Ch 32 - The Russo-Japanese War

Master and Commander

The devastating loss of the Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron in the Battle of Tsushima Strait brought an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

Vice Admiral Togo Heihachiro no longer faced the challenge of destroying a Russian fleet without losing any of his own capital warships. Following the naval actions in the Yellow Sea and the East Sea during the spring and summer of 1904, Admiral Togo took the main force of his Combined Fleet back to Sasebo, Japan, for repairs, refitting and a thorough reassessment of past operations in preparation for the arrival of the Russian Baltic Fleet.

During the Battle of the Yellow Sea Admiral Togo tried to apply the operational doctrine and a number of the operations plans and tactics he had developed before the war. His original concept was based on the premise that the two fleets would meet in a traditional head-on engagement. Rear Admiral Vitgeft's sudden sortie from Port Arthur took Vice Admiral Togo by surprise however, and he could only react to it, which set the tone for the rest of the battle. His operational plans proved too sophisticated and too theoretical to execute in a confused battle environment, even for the experienced combat veterans in his Combined Fleet.

In February 1905, Admiral Togo directed the Combined Fleet's Senior Staff Officer, Akiyama Saneyuki, to develop a detailed and practical concept of operations to match the expertise of his officers and sailors. Akiyama created what later became known as the "interception and attrition" ambush operation for the destruction of the Baltic fleet at Tsushima Strait.

On April 12, Togo issued this new operational doctrine and made sure that every commander and commanding officer clearly understood it. Akiyama's seven-stage plan included a number of layers intended to annihilate the Russians, including both day and night torpedo attacks, cruiser attacks at dusk and a battleship coup de grâce at dawn of the second day. The final stage called for the Imperial Navy to drive the remnants of the Russian fleet into carefully laid mine fields at the entrance to Vladivostok.

A distinctive feature of the new doctrine was what Admiral Togo called "engagement in depth," which meant the complete destruction of the Baltic Fleet by repeated attacks. To ensure the most efficient application of his big naval guns, Togo ordered his officers, gunners and spotters to undergo thorough retraining using a new fire-control concept that switched from independent firing of each turret to controlled firing of all guns. A gunnery officer would select the target and determine the range. Every gun would then set its sights on the same target at the designated range and, on command from the gunnery officer, all guns would fire simultaneously. Every gunnery team was trained to repeat these procedures until they became automatic and routine. This new tactic, along with upgraded guns and range-finding equipment, produced significant improvements in Japanese fleet gunnery.

Admiral Togo also simplified his tactics by concentrating the entire Combined Fleet in the theater of operations and issuing orders to each force in accordance with Akiyama's plan. The 1st Fleet would concentrate its guns on the enemy flagship to take the opening advantage. The 1st and 2nd fleets would then join in coordinated, repeated attacks on the remainder of the enemy fleet until it was totally destroyed. In addition, Togo decided to employ a single line ahead formation for the best disposition of his big guns and to fight at a much closer range, typically less than 8,000 yards.

The Japanese Navy placed a lot of faith in the effectiveness of torpedoes, but the fleet had no well-developed tactics or standardized procedures for conducting torpedo attacks. Early in the war, torpedo attacks were simply left to each ship commander and the unit commanders. The torpedo systems were immature technology and their actual use at sea, especially during combat operations, proved to be more difficult than expected. In addition, there was no range-finding gear to set the distance to target and aiming was done by "eyeballing" the target. Worse, some torpedoes misfired or failed to run straight.

Admiral Togo ordered his officers to develop the best possible torpedo tactics using all the lessons learned in the first six months of the war. All possible corrective actions were taken to improve torpedo equipment and all torpedomen were thoroughly retrained until they became solid, combat-ready teams. By the beginning of April 1905, Admiral Togo and his fleet were fully prepared for the coming ordeal.

The forty-five capital ships and store ships of Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky's Baltic Fleet, now renamed the Second Pacific Squadron, gathered from the naval bases at Kronstadt and Reval (modern Tallinn, Estonia), finally got underway from Libau (modern Liepaja, Latvia) in the Baltic Sea on October 16, 1904. As if an omen of what was to come, Rozhestvensky's flagship, the battleship Kniaz Suvorov, ran aground almost as soon as the fleet got underway. One of the escort cruisers lost its anchor chain and a destroyer collided with the battleship Oslyaba, which had to retire for repairs.

