What was at stake: Narrowly, control of Manchuria; broadly, unquestioned
Western domination of the Far East.Russia, in the time-honored fashion of European colonial powers, was taking over the Chinese territory of Manchuria. First, it got a concession to run the Trans Siberian Railway through a strip of Chinese territory. Then she got a long-term lease on the Liao Tung Peninsula, where it planned to build a naval base, and then permission to build and operate a branch railroad from the Trans Siberian to the peninsula. Russia was establishing what was then called a "sphere of influence" in Manchuria.
That concerned Japan, which was trying to establish its own sphere of influence in Korea. Russia and Japan entered negotiations, but Russia was always finding reasons why no conclusion could be reached. While the diplomats talked, Russia secured China's permission to send troops to the Yalu River, the border between Manchuria and Korea. Japan broke off diplomatic relations with Russia.
Then, on February 8,1904, the Japanese Navy, under Admiral Togo Heihachiro, attacked the Russian ships at Port Arthur. Two days later, Japan declared war on Russia. In his sneak attack, Togo hit three Russian ships. The next day he had a brief fight with Russian ships off Chemulpo (modern Inch'on) in Korea, sinking a cruiser and a gunboat. Neither action had much effect on either navy. On paper, Russia was a major naval power. It had more battleships than any country except for Britain or France. In the Far East alone, Russia had seven first-class battleships to Japan's six, nine first-class cruisers to Japan's eight, and 25 destroyers to Japan's 19.
And the Far East fleet was by no means the bulk of Russia's navy. It had equally powerful fleets in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea.On land, the apparent discrepancy was even greater. Russia had some 4,500,000 trained soldiers; Japan had 283,000. The catch was that the Russian troops in the Far East had to be supplied by the Trans Siberian Railway. The railroad, for most of its length, was a single track. It was laid across tundra that turned into shifting morass every spring. And at Lake Baikal, in central Siberia, there was a gap in the line. In winter, goods could be hauled 30 miles across the frozen lake, but in warm weather shipments had to move over 100 miles of miserable roads. It took a full month to move a battalion to the Far East. In the whole area between Lake Baikal and the Pacific, there were only 138,000 Russian troops.
That might have aroused the traditional fear of "Asiatic hordes" (although Russia had three times the population of Japan), but Russian authorities weren't worried. Asked if his procrastination during negotiations might not provoke a war, the Russian foreign minister said there would be no war. All Russia needed in Manchuria was "one flag and one sentry. Russian prestige will do the rest." And if it really did come to a crunch, Russian naval power would be decisive. Japan, after all, was a group of islands. And while numbers might be decisive in land fighting, it was different at sea. Navies depended on science and mechanics.
The "little yellow monkeys" just couldn't match Europeans there."Our plan of operations should be based on the assumption that it is impossible for our fleet to be beaten," the Russian Naval Staff reported.The Russian naval commanders in Manchuria weren't so sure. Although they had more heavy warships than Togo, they let the Japanese land at Chemulpo on February 17 and move through Manchuria toward their base, Port Arthur. On August 10, to escape the Japanese troops ringing Port Arthur, the Russian fleet put to sea. It was trounced by a smaller Japanese fleet and driven back to the harbor. So far, all that the Russian Navy had demonstrated was its incompetence. Worse was to come.
The voyage of the damned
The Russian Black Sea fleet was bound by treaty not to pass through the Dardanelles, but there was no such restriction on the Baltic Sea fleet. That fleet, under Admiral Zinovi Petrovitch Rozhestvensky, had seven battleships and a number of cruisers and destroyers. On October 15, it was dubbed the Second Pacific Squadron and ordered to relieve Port Arthur. It almost never got there.Togo's sneak attack had unnerved the Russian high command. Russian intelligence agents in Denmark reported Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea.
In the North Sea mist, Rozhestvensky's men thought they saw those torpedo boats and opened fire. They hit some other Russian warships and sank one British trawler. The "torpedo boats" had been English fishing boats. The British Royal Navy prepared to intercept Rozhestvensky. The Russian government hastily apologized.
After firing (without effect) on some Swedish, French, and German ships they mistook for Japanese, the Russians reached Tangier.
