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Of these, defense of the coast against bombardment and invasion is the easiest, and defense of the national policy the most difficult; because in preventing bombardment and invasion the defender has the strategical advantage of being nearer home than the adversary; while in the defense of a country's policy, a naval force may have to "assume the offensive," and go even to the far distant coasts of the enemy as the Russian fleet went to Tsushima, where it met its death.
He then memorialized the shogun in the sense that these Korean ambassadors were merely Chinese spies, and that instead of receiving a lavish welcome, they should be required to limit their journey to the island of Tsushima, where only a very restricted ceremonial should be performed in their honour.
On May 27-28th there occurred one of the most disastrous naval engagements in the annals of war, in the Korean Straits, near Tsushima, where Admiral Togo with sure instinct of the course which would be taken, was lying in wait under the cover of darkness and fog. Nineteen Russian vessels were destroyed, the Japanese ships sustaining almost no injury.
And after the days of Mukden and Tsushima had destroyed the belief in the invincibility of the European arms, the Japanese agents found fertile soil everywhere for their seeds of secret political agitation.
The rapid success of the Germans and Japanese, however, in building up their navies, as instanced by the evident efficiency of the German fleet almost under the nose of England, and the triumph of the Japanese fleet in Tsushima Strait startled the British navy out of her conservatism, and caused her to proceed at full speed toward the modernization of her strategy.
Among the lessons to be drawn from Tsushima, one of the clearest is the weakening effect of divided purpose. With all honor to Admiral Rojdestvensky for his courage and persistence during his cruise, it is evident that at the end he allowed the supply problem to interfere with his preparations for battle, and that he fought "with one eye on Vladivostok."
A great portion of the troops transported from China were not Mongols, but Chinese, who had been recently fighting against the Yuan, and whose despatch on a foreign campaign in the service of their victors suggested itself as a politic measure. These men were probably not averse to delay and certainly cannot have been very enthusiastic. In May, 1281, the flotilla from Korea appeared off Tsushima.
Trafalgar was not won by the merchant service; nor Mobile, Manila, or Tsushima. If sea power be essentially naval power, it may be interesting to inquire: In what does naval power consist and what are its principal characteristics? If one looks at a fleet of war-ships on the sea, he will be impressed consciously or unconsciously with the idea of power.
The mighty fleet of Russia meets the Japanese fleet in Tsushima Straits; and because the trained intelligence that directed its movements seriously erred, in an engagement decided in less than an hour, is stripped of its power and glory, and transformed into a disorganized aggregation of separate ships some sunk, some sinking, some in flight.
In the naval battle of Tsushima in May, 1905, the loss totaled 93, tons. Twenty-one Russian craft were sunk in this fight. The text of the first British admiralty statement was in part as follows: "On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 31, a naval engagement took place off the coast of Jutland.
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