Admiral Togo

by Jonathan Clements

  Tsushima

  The Baltic Fleet, unconvincingly renamed the ‘Second Pacific Squadron’ as opposed to the hapless ‘First’ that Tōgō had neutralised, finally got underway on 16 October 1904 from its home port of Libau, in what is now Latvia. In what was to prove to be an omen of many disasters to come, the flagship ran aground while trying to leave port, one of the cruisers lost her anchor chain, and the fleet lost its first vessel when a destroyer rammed another ship and had to put back to port for repairs.

  The fleet was commanded by Admiral Zinovy Petrovich Rozhestvensky (1848–1909), a hot-tempered veteran of the Turkish War with a reputation for explosive anger and little patience. Although he was the same age as Tōgō, he was a radically different personality. Where Tōgō was possessed of legendary patience and composure, Rozhestvensky was better known for tantrums and shouting, and had infamously once hurled his binoculars overboard in a fit of pique. He had, however, every reason to be nervous, as he feared insurgency within his fleet, incompetence in the ranks, and the outrageous pressure of an 18,000-mile voyage into battle against Tōgō. Nor did he have much confidence in his deputies, referring to one as an ‘Empty Space’, and the other as a ‘Sack of Shit’.

  Rozhestvensky’s fleet faced monstrous logistical problems, not the least the absence of any friendly ports along the route that could legitimately offer supplies to the ships. Russia was a land empire stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific and famously spanned by the Trans-Siberian Railway. It had never previously had any need to secure bases in distant ports on the Atlantic or Indian Oceans. Under the terms of the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Great Britain would be obliged to step into the war if any other power came to the aid of the Russians, forcing all assistance to be underhand or indirect. Consequently, Rozhestvensky’s fleet was tailed whenever possible by a swarm of sixty coal transports – German merchantmen that needed to keep up a constant cycle of deliveries merely to keep the fleet underway.

  Unlike Tōgō’s fleet, which had been training constantly for two years, the Baltic Fleet was ice-bound every winter, severely limiting the number of days that its sailors might practise even the simplest drills. Where Tōgō’s navy was staffed by fanatics, former samurai from coastal regions such as Satsuma, career sailors and Imperial loyalists, many of the ‘Russian’ crews were under-motivated ethnic subjects of the Tsar – Poles, natives of the Baltic coast, Jews and Finns, who were all susceptible to revolutionary agitators. By virtue of Russian geography, any ‘pure’ Russians aboard the fleet were likely to have been born far inland, and hence lacking any long-term experience beyond the Baltic.

  Similarly, where Tōgō’s officers had been honed in active service in the very region where the conflict was sure to take place, fighting a war against China in the same waters only ten years previously, the Baltic Fleet had seen little action since the Crimean War in 1856. Its crews were either trained in hopelessly outmoded equipment and tactics, or theoretically tutored in the use of new inventions that had yet to be tested. Nor was such lack of experience limited merely to the men – many of the vessels were untried designs, whose ability to perform in battle conditions was as-yet unassessed. Many had been over-laden, which caused them to sit lower in the water than planned, submerging the extra ‘belt’ of anti-torpedo armour along their waterlines so that any torpedo would actually strike above it. The Russians must have known their ships were sitting too low, if only because many of the ships’ lower guns were actually awash and impossible to fire. Many vessels were also top-heavy or suffered critical design flaws, which would only be revealed when it was too late – the ‘ideal’ battleship for early 20th century conditions, arguably HMS Dreadnought (1906), would not be established until after the Russo-Japanese War provided shipwrights and designers with data on how modern technology had altered traditional tactics. Hence, for several of the battleships in Rozhestvensky’s fleet, including his own flagship, the Frenchdesigned Suvorov, the long journey to the Far East was not merely an arduous and unexpected dash to the rescue, but also the ‘shakedown cruise’ in which they were expected to test, refine and master their equipment.