While steaming through the Skagerrak Strait between Norway and Denmark, the Second Pacific Squadron received reports that Japanese torpedo boats had been sighted off the coast of Denmark. A wave of hysteria swept through the fleet along with rumors that the Japanese had mined the sea lanes. No one, it seems, thought to ask how the Japanese could have moved an entire torpedo squadron some 18,000 miles in so short a time. In an effort to stop the rumor-mongering, Admiral Rozhestvensky ordered that "no vessel of any sort must be allowed to get in amongst the fleet."

In a state of near panic, the fleet repair ship Kamchatka falsely signaled she was under attack from all directions by about eight torpedo boats. Without warning, the Russians opened fire on a fishing boat that approached the fleet. Due to the appalling marksmanship of Russian gunners, the two fishermen delivering consular dispatches were unharmed and managed to deliver a personal message from Tsar Nicholas II informing Rozhestvensky of his promotion to Vice Admiral.

Soon after the nervous fleet exited the Skagerrak Strait into the North Sea on the night of October 21, lookouts spotted what they believed to be a Japanese torpedo boat squadron near Dogger Bank. Without verifying the target, the Russians opened fire on the suspected flotilla. British fishing trawlers of the Hull Gamecock Fishing Fleet scattered as Russian naval guns thundered away in the dark. In the wild firing that followed, seven Russian battleships steaming in line-ahead formation damaged the protected cruiser Aurora and the armored cruiser Donskoy. Several of the warships signaled they had been struck by torpedoes.

The morning of October 22 revealed not a Japanese torpedo boat flotilla, but four damaged British fishing trawlers. One of the trawlers sank during the night. Fortunately, poor Russian gunnery kept damage to a minimum. The battleship Oryol fired over 500 shells during the night and hit nothing but water.

The Russian government quickly apologized for the incident, but the "Battle of Dogger Bank" very nearly triggered a war with Great Britain. The British government responded by ordering twenty-eight battleships from its Home Fleet to get ready for action while British cruisers shadowed the Russian fleet across the Bay of Biscay and down the Spanish coast. The British denied the Russian fleet permission to steam through to the Suez Canal, which forced the Second Pacific Squadron to steam around the Cape of Good Hope on its journey to the Far East.

As the Russian fleet neared Vigo, Spain, just north of Portugal, Vice Admiral Zinovy Petrovich Rozhestvensky put into port to disembark those officers responsible for the Dogger Bank incident. Rozhestvensky used the diplomatic furor as an opportune chance to rid himself of Captain Nikolai L. Klado, one of his most bitter critics. Captain Klado returned to St. Petersburg, where he argued to the Russian Admiralty that the ancient, rusting, obsolete coast-defense ships which Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky had condemned as "old tubs" unfit for service could serve a useful purpose by drawing Japanese fire and reducing the number of shells which might otherwise be fired at the more modern warships. By now, the Russian Admiralty saw the fall of Port Arthur as obvious and agreed to creating a Third Pacific Squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Nikolai Ivanovich Nebogatov. The squadron would take a short cut through the Suez Canal and attempt to rendezvous with Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky's fleet in the Indian Ocean.

The Baltic Fleet next ported at Tangier, Morocco, having lost contact with the hapless fleet repair ship Kamchatka for a few days. When she finally rejoined the fleet, she reported that her gunners had fired some 300 rounds in an engagement with three "Japanese ships." It turned out that the ships were a Swedish merchantman, a German trawler and a French schooner. Keeping in tune with the luck of the mission, one of the fleet ship's anchors accidentally cut an underwater telegraph cable, which cut communication between Tangier and Europe for four days.

Unlike the Royal Navy, the Russians had no bases along the nearly 18,000 mile route to provide either support or fuel for the fleet and international treaties prevented them from using the ports of other friendly foreign powers such as France. The Russians chartered freighters from the German Hamburg-Amerika line to refuel and resupply the ships at sea. Off Dakar, West Africa, the fleet rendezvoused with ten German supply ships and took on double loads of coal. Unfortunately, storing the additional coal sacks on deck in the stultifying equatorial heat and humidity created the terrible problem of coal dust spreading throughout the ships. The coal dust-laden air soon led to respiratory problems among the crews and the death of several crewmen.

Mechanical breakdowns slowed the progress of the convoy and logistics problems dogged the Russians all along their trek. When the cooling plant aboard the refrigerated supply ship Esperance broke down, hundreds of pounds of rotting meat had to be dumped overboard, which attracted a large following of sharks.