Pulling out of that harbor on their way to round the Cape of Good Hope, they snagged the underwater telegraph cable, cutting off communications with Europe for four days. At Dakar, they met the first of 60 German colliers the Russian government had contracted to refuel the fleet. The Russian Navy, unlike the navies of Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, had no overseas coaling stations.At Dakar and at Cape Town, the Russian sailors, to break the monotony, had adopted exotic pets, including monkeys, apes, and crocodiles, and brought them aboard. One pet, a poisonous snake, nearly killed a crewmember.
By the time they reached Madagascar, the tropical heat and humidity had felled many Russians, including Rozhestvensky. They stayed two weeks at Madagascar, waiting for a supply ship that was to replenish the shells they had fired at inoffensive neutrals. When the supply ship arrived, the Russian sailors discovered that instead of shells, it contained 12,000 pairs of fur-lined boots and 12,000 winter coats. At French Indochina, Rozhestvensky's fleet met reinforcements. The new fleet included some coastal monitors and some decrepit warships the Russian sailors themselves called "self-sinkers."Long before the Russian fleet got that far, Port Arthur, which it was to relieve, had surrendered on January 2.
The fleet was still at Madagascar when, on March 10, Japanese troops decisively defeated the Russians at Mukden. For all intents and pur-poses, the war was over. But Rozhetvensky received no orders to change course. He pushed on.
Crossing the T
Togo was waiting. The Japanese ships, most of them built in Britain, were newer and faster. Their guns fired heavier shells. The Russian ships, however, carried better armor-piercing shells and the Russian armor was of better steel. The Russians entered the Straits of Tsushima, between Japan and Korea. Rozhestvensky knew the enemy was near. He ordered his heavy ships to form a line abreast instead of a column. That way, if they encountered a column of Japanese ships, they could all turn and fire broadsides at the enemy.The maneuver was a classic naval tactic called "crossing the T." The approaching enemy fleet, one ship behind another, could fire only the guns facing forward on the first ship.
The ships behind the first could not fire at all. Meanwhile the fleet that had crossed the T could fire most of the guns on each ship.The Russian navigators, however, were not able to form a line abreast. The best they could do was two parallel columns. The Japanese approached them from the side, instead of from directly ahead. At 1:40 p.m. on May 27, the main battle fleets made contact and opened fire. The Japanese had four battleships and eight armored cruisers to the Russians' seven battleships and nine armored cruisers. It was misty, and the Russian ships, painted black with yellow funnels, were easier to see. The Japanese, ahead of most of the world in this respect, had painted their ships slate gray.
Togo took advantage of his superior speed and crossed the Russian T Ten Jap-anese ships concentrated their fire on the two lead Russian battleships. One was knocked out almost immediately, the second was crippled 20 minutes later. Fire broke out on a third Russian battleship. Mikasa, Togo's flagship, was hit several times, and one of his cruisers was forced to drop out of the battle. The Russians tried to turn away from the T-crossing Japanese, but Togo's fleet turned with them. A half-circle of Japanese ships laid down a devastating crossfire on the Russians. Rozhestvensky was seriously wounded and transferred, unconscious, to a destroyer.
When he regained consciousness, he was in a Japanese hospital. Five of the seven Russian battleships, including his flagship, Suvarov, had been sunk. Three cruis-ers escaped to the Philippines, where their crews were interned. A cruiser and two destroyers reached Vladivostok. All together, the Russians had lost 34 of their 37 warships. Killed were 4,830 Russian crewmen, while 5,917 were captured and 1,862 were interned. The number of Japanese killed totaled 110, with three cruisers dam-aged and three torpedo boats sunk.
Tsushima was, except for the two battles in 1898 in which the Americans destroyed virtually the whole Spanish navy with the loss of only one seaman, the most lopsided naval battle of modern times. The Tsar had to sue for peace. Theodore Roosevelt mediated the peace. The terms, of course, were favorable to Japan. Roosevelt would have preferred that the Japanese victory had not been quite so crushing. He'd hoped the Russian and Japanese navies would balance each other. The Spanish American War, which had boosted Roosevelt to power, had made the United States a Far Eastern power.
From 1905 on, Japanese and American naval men eyed each other warily. Whatever happened in the rest of the world, each knew that the other was the ultimate enemy.Even more important, Togo and his men had shattered the notion of Caucasian superiority. That, like the long-simmering American-Japanese naval rivalry, would not come to a head for another generation or two. But it takes only a glance at a globe to see how it has changed the world.
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