  The Japanese battle against the Baltic Fleet began before it even left port. Tōgō’s greatest ally in his war against Rozhestvensky, an unsung hero of the Russo-Japanese War, was Akashi Motojirō, a Japanese naval attaché, who was regarded by the Japanese high command as a man worth ten divisions. Formerly based in St Petersburg, Akashi had been given a one-million-yen budget and instructed to set up a European espionage organisation. His mission was to cause as much trouble as possible for the Tsar, which he had duly commenced by funding seditious presses, running guns to would-be revolutionaries, and offering support to terrorists, anarchists and secessionists. By the time the Baltic Fleet put to sea in October 1904, Akashi believed he had outstayed his welcome in St Petersburg and ran for Helsinki, where he hoped to orchestrate a Finnish revolution. In the meantime, although there is no proof of his direct involvement in the misfortunes of the Baltic Fleet, at least some of his troublemaking fund appears to have been put to work in misdirecting and confusing Rozhestvensky’s mission.1

  Quite possibly Rozhestvensky was the architect of his own demise, running up a signal to repel torpedo boats as a drill, and not realising that some of his simpler crewmen might take it for an actual sighting of Japanese attackers. But Akashi’s intrigues are a more likely explanation for a palpable fear among the crews of the Baltic Fleet that the Japanese might jump out at them at any time. In particular, we might point the finger of suspicion at certain crewmen aboard the auxiliary Kamchatka, a repair ship whose misleadingly ‘mistaken’ signals periodically brought the Baltic Fleet to the brink of disaster.

  Even though Tōgō was half a world away, the Russians remained constantly watchful after rumours had spread among the fleet of the presence of ‘Japanese torpedo boats’ off the shore of Denmark. The source for this information, ironically, was Russian military intelligence, whose agent in Copenhagen had swallowed an entirely fictional account of Japanese saboteurs, and who had not realised that the sole aim of these ‘saboteurs’ was to feed Russian paranoia with such fictions. Entirely without evidence, talk arose among the crews of Japanese mines in the North Sea and threats of Japanese stealth attacks, so that Rozhestvensky himself ordered that no unidentified ships were to approach the fleet.2 So, when a boat arrived bearing the news that Rozhestvensky had been promoted to Vice Admiral, his own sailors fired on it. Luckily for the crew of the target, if not for everyone’s prospects against Tōgō, none of the Russians scored a hit. The Russians were similarly spooked by the sight of two balloons in the distance, whose origin and destination was never established, but whose aims were assumed to be those of Japanese spies. The Kamchatka, in the first of her many attempts to stir up trouble, then signalled that she was under attack by ‘about eight’ torpedo boats.

  On 21 October in the North Sea, the Russians believed they had spotted a flotilla of Japanese torpedo boats. The fleet opened fire on the distant ships, with several panicked signals reaching Rozhestvensky that ships had been hit by ‘Japanese’ torpedoes. On one Russian ship, sword-wielding officers ran on deck to repel non-existent Japanese borders. It was an entirely false alarm; and the Baltic Fleet was found to have unleashed thousands of rounds against a surprised group of British trawlers, which had been innocently spreading their nets in the well-known fishing grounds of the Dogger Bank. In the fog, the Russians had sunk one fishing boat and damaged several others, killing three Britons. To Rozhestvensky’s great rage and embarrassment, the Russians had also somehow managed to inflict damage on themselves, directing the bulk of their fire against two of their own ships.

  The Dogger Bank Incident was a national outrage in Britain, regarded by many as an awful accident, but by the harder-line press and politicians as an act of war. While diplomats scurried to smoothe things over, Rozhestvensky discovered that he had gained a new escort, with battleships of the Royal Navy ominously shadowing him through the
English Channel and across the Bay of Biscay. At Vigo on the north-west coast of Spain, Rozhestvensky dumped the officers responsible for the Dogger Bank Incident, although it is unclear whether he was ridding his fleet of the worst incompetents or the best Japanese agents.

  The Kamchatka disappeared for several days in the Atlantic, where she diligently fired upon French, German and Swedish ships, claiming that each in turn was a Japanese attacker. Off the shores of Angola, she caused another scare, ‘accidentally’ mixing up the signals for ‘All well’ with ‘Do you see torpedo boats?’. The Baltic Fleet steamed carefully down the African coast, the decks overladen with piles of coal from the latest delivery by the collier fleet. Coal dust created an unbearable fog of choking particles in the hot equatorial climate, while the fleet was tailed by a growing school of sharks, lunching on the offal and rotting meat dumped overboard from the malfunctioning refrigeration ship.

