On 27 and 28 May 1905 the Japanese fleet of Admiral Togo Heihachiro met the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Tsushima Strait and annihilated it2. The Russians had sailed some 18,000 miles from the Baltic over seven months to reach the fight; in a single day of superior gunnery and manoeuvre, most of their ships were sunk or captured. It was the most decisive naval battle since the age of sail, and it announced Japan as a modern great power.
No fleet had ever come so far to be destroyed so completely. For seven months the Russian Baltic Fleet had crawled around the world to relieve a lost war in the east, and it arrived exhausted and outdated3. Waiting for it in the narrow straits between Korea and Japan was a faster, better-drilled fleet and one of the great admirals of the age.
A war in the east
By 1904 Russia and Japan were at war over Korea and Manchuria, and Japan's army and navy had the upper hand. To turn the tide, the Tsar sent his Baltic Fleet halfway around the world to break the Japanese command of the sea. Under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky the fleet steamed some 18,000 miles over seven months4, its crews worn down and its ships fouled and short of good coal, to reach the war zone in May 1905.
The Togo turn
Admiral Togo Heihachiro waited with the Japanese fleet in the straits, warned by wireless the moment the Russians were sighted1. As the two lines closed, Togo swung his ships across the head of the Russian column1 in a daring turn, a manoeuvre that let his whole line fire on the leading enemy ships while few of their guns could reply. His gunnery was faster and more accurate, and his shells started devastating fires.
Annihilation
Within hours the Russian flagship was crippled and Rozhestvensky badly wounded.1 Ship after ship was battered and sunk in the afternoon and the running fights through the night, as Japanese torpedo boats hunted the survivors in the dark2. By the next day the Russian fleet had ceased to exist: most of its ships were sunk or captured, thousands of sailors dead, and the surviving commanders in Japanese hands.
The world takes notice
Tsushima was one of the most one-sided victories in naval history and forced Russia to make peace. The war ended with the Treaty of Portsmouth later that year1, and the shock of the defeat deepened the revolution already spreading through Russia. For Japan, the victory over a European great power was a turning point that echoed far beyond the sea, and it made Togo a national hero.