The Kamchatka, which had been silent for a few days, set off a new panic during a strong storm off the Angola coast when, instead of signalling "We are all right now," signaled, "Do you see torpedo boats?" To make matters worse, as the fleet neared Cape Town, South Africa, Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky received a message that the Third Pacific Squadron would be joining his fleet and he was to await their arrival off Madagascar. Knowing full well the quality of the ships he jokingly referred to as the "the self-sinkers," he reportedly told his aide to telegraph to St. Petersburg with a request that he be relieved of his command. His request was denied.

Rozhestvensky remained confined in his cabin for nearly two weeks before arriving off Madagascar, exhausted, severely ill and depressed from the breakdown of morale. Once the fleet reached Madagascar, things only got worse. His Chief of Staff became partially paralyzed from a brain hemorrhage. With no effective command of the fleet, ship crews spent an increasing amount of time ashore drinking, visiting prostitutes and gambling. Many of the officers were frequently either drunk or drugged. One officer bought 2,000 cigarettes in Madagascar, all of which turned out to be packed with opium.

Contributing to the Russian morale problem was the fact that most of the naval conscripts in the fleet were skilled factory workers who had earned a much better living back home. It was little help that some of the crewmen were Marxist agitators who belonged to various revolutionary groups and tried to stir unrest among the crews. Fleet morale was so bad that many of the sailors had become convinced they were sailing to certain destruction.

Mental illness and diseases took a terrible toll on the Russians with almost daily deaths from malaria, dysentery and typhoid. In its capacity as the "running joke" of the fleet, the repair ship Kamchatka fired a salute during the funeral ceremony for one of the dead sailors. Unfortunately, the crew fired a live round which struck the cruiser Aurora,already used to being a floating target for Russian gunners.

The Second Pacific Squadron needed to replenish its ammunition stores after having fired most of its shells at the "Battle of Dogger Bank." The arrival of the supply ship Irtuish dramatically raised spirits in the fleet until it was discovered that the ship carried not ammunition, but 12,000 pairs of fur-lined boots and a matching number of winter coats.

Vice Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky ordered fleet gunnery practice in an effort to restore order and improve battle readiness. Since none of the officers had been issued new code books however, an entire destroyer squadron ordered to steam in line abreast formation scattered during the training exercises and not one shell hit a stationary target. Even more embarrassing, Rozhestvensky's flagship scored only a single hit firing at a towed target, hitting the ship towing the target. Adding to the excitement, the Kamchatka falsely signaled she was sinking. The incident turned out to be a cracked steam pipe in the engine room.

The Third Pacific Squadron had steamed out of Reval (modern Tallinn, Estonia) with Admiralty orders to join up with the main fleet, "whose route is unknown to us." Before the fleet left port, the Port Admiral assured one of the ship's captains they were only being sent out to demonstrate Russian sea power and that the squadron would be home soon, adding, "You don't really think you're going to fight?"

Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky had no intention of letting Admiral Nebogatov's "archaeological collection of naval architecture" come close to his fleet. In an act of insubordination, Rozhestvensky ordered his fleet out of Madagascar long before Nebogatov arrived in the area. When word reached the fleet that Admiral Nebogatov would join them at the French-controlled port of Cam Ranh Bay in Indochina, Rozhestvensky's flag lieutenant commented, "It's all over. We've not managed to escape."

After steaming 16,628 miles, Rozhestvensky's fleet reached Cam Ranh Bay on April 14, 1905. While refueling the squadron, Rozhestvensky discovered that the battleship Imperator Alexander III did not have enough coal and all the colliers were empty. There was no longer a chance of leaving for Vladivostok before Nebogatov could catchup with him. Twenty-six days later, on May 9, 1905, the Third Pacific Squadron finally joined the main fleet at Cam Ranh Bay. After replenishing the ship's stores and making needed repairs, the Baltic Fleet left Cam Ranh Bay on May 14 and steamed into the South China Sea, beginning the final leg of its historic and fateful voyage.