  Eventually, Rozhestvensky rounded Cape Horn and put ashore at Madagascar on 9 January 1905, where he lingered for several weeks with a tropical sickness. His sailors busied themselves with their exotic acquisitions from the shore, which included the unwise purchase of a ‘ship’s crocodile’, a giant poisonous snake that refused to unwrap itself from a warm gun, and a crate of 2,000 unexpectedly exotic cigarettes laced with opium. A resupply ship caught up with them in the heat of the Madagascan spring and proudly delivered a cargo of enough fur coats and winter boats to supply 12,000 men. It was, however, lacking the vital ammunition for which Rozhestvensky had been waiting. Eventually, after several stragglers had caught up with the main fleet, including some shallow-draft ships that had come through the Suez Canal, Rozhestvensky set out into the Indian Ocean with his fleet now numbering an impressive forty-five ships. And then, with nobody to observe his heading, he effectively disappeared.

  With Rozhestvensky nothing more than a ghost somewhere between Madagascar and Malacca, Tōgō made preparations for the next phase of the war. His ships had been repaired to the best of their crews’ abilities, and their location was now a closely-guarded secret. He sent Admiral Kamimura to lay mines outside the entrance to Vladivostok, all the better to keep the surviving two warships contained for the time being. He also briefed his commanders on his tactics for dealing with the Russian fleet when it eventually arrived. Among his admonitions to his commanders, he pressed upon them the need to imitate his cautious nature. Naval losses so far in the Russo-Japanese war had largely been caused not by Russian action, but by Japanese mistakes. Tōgō was only too aware that the numbers of the Japanese fleet were still at fighting strength solely because of the care he had taken to avoid risks – the surprise attack on Port Arthur, the blockade, and the refusal to commit his capital ships when the enemy might reasonably have a chance to sink them.

  In a battle, the most important thing is caution. We must not fear a great enemy nor make light of a small one. We must not be desiring that the enemy will not come; if there is anything we have long been waiting for, we must on no account be taken by surprise. It has often happened in the past that there have been matters for regret after a battle; that is due to our having a weak point which has been taken advantage of by the enemy. Lack of cautiousness is a great danger; and we must not even for a moment be off our guard in the slightest matters.3

  Rozhestvensky’s fleet remained invisible for several weeks, its location unknown and unreported. There was a sudden glimpse of the Baltic Fleet near Singapore on 8 April, news of which reached Tōgō by the following day. But after that, the forty-five ships vanished once again.

  Meanwhile, the Russians made a half-hearted effort to match Japanese espionage. It was made widely known that the Russian ships interned in Shanghai after the Battle of the Yellow Sea were planning a breakout. This information seems to have been intended to lure Japanese ships down south, but Tōgō resolutely clung to his plans to meet the Russians closer to Japanese waters. As the days passed, there was no sign of the Baltic Fleet in Chinese waters, where the Japanese were sure to have plenty of agents to observe them. In fact, it was not merely the Japanese who were curious about the whereabouts of the Baltic Fleet. The world’s press, too, was full of speculation as to where the great battle would take place.

  The London Daily Telegraph, sensing a story in the offing, sent a telegram to its newly appointed Hong Kong correspondent, William Donald: ‘RUSSIAN FLEET REPORTED LOST SINCE LEAVING RED SEA STOP MAY BE SOMEWHERE YOUR AREA STOP GO FIND IT.’4 Donald booked passage in a steamer for Saigon, perhaps hoping to meet the fleet somewhere along the way. It certainly made sense to expect to see it somewhere in South East Asia, but Rozhestvensky’s ships were a ghost fleet, invisible to the international community.

  Donald got what he was looking for as his steamer passed the massive deepwater bay at Cam Ranh in Indochina. Donald plainly saw a forest of smoke-columns, belching coal fumes into the sky and creating a mist on the horizon. He asked the captain of his ship what the smoke was, and received the unlikely reply that it was ‘from big industries’. From Saigon, Donald headed back north towards the suspicious ‘industrial’ phenomenon poking out of the jungle. He bribed the captain of another steamer to take him north to Nha Trang, only a few miles from the bay, discovering in the process that the mystery ships had been in Cam Ranh Bay since 14 April. Realising that if this was true, he had not only a scoop, but also an exposé, Donald knew that he needed to confirm the story with his own eyes. He emerged, sweating and dog-tired, from the jungle on 1 May, and found himself staring at the terrifying bulk of Rozhestvensky’s flagship, the Suvorov, close to the shore. The rest of the Baltic Fleet stretched out in the bay behind them: everything from a hospital ship to coal transports, cruisers and torpedo boats. Far out to sea was the crucial element that turned Donald’s story into journalistic gold – the French cruiser Descartes guarding the ocean approach.

