute secret: even Togo turns pale.

Four days later, the Squadron stops on the high seas off Annam, to take in coal. In order to arrive at the Japanese waters by surprise, baffling Togo's plans, this will be the last coaling. The ships fill with coal to the decks, at the cost of capsizing if a storm arrives. But at the moment of sailing to Vladivostok, the battleship Alexandr III is found not ready: she lacks 400 tons of coal in her bunkers and she needs three or four days at least to take in enough to arrive up there.

Rogestvenski thinks this forced delay is a sign of destiny. The Japanese ships have an overwhelming advantage in speed and fire power: before taking his men to massacre, Rogestvenski needs that St. Petersburg confirms if, in the present situation, he must actually proceed. St. Petersburg confirms, and moreover orders him to stop longer, in order to wait for the 3rd Squadron. It's the sign of a sentence to death, because Togo will have all the time to arrange his forces in advance for the battle. Anyway, Rogestvenski may not disobey: he takes the squadron to Kamran, from where the French authorities of Indo-China drive him away, he takes it to Van Fong and he is driven away from there as well.

Three endless weeks pass this way, wandering off Annam coast in a waiting which corrodes the crews' nerves and causes 20000 tons of precious coal to be wasted. At last, on 10th May, Adm. Niebogatov with the 3rd Squadron arrives: they are on the whole three small coastal defence gunships and a cruiser, which don't compensate the incalculable damages of the long waiting indeed. But surprisingly, thank God, these ships are in good working order: three days of joint training are sufficient and the whole Russian naval force stands out to sea. Which route will Rogestvenski follow now? Will he try to run the Tsushima Channel or will he pass outside Japan? Even Togo asks himself this, because his destroyers, already in search of the enemy north of Formosa, didn't succeed in finding him out.

The supreme hour is going to strike. On 25th May the Russian squadron accomplishes the last war drills abeam Shangai. But one more sad omen hits Rogestvenski: his second Adm. Folkersam dies suddenly because of an apoplectic fit. The crew cements his body in the hull of his ship (the battleship Oslyabia) in order that he is present at the battle: but the other crews are not told of his death, Folkersam's flag is not lowered, his division will fight under the command of a ghost.

The battleship Oslyabia

It has never happened that a naval force goes and face the enemy directly after a 20000 miles voyage, and what a voyage! Nevertheless the evening of 26th May the undaunted Russian squadron sets out on entering the Tsushima Channel. The radiotelegraphic devices aboard the ships, though rudimental, intercept the signals from the Japanese destroyers unleashed in the zone. After seven months of horrible tribulations, the unprecedented odyssey is going to end: the Russian mariners shudder with enthusiasm, impatient of breaking out in an extreme liberation rush. The sea grows dark with fog, hopes augment: maybe we'll do it.

Togo is seized by the doubts about his adversary's movements. The Japanese squadron is ready to move from the anchorages which border the caudine forks of the Channel. If Rogestvenski had taken the other way, it would be difficult to overtake him. Togo doesn't know that the Russian ships lack the coal for trying that longer route. At last, about at dawn of 27th May, even for the Japanese the hour of action strikes: a steamer sights the tail of the Russian formation. That signal is sufficient, and all the ships put to sea. Like Nelson at Trafalgar, Togo delivers them an address: "Japan future rests with this battle. Let every man do his utmost".

During the morning, the Russians catch a glimpse, amid the fog, of various groups of opposing cruisers, and draw up in one long line for the now certain battle. They are twelve ships of the line: at the head there is Rogestvenski, aboard the big battleship Suvarov, followed by its three sister ships. In their wake, the four minor battleships, led by dead adm. Folkersam's Oslyabia, then adm. Niebogatov's four old coastal defence ships. A little distanced, the auxiliary ship convoy follows, escorted by adm. Enquist's light cruisers, which are ordered to take it towards south-east, far from the battle, as soon as this begins. The speed of the Russians is about ten knots, while the Japanese can keep fifteen.

At midday the formation goes beyond the Channel narrowest point, between Iki and Tsu islands ("shima" is the Japanese for island): is it possible that Togo is looking for them elsewhere? The doubt lasts short: about at 13,30 a stormy wind sweeps the fog at a blow and, as at a curtain rise, the Russians sight on the horizon, on their port bow, the main body of the Japanese fleet. They are six modern battleships, with Togo's Mikasa at the head, followed by the six heavy cruisers of his second adm. Kamimura: they manoeuvre quickly, coming up on a parallel course with the Russians on their port side. In the mean time, at 14,08 and at a distance of 7000 meters, Rogestvenski gives the fatidical order to open fire.

This way one of the most famous naval battles of all times begins. While the Japanese complete their manoeuvre, they can't reply, and they receive many hits, but afterwards all their guns concentrate their fire on the two flagships, Suvarov and Oslyabia, which consequently get into difficulties soon. Moreover, thanks to their higher speed, Togo's ships try to surpass the Russian line and close the range, forcing Rogestvenski to turn gradually starboard, for not being outflanked.

The Russian gunners shoot well and with much precision, but the opposing fire is three times more rapid. Moreover, to the Russians' great surprise, the Japanese employ a new type of grenade, splinter-spreading and incendiary, which has deadly and very impressive effects, and which produces poison-gases (used here for the first time), against which no defence exists. On the contrary, the Russian shells have little effects, and on bursting they emit scarcely any smoke, so that they seem not to hit the mark. However, the battle grows with furious violence: the Japanese give vent to the whole living will of their young nation, the Russians oppose them with the braveness which comes from their ancient instinct.