The troubles faced by the Russians to this point had taken a great toll on the crews and the new arrivals bought news from home of unrest, mutiny and revolution. Many were despondent and had lost faith in their mission. Disease and horribly cramped living conditions had eroded what little morale the men had left. They wanted only to see the end of it all. Only a few of the youngest officers still held out any hope for a victory against Vice Admiral Togo's navy. Of little comfort at this stage was the warning issued by Rozhestvensky before sailing from Libau, "the loyalty of the Japanese to their throne and country is unbounded. They do not suffer dishonour [sic] and they die like heroes."

The world watched the progress of the Russian fleet with great interest. An article in the May 20 issue of the Paris magazine Le Monde Illustré reported the departure of Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky's fleet from Indochina and speculated about which of three possible routes he might take to reach Vladivostok. The longest and most perilous route would take the fleet into the Pacific south of the main Japanese islands, then north, then eastward through the La Perouse Strait between Hokkaido and Sakhalin Island. The next longest route would take the fleet along the same track, but would enter the East Sea through the Tsugari Strait between Hokkaido and Honshu. Adding to the danger of the longer routes, both the La Perouse Strait and the Tsugari Strait had been mined by the Japanese. In either case, Admiral Togo's ships patrolling the two straits would inform him of Rozhestvensky's arrival.

The last and the most direct route into the southern reaches of the East Sea would take the Russians through the Tsushima Strait. Togo's main force, centered around two divisions of heavy cruisers - twelve ships in all - was based at Masanpo, a fine harbor along the south coast of Korea with a commanding position facing the strait. The large arsenal and well-equipped repair facilities at Sasebo, Japan, supported Japanese naval activities. One hundred twenty miles to the south, a line of cruiser scout ships about ten miles apart patrolled the 100 mile wide western entrance to the Tsushima Strait between the Goto Islands off Japan and Cheju Island off the southern tip of Korea. In addition, light cruiser squadrons and support ships were anchored at Takeshii on the island of Tsushima itself.

In the meantime, Japan tightened its grip on Korea. In April 1905, through another agreement with Emperor Kojong, Japan took complete control of the Korean postal, telegraph and telephone services and acquired complete freedom of navigation on inland waterways. With the groundwork completed, Japan was ready for the Russians. The near constant reports of the Russian fleet's movement as it steamed across the busy shipping lanes of the South China Sea raised tension in Japan to acute levels. Desiring to keep Togo in the dark as to his whereabouts for as long as possible, Rozhestvensky steered his ships up the China coast outside regular shipping lanes . He managed to keep his whereabouts undetected for nearly a week as he steamed slowly north of the Philippine Islands into the less traveled waters east of Formosa.

On the night of May 26, the Japanese auxiliary cruiser Sinano Maru steamed along its patrol line some 40 miles west of the Goto Islands in a thick wet fog that blanketed the waters near the Tsushima Strait. A few hours after midnight, the cruiser very nearly collided with a Russian hospital ship. The captain of the Sinano Maru, assumed the presence of the Russian ship meant the rest of Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky's fleet was nearby. He closely shadowed the hospital ship throughout the dark night. In the dim light of dawn, lookouts aboard the Sinano Maru sighted the entire Russian line of the Baltic Fleet. The sighting was immediately radioed to the Japanese Fleet at Sasebo, which quickly passed the alert from ship to ship along the patrol line across the Tsushima Strait to Admiral Togo at Masanpo. The suspense was over.

By mid-morning on May 27, more Russian ships were sighted steaming northeastward toward the Tsushima Strait. Further to the north, Togo's warships steamed out of Masanpo to meet the Russians. In a gradually thinning mist, ships of the Japanese Third Cruiser Squadron shadowed the Russian convoy as it steamed in line ahead formation. By midday, Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky's Baltic Fleet reached a point near the southern tip of Tsushima Island, where Japanese ships were sighted off the port bow of the leading Russian ships and seemed about to steam across their path.

Within minutes, the Russian crews were at their battle stations. The flagship Kniaz Suvorov signaled to form line abreast in a ninety-degree turn to starboard followed by a simultaneous turn to port, still maintaining the same course into the strait. Due to a mistake by the Imperator Alexander III following astern of the flagship, the maneuver split the Russian squadron into two columns of unequal length. To avoid being trapped between the two columns, the Japanese cruisers and destroyers turned away. If there was any comfort in this, it was short-lived. Rozhestvensky had no sooner regrouped his ships in line ahead formation, when Admiral Togo's main battle group - six battleships followed by six armored cruisers - appeared on the starboard side of the Russian column steaming on a southwesterly course.

