Long before this the divisions of protected cruisers under Admiral Dewa and his colleagues had worked round to the southward of the Russians. Dewa and Uriu, with their swift ships, were in action by a quarter to three. The slower ships of Takeomi and the younger Togo's squadrons, united under the command of Rear-Admiral Kataoka, came into the fight a little later. In the heavy sea that was running the light cruisers afforded a less steady platform for the guns than the big armoured ships, and their fire was not so terribly destructive. But it was effective enough, and that of the Russian rear ships was hopelessly bad. The Japanese cruisers drove the transports and their escort, in a huddled crowd, north-eastwards towards the main Russian fleet. The great wall sides of the German liner, now the auxiliary cruiser "Ural," were riddled, and the giant began to settle down in the water. The cruiser "Svietlana," hit badly in the forepart, was dangerously down by the head. The transports "Kamschatka" and "Irtish" were both set on fire, and the latter was also pierced along the water-line. She sank at four o'clock. The "Oleg" and "Aurora" were both badly damaged. But the Japanese unarmoured cruisers did not escape scathless. Dewa's fine cruiser, the "Kasagi," was badly hit below the waterline, and was in such danger of sinking that he handed the command of his squadron over to Uriu and, escorted by the "Chitose," steamed out of the fight, steering for the Japanese coast. Togo's old ship, the famous "Naniwa Kan," was also hit below the water-line, and had to cease firing and devote all the energy of the crew to saving the ship.

At five o'clock the Russian fleet, battleships, cruisers, and transports, were huddled together in a confused crowd, attacked from the eastward by Togo and Kamimura with the heavy squadrons, while from the south the line of light cruisers under Uriu and Kataoka poured a cross-fire into them. Away to the westward lay the disabled and burning "Suvaroff" with the Russian naval flag, the blue cross of St. Andrew on a white ground, still flying from a flagstaff in the smoke. The admiral had been twice wounded, the second blow slightly fracturing his skull, and making it difficult for him to speak. Her captain, Ignazius, had been simply blown to pieces by a Japanese shell while, after being already twice wounded, he was directing a desperate effort to master the conflagration on board. The decks were strewn with dead, the mess-deck full of helpless wounded men. Most of the guns were out of action, but a 6-inch quick-firer and a few lighter guns were kept in action, and drove off the first attempt of the Japanese destroyers to dash in and sink her. Still there was no thought of surrender. The few survivors of her crew fought with dogged Russian courage to the last. A torpedo destroyer, the "Buiny," taking terrible risks, came up to her, hung on for a few moments to her shattered side, and succeeded in getting off the wounded admiral and a few officers and men. Rojdestvensky sent a last message to Nebogatoff, telling him to take over the command and try to get through with some part of the fleet to Vladivostock.

About half-past five some of the Russian ships struggled out of the press, led by the burning "Borodino," with the "Orel" next to her. In the straggling line battleships and cruisers, armoured and unarmoured, were mingled together. The "Alexander" had succeeded in stopping some of her leaks and had rejoined the line. She was near the end of it. The "Ural," deserted by her crew, was drifting, till one of Togo's battleships sank her with a few shots.

The Russians were now steering northwards, and for the moment there was no large ship in front of them. The Japanese could have easily headed them off, but Togo now regarded them as a huntsman regards a herd of deer that he is driving before him. The Japanese squadron steamed after them at reduced speed, just keeping at convenient range, the heavy ships on their right, the light squadrons behind them. At first the armoured ships concentrated their fire on the "Alexander." Shells were bursting all over her, and throwing up geysers of water about her bows. Then the merciless fire was turned on the "Borodino." A few minutes after seven the "Alexander" was seen to capsize and disappear. A quarter of an hour later there was an explosion on board of the "Borodino." Next moment a patch of foam on the waves showed where she had been. About the same time a division of torpedo-boats came upon the unfortunate "Suvaroff," torpedoed her, and saved some of the crew, who were found floating on the water after she sank.

As the sun went down, and the twilight darkened into night, the firing died away. What was left of the Russian fleet was steaming slowly into the Sea of Japan, some of the ships isolated, others holding together in improvised divisions, all bearing terrible marks of the fight, some of them still on fire, others leaking badly.

Togo had been hit during the fight, but it was only a slight bruise. The losses of his fleet had been trifling. Of the armoured ships the only one that had been badly hit was the "Asama." She was struck by three shells aft near the water-line, her rudder was disabled, and she was leaking badly. She left the fighting-line for a while, but was able temporarily to repair damages, and rejoined later in the day.

At sunset Togo ordered his squadrons to steam north-eastward during the night, and unite at sunrise at a point south of Matsu-shima or Ullondo Island. They were to keep away from the Russian ships in the darkness. The victorious admiral