On May 27-28, 1905, the Russian Baltic Fleet — 38 warships that had sailed 18,000 miles from the Baltic Sea around Africa and across the Indian Ocean — was virtually annihilated by the Japanese Combined Fleet in the Strait of Tsushima. It was the most decisive naval battle since Trafalgar, and the first time in the modern era that an Asian nation had defeated a major European power in a straight fight.

The world took note. The implications reverberated for decades.

The Voyage

The Second Pacific Squadron's journey to its destruction is one of the great dark comedies of military history, were the consequences not so severe.

Admiral Rozhestvensky sailed from the Baltic in October 1904 with orders to relieve the besieged Russian fleet at Port Arthur and seize control of the sea from Japan. The fleet's condition was poor. Many of the ships were second-line vessels. Crew quality was uneven. The supply problem was immense: Japan's allies denied the fleet use of British-controlled ports, so Rozhestvensky had to be resupplied by colliers at sea throughout a seven-month voyage.

The fleet's low point came off the Dogger Bank near England in October 1904, when nervous gunners, convinced Japanese torpedo boats were lurking in the North Sea, opened fire on a British fishing fleet from Hull. Several fishermen were killed. Britain nearly went to war with Russia. The fleet continued.

By the time the squadron reached Asian waters in May 1905, Port Arthur had fallen months earlier. The original mission was moot. Rozhestvensky pressed on toward Vladivostok — the only remaining Russian Pacific port.

He would never reach it.

The Battle

Admiral Togo Heihachiro had been waiting. He had kept his fleet in condition, rested his crews, and studied Rozhestvensky's options. The Russian fleet had to pass through one of three straits to reach Vladivostok. Togo positioned himself for Tsushima, the most direct route, and was ready.

The Russian fleet was spotted on the morning of May 27 and tracked throughout the day. Togo's fleet, emerging from the northeast, crossed ahead of the Russian line in a maneuver that risked his own ships to fire — the classic "crossing the T," executed at 6,200 yards against enemy fire.

It worked because the Japanese gunnery was dramatically superior. The Russians fired at ranges where their shells were less accurate and their crews less practiced. The Japanese fired fast, accurately, and with a new explosive — shimose powder — that produced spectacular damage on contact with steel plate.

The flagship Knyaz Suvorov was hit in the first minutes and her steering disabled. She would fight on, listing and burning, for hours before sinking. Within ninety minutes, four Russian battleships had been sunk or fatally damaged. By the end of May 27, Russian formation was broken, its admiral wounded, the fleet scattered.

The night brought torpedo boat attacks on the struggling survivors. By the morning of May 28, the remnants were surrounded. Rozhestvensky, wounded and transferred to a destroyer, was captured trying to escape. The cruiser Izumrud broke through and reached Vladivostok — one of three ships to do so. The rest were sunk or captured.

Final count: Russia lost 21 of 35 combatant ships sunk or captured. 4,545 men killed; 6,106 taken prisoner. Japan lost 3 torpedo boats.

The Consequences

The Portsmouth Peace Treaty, negotiated by Theodore Roosevelt later in 1905, ended the Russo-Japanese War. Russia ceded Port Arthur and southern Manchuria. Japan was recognized as the dominant power in Korea.

The military implications reverberated through every major navy. Tsushima confirmed the primacy of the heavy gun battleship, accelerating the British construction of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 — a ship so superior to every existing battleship that it rendered every existing battleship obsolete, including Britain's own. The naval arms race that followed contributed directly to the tensions that produced the First World War.

The political implications were equally vast. Japan had not merely won a battle — it had destroyed the myth of European invincibility that underpinned colonial rule across Asia and Africa. That a non-European nation had defeated a European great power in a conventional war at sea was a fact that anti-colonial movements from India to Vietnam absorbed and did not forget.

Mahatma Gandhi followed the Russo-Japanese War closely. Ho Chi Minh did too. Tsushima is not merely a naval battle. It is one of the hinges on which the 20th century turned.