Vice Admiral Togo Heihachiro's command of the Battle of Tsushima Strait was no accident. Schooled for three years aboard a training ship within sight of Admiral Horatio Nelson's flagship at Portsmouth, England, Togo had studied the British hero's career with worshipful devotion. The Japanese Admiral had been lying in wait for Rozhestvensky since noon, slowly cruising an area about ten miles north of the island of Okino-Shima. Approaching the Russians, Togo turned his heavy ships eastward to cross directly ahead of the Russian Fleet while his lighter forces turned southward to attack from the rear.

The Japanese held their fire until closing to within 6,000 yards, at which time Admiral Togo concentrated gunfire on the flagships of the two leading Russian divisions;  Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky's battleship Kniaz Suvorov and Rear Admiral Felkerzam's battleship Oslyabya. In quick response, the Kniaz Suvorov opened fire, followed immediately by the entire Russian line. Sato Ichisaburo, an eyewitness to the naval engagement in the Tsushima Strait, stated that, "As [the shells] fell into the sea, they turned into hundreds of water-columns. The guns flashed like lightning and roared like a thousand thunderstorms." The slight haze over the water, the smoke from hundreds of gun barrels and the black smoke from the ship's coal-fired engines blended to form a dark cloud that obscured the sky. Within this murderous cloud, two massive fleets, twenty-four capital warships in all, blazed away at each other with all their guns engaged in a classic demonstration of naval tactics.

Russia had the advantage in displacement and long-range firepower, but the Japanese commanded every other military advantage that counted;  speed, marksmanship and position. Firing with both the wind and the sun at their backs, the terrible superiority of the Japanese gunners soon set the tone for the fight, scoring three or four hits for every Russian strike. Within fifteen minutes, the battleships Kniaz Suvorov and Oslyabya were burning and seriously damaged. As the Japanese ships arced across the head of the Russian line, the Kniaz Suvorov, still taking a terrible pounding, turned to starboard and exposed its port broadside to the Japanese. Listing eight degrees to port with one turret out of action and fires rapidly spreading through the ship, the Kniaz Suvorov no longer responded to rudder control. The dying battleship turned a complete circle before the captain could regain his course by skillfully steering his ship with the propellers.

The Kniaz Suvorov had three gaping holes blown in its hull and went under at around 3:30 p.m., taking nearly 600 men to the bottom of the sea. The Oslyabya sat dead in the water and burned furiously with its crew clinging to the sides and rigging. The dying battleship presented a terrifying spectacle to all the ships behind it in the line of battle as they caught up and passed. In the fate of the Oslyabya, they saw their own doom. Shortly after the Kniaz Suvorov pulled out of line, the Japanese second division finished off the Oslyabya, sending it to the bottom with 500 of her crew.

The Japanese outmaneuvered the Russians all afternoon, all the while retaining the offensive advantage. The Imperator Alexander III, still in trail behind the Kniaz Suvorov took its place at the head of the line to take over direction of the squadron and almost immediately drew the attention of Admiral Togo's gunners. Heavily damaged and unable to break out of the hellish rain of gunfire, the Imperator Alexander III became a blazing inferno, leaking all along the water-line. When it went down, it took all but four of its 840 man crew into 400 feet of water. Shortly after the loss of the Imperator Alexander III, the battleship Fuji trained its guns on the Borodino, the third ship of Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky's division. Within minutes, the Fuji scored a direct hit on the ship's magazines. The Borodino exploded with a fiery roar, rolled keel up and disappeared with no survivors. It was the beginning of the end for the Russians.

As night began to fall, Admiral Togo withdrew the main body of his ships to a general rendezvous near Matsushima Island, some 200 miles further north, leaving the battle area free for destroyers and torpedo boats to wreak further havoc. Shortly after seven o'clock, the Kniaz Suvorov, still gallantly trying to hold its own, was struck by a torpedo and sent to the bottom. Admiral Nebogatov, leading the Russian third division aboard the aging battleship Nicolas II tried to regroup the surviving ships and steam southwest away from the battle area.

Singly and in small groups, the Russians scattered. During the night, the Navarin was attacked and sunk by four torpedo-boats leaving but three survivors. The Sissoi was struck in the stern and, after limping along throughout the night, finally sank near daybreak. The Nakhimov, with its bow shattered, was scuttled by its crew off Tsushima Island. The Vladimir Monomakh took a torpedo in its engine room, but the crew managed to keep the old ship afloat until mid-afternoon, when she finally sank before she could be towed to port.

