Tsushima: “A defeat, where a bitterness is mingled with a pride of our fleet’s heroism, that even the Japanese have noticed”

The Tsushima Battle, which became one of the most severe defeats of the Russian Empire at sea, began on May 27, 1905, 112 years ago. With all the tragedy of the battle’s outcome, yet even the time tasted Japanese officers and average sailors respected the heroism of Russian mariners. A lot of evidences of this remained in the old books, electronic copies of which are included into the Presidential Library stock.

Outwardly imposed on Russia war, to which the country was not ready at all, a priori turned into superiority of enemy forces: from the Japanese side there were 120 ships, while only 30 advanced from Kroonstad to Vladivostok. The tasks of both sides were laconic and clear: the Russian fleet under the command of the admiral Nebogatov and Vice-Admiral Rozhestvensky had to break through to Vladivostok and gain a foothold in the eastern water area. Accordingly, the Japanese fleet under the command of Admiral Tog received an order to destroy the Russian naval forces.

In The Tsushima engagement book by George Alexandrovsky, first published in New York on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the events, we can read: “The night before the battle. The yellowish-gray sea unfriendly met Russian ships. A gusting southwest wind blew. A low band of fog hovered over the swelling waves. The squadron closed as tightly as possible. Only the vague shadow of adjacent matelote in front and the following in wake ship are visible from each vessel. There is a tense silence on the darkened decks. The servants stood still near the cannons and searchlights, trying with their sharp, peered into the haze eyes to discern in the dark even more black shadows of enemy’s destroyers. The images of the insidious attacks of Japanese destroyers on our ships in Port Arthur remained alive in everyone’s memory.”

Vice Admiral Zenobius Petrovich Rozhestvensky didn’t get a wink of sleep on the captain's bridge of the flagship “Prince Suvorov”. He thought that for Russia the fall of Port Arthur meant the loss of access to the unfrozen Yellow Sea, the deterioration of the strategic situation in Manchuria… “All the immense burden of leading these still incompletely constructed ships with their untested mechanisms, unproven appliances, not yet teamed up crews laid on his lonely shoulders,” - Georgy Aleksandrovsky writes.

The battle flared up and, what was not difficult to foresee, not in favor of the Russians. After a while, their warships, which had been under enemy’s case shot, were hard to recognize.

“A battered ship without masts, without pipes, tilted to its left broadside, - Vladimir Semyonov writes in his book The Battle over Tsushima of 1910, - is surrounded in the glow of a fire. <…> Sounds of its two surviving cannons are louder than a heavenly thunder; the gunshots’ lights of a miserable amount of its last defenders are brighter than lightning; the roar of mine explosions is drowning in the powerful rumble of a near-death “hurray!” of the perishing, and before its bluish-white light the silhouettes of the Japanese destroyers turn pale and disappearing in the haze.”

Here is an excerpt from the report of the commander of “The Terrible” destroyer captain 2nd rank Andrzhievsky, taken from the same book by Alexandrovsky:

“For three days, two of which were under almost continuous fire, completely without sleep and nearly without eating, the officers bravely and cold-bloodedly were distributing a fire and fixing a damage, without losing self-control even for a moment.”

The Presidential Library also has rare newsreel footage of the 1905-year Battle of Tsushima, which clearly demonstrates the courage and heroism of the Russian sailors who engaged in an unequal battle with the Japanese squadron. There is a seascape writer Andrey Silych Novikov-Priboi, a participant in the Battle of Tsushima, in the presented on the Presidential Library website newsreel. The voice over explains a scene: “Before the inner eye of the writer there were terrible images of the Battle of Tsushima: it seemed, the sea had become a wall to block our further advance… The outbreaks of fire, the whirlwinds of shell fragments and water splashes - everything had jumbled together…”

The camera also captured the highest review of the squadron by Nicholas II on September 1904 in Revel, during which the emperor visited many ships, bidding farewell the crews before the departure of the squadron to the Far East.

These and other dedicated to the feat of Russian sailors materials are in open access on the Presidential Library website.