Half an hour later the battle reaches its decisive top, with apocalyptic power. The range has dropped below 4000 meters. Both parties fight with extreme vigour, even if many Russian ships have their decks horribly torn, masts and funnels felled, and the mariners fight among fires, explosions, piles of dead bodies. The two flagships, which still bear most of the Japanese gun-fires, are little more than smoking wreckage: aboard the Oslyabia the flames are cremating Folkersam's corpse, but also aboard the Suvarov it is as if the admiral were dead.

In fact Rogestvenski, wounded in his head, has been carried to lower deck unconscious. But then he recovers his senses, he climbs up the torn steel plates, he makes his way among the blooded bodies, goes back onto the upper deck, begins giving orders again, a shell splinter shivers a malleolus to him, he drags himself beside the slaughtered servants of a gun, he calls people till the piece starts firing again, further splinters wound him, but finally he loses his senses.

Anyway, at this point the Russian formation has disunited under the enemy's fury: ships that are left behind, that stop, that burst, that sink, but that yet fight wonderfully up to the extreme, shooting with the last gun until they are submerged. The epic struggle shatters in a hundred of episodes. But in the meantime the Japanese have surpassed the Russian ships, and this by now chiefless group astonishes the enemy once more: the Alexandr III, which leads the way, turns suddenly in order to pass astern of the Japanese line and escape northward, dragging the surviving ships after her. The manoeuvre surprises Togo's ships and only the promptness of Kamimura's cruisers succeeds, with difficulty, in restoring the situation.

Finally, the Japanese vessels set themselves on everywhere, and almost all of the scattered opposing ships are assailed, tortured, shot through and through, even if already in state of sinking. Meanwhile, the same happens to adm. Enquist's convoy more to the south: two powerful Divisions of cruisers have descended to pursue, attack, destroy it.

At nightfall, while the last Japanese gun-fires send to the bottom the wreckage of three battleships, the remains of the Russian squadron try to pull away in the dark towards Vladivostok. But then about forty Japanese torpedo-boats, in swarms, come into action and, in three hours' duels, they dispatch every ship they can get their hands on. Miraculously, only adm. Niebogatov's old ships, which, being at the end of the line, already had saved themselves from the massacre of the day, escape this havoc.

But at dawn also this group is overtaken, and Togo's whole squadron surrounds it. Niebogatov proceeds impassible but, when the Japanese open fire, his flagship hoists the signal for surrender and the whole group hands itself over (the old admiral took later the whole responsibility of the decision, which nearly caused a revolt aboard his ships, upon himself, convinced of the uselessness of a further slaughter). In the afternoon instead, the old coastal defence gunship Usciakov and the old cruiser Monomak, delayed by the heavy damages suffered, fight with lion's strength to the last round when spotted. The Monomak, nay, fights till the sunset, and with such a valour that, while she is sinking, the Japanese honour the dying enemy by singing him in chorus a very ancient hymn dedicated to heroes: "With the unsheathed sabre"...

The battleship Orel before the battle

The battleship Orel heavily damaged after the battle

Other photos of the damages suffered by the battleship Orel during the battle

This way, at last, the great sea-fight comes to an end. Of the thirty-seven Russian ships taking part in it, twenty-two sank, thirteen have been captured by the Japanese or will be disarmed in neutral ports: only two destroyers will succeed in reaching Vladivostok. More than 4000 Russian mariners have died. The Japanese have received a good many damages, even rather heavy, on nearly all their ships, but have lost only three destroyers and 116 men.

And Rogestvenski? Before the Suvarov sank, he had been laid, senseless because of a shell fragment in his skull, on board a destroyer that later had surrendered, so that he had fallen prisoner unawares. The surgeons of Sasebo Navy Hospital saved him. Few days later, his direct antagonist appeared suddenly at his bedside. They looked at each other for a long time, in silence. Then Togo took his hand and, holding it with emotion, said to him: "Anybody may be won. But, when one has done entirely his duty, he must not be ashamed. You and your mariners have performed extraordinary deeds. I wish to express you my deepest respect".

Togo at Rogestvenski's bedside

On the contrary, come back home, Rogestvenski was betrayed by the "Lords of St. Petersburg" once again, in order to prevent him from accusing them. They found the way to prosecute him: the admiral refused to make any speech for his defence, as he believed that only History, many years later, could have brought in a just verdict. In fact, Rogestvenski was sentenced to dismissal from service, with an incredible statement of reasons: "For negligence in fulfilling his duties".

 

Acknowledgements:

Dr. Marco Barilli, for his unvaluable contribution of texts and pictures;

The historian Marc'Antonio Bragadin;

"Storia Illustrata" - Arnoldo Mondadori Editore - Milan, Italy;

Photos of the Russian battleships are taken from the website: http://www.yodanet.com/portal/Members/gandalf/photo/rjw.html/russian/navy/2-nd/. - In this interesting website you can find images of nearly all the Russian ships taking part in the battle.

This is a free site, that makes itself know mostly thanks to the echoing of its users; also you can contribute: signal this site to your interested friends. Thank you very much indeed.

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