  Donald’s story was cabled back to the Telegraph, where his editor saw its explosive potential. The Russian fleet was not permitted to stay in a ‘neutral’ port for longer than twenty-four hours. By looking the other way, the authorities in French Indochina were extending illegal assistance to the Russians; precisely the sort of assistance that was liable under the Anglo-Japanese Alliance to drag the British into the war. Amid strong protestations from the UK, the French went through the motions of shooing the Russians out of Cam Ranh Bay. At first, it was a daft charade, in which Rozhestvensky was asked to leave and then permitted to immediately return. Donald stirred up a second story, but found his access to telegraph transmission blocked by the locals, and only managed to smuggle his story out to the Telegraph and the China Mail with the collusion of the British consulate.

  The Baltic Fleet was forced to get underway once more. To a certain extent, Rozhestvensky had got what he wanted, as he had been waiting for a ‘Third’ fleet to catch up with him. The extra ships, largely comprising antiquated vessels sent as an afterthought, arrived on 14 May, strengthening the Baltic Fleet for its forthcoming encounter with the famous Admiral Tōgō. Watching the fleet leave for the open sea, William Donald wrote a prescient assessment of the Russians’ chances: ‘These ships will be disgraced in their first engagement.’5

  The amount of coal available to Rozhestvensky was not ideal. He resupplied near the Philippines and continued on his northward journey. Had he had better supplies, he might have been able to head around the east of Japan and take a safer route to Vladivostok. Instead, he decided to take the option that conserved more fuel but pointed him straight at Japan’s main supply route to Korea. Rozhestvensky decided to risk running through the Korea Strait, past the island of Tsushima.

  Rozhestvensky warned his men of the opponent they were sure to be facing, smartly noting that the Russians were facing an enemy with more experience, better drills and better equipment. So as not to present an entirely negative view, he urged his men to conserve ammunition by observing the effects of previous shots before firing off a new one, and also noted that while the Japanese had the Emperor, the Russians st
ill had the Tsar:

  The loyalty of the Japanese to Throne and country is unbounded. They do not suffer dishonour and they die like heroes. But we have sworn before the Most High Throne. God has inspired us with courage. He has assisted us to overcome the unprecedented trials of our voyage. He will bestow upon us His blessing so that we may carry out the will of our Sovereign and wash away with our blood the bitter shame brought upon our country.6

  William Donald’s scoop in Indochina was public knowledge by the following day – Tōgō now knew that Rozhestvensky was leaving Cam Ranh Bay. Unaware of Rozhestvensky’s plans or coaling issues, the question remained for Tōgō whether the Baltic Fleet would come up through the Yellow Sea past Tsushima or seek to reach Vladivostok by sailing out behind Japan to the east. On 26 May, Tōgō heard that seven Russian auxiliary vessels had put into a harbour near Shanghai. It was all the confirmation that he needed – the Russians were coming through the Korean Strait.

  Tōgō’s plan for the Russians capitalised on Japanese access to safe harbours on both sides of the Korea Strait. While the Baltic Fleet would have no choice but to run the gauntlet, the Japanese could lie in wait, work in shifts, and return to friendly ports for recuperation and repair. Tōgō had plotted a four-day plan, in the course of which a Japanese squadron on patrol would spot the fleet as it approached the Strait and begin firing. The Russians would then have to contend with six further attacks as they worked their way past Tsushima and up the west coast of Japan towards Vladivostok. On each day, they would be attacked by squadrons of warships and cruisers. At night, while the big guns retired to safety, the Russians would be harried by constant probes from destroyers and torpedo boats. Moreover, the greater part of Tōgō’s fleet, including the Mikasa herself, was stashed on the ‘wrong’ side of the Strait, in a large bay in south-west Korea. When the time came for Tōgō to deploy, his line of ships would wall off the Korean side of the Strait, presenting the Russians with a single exit route that took them closer to Japan and within range of squadrons of smaller ships based in Japanese ports.