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Product Description
On May 14-15, 1905, in the Tsushima Straits near Japan, an entire Russian fleet was annihilated, its ships sunk, scattered, or captured by the Japanese. It was among the top five naval battles in history, equal to those of Lepanto, Trafalgar, Jutland, and Midway. The Japanese lost only three destroyers, but the Russians lost twenty-two ships and thousands of sailors. To this day Russian ships throw wreaths on the waves when passing the Korea Strait.The Russians had traveled for nine months to be destroyed in a few hours. Because they were afraid of capture in the Suez Canal, their legendary admiral, dubbed "Mad Dog," led them on an extraordinary 18,000mile detour from the Baltic Sea, around Europe, Africa, and Asia to the Sea of Japan. They were burdened by the Tsar's incompetent leadership and the old, slow ships that he insisted be included to bulk up the fleet. Moreover, they were under constant fear of attack, and there were no friendly ports to supply coal, food, and fresh water. The level of self-sufficiency achieved by this squadron was not again attained in naval practice until the Second World War.With a novelist's eye and a historian's authority, Pleshakov tells of the Russian squadron's long, difficult journey and swift, horrible defeat.
Amazon.com Review
It took the Russians nine months to sail their navy 18,000 miles from the Baltic Sea around the horn of Africa and to the Sea of Japan in 1905, where their Japanese enemies wiped them out in just a few hours at the Battle of Tsushima. The Japanese triumph and Russian disaster, "largely forgotten in the West," according to Constantine Pleshakov, marked a vital turning point in world history. Not only did it inaugurate a new era of naval technology, but it also announced Japan's ascent as a global force (which would culminate during the Second World War) and Russia's collapse into "the dark tsardom of Bolshevism." Pleshakov ranks the battle alongside other classic naval engagements, such as Lepanto, Trafalgar, Jutland, and Midway. Yet the bulk of The Tsar's Last Armada focuses on the Russians' long journey to doom, led by the "frightfully imposing" and "savage" admiral Zinovy Petrovich Rozhestvensky. Pleshakov has a good eye for little details. As the fleet approached the tropics, he reports, the humidity became so bad that the crew's "towels and underwear would not dry." The Battle of Tsushima receives full coverage at the end of the book, but Pleshakov's engaging account of what preceded it is what readers will find most memorable. --John Miller
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