Near daybreak on the morning of May 28, Admiral Nebogatov aboard the Nicolas II had joined up with the battleship Orel, the cruiser Izumrund, and two armored coast guard ships, all of which saw relatively little action, and proceeded northeastward into the Tsushima Strait directly into the waiting arms of Vice Admiral Togo Heihachiro, who still blocked their way to Vladivostok. The tiny surviving group was surrounded about a hundred miles north of the previous day's bloody battle. Again facing the Japanese navy, Admiral Nebogatov did not hesitate and hoisted the international flag of surrender. Just before going over to surrender his sword to Admiral Togo, Nebogatov told his men, "I'm an old man of over sixty ...You are young, and it is you who will one day retrieve the honour [sic] and glory of the Russian Navy. The lives of the 2,400 men in these ships are more important than mine!" Out of respect for his decision, Togo allowed the Russian Admiral to keep his sword.

According to naval historians, the Battle of Tsushima Strait was the greatest victory in the history of sea warfare, perhaps the greatest naval battle that will ever will be fought. With respect to the loss of life and ships the outcome was a terrible disaster for Russia. Of the forty-five ships that originally set out from Libau in the Baltic, only three - a light cruiser and two destroyers - ever reached their final destination at Vladivostok. The Japanese fleet under Admiral Togo destroyed six of the eight Russian battleships, captured the remaining two and sank, captured, or drove into internment nine cruisers and practically every other warship at a total cost to Japan of only three torpedo boats. In less than thirty-six hours, the Russians suffered the loss of 4,000 Russian sailors, 3 admirals and 7,300 captured. Japan suffered only 116 men killed and 530 wounded. Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky did not go down with his ship, but survived the war only to commit suicide.

Far more significant than the mere numbers were the imponderable results of this victory for East Asia generally and for Japan in particular. Before the Battle of Tsushima, Japan had been considered little more than an engaging oddity among the nations of the world, an exotic example of quaint Oriental feudalism. Japan first surprised the world by its easy victory over China. This time, Japan pitted itself against the Russian colossus that had struck fear into the greatest of the great nations. To the astonishment of the world, the Japanese won victory after victory. After May 28, 1905, Japan was a major world power by any measure.

The greater impact however, was in defeating the world's biggest nation so decisively. Contrary to the expectations of most European military experts, Japan defeated the Russian giant without help and dramatically showed tsarist Russia to be a colossus with feet of clay. The tiny country of Japan had shown not just Asia, but Europe and the Americas as well that there was no qualitative difference between Asians and Westerners;  if there were, the superiority might well rest with the former. In the space of a few hours, Japan effectively and single-handedly put an end to the colonial era.

In one sense however, Japan won an illusory victory. It was not because Japan could not lose, but because Russia could not win. The Tsarist Empire fought a major war several thousand miles from its heartland. Its armies were badly led, inefficiently supplied and there was as much corruption and bad judgment involved as inefficiency and lack of skill. A single-track railway was the only means of communication between Russia's industrial base and the theater of military operations. Political and military intelligence was deficient, if it existed at all. The troops, many of whom had no desire to fight, had no idea why they had been drafted and sent across an entire continent. Worse yet, the Russian people knew little of the origins and purposes of the war and never had their heart in it.

The Japanese however, fought for their very survival and they knew it. While Russia fought with only part of its being, Japan fought with all its heart and soul. The disaster at Tsushima and the rise of revolutionary feelings at home finally convinced Tsar Nicholas II he had to end the war. The Russian navy was destroyed, the army demoralized and there was little hope for recovery and recapture of lost territory. There was also little external support for Russia to continue the fight. The world financial community, including major banks in Britain, France and the United States, balked at loaning Russia any further money to pursue the war. The German Kaiser strongly urged Tsar Nicholas II to enter peace talks with Japan, fearing that a revolution might remove the Romanovs from the throne.

Japan's impressive triumphs had virtually exhausted the nation's resources. Victorious, but spent, Japan needed peace. Japan's overall strategy was not so much to win a complete victory as to achieve an advantageous end to the war on their terms. The Japanese government wanted a peace agreement that would not just preclude a long, exhausting war of attrition in Manchuria, but one that would preserve and protect its victories. All that remained to seal Korea's fate was to make sure there would be no future interference from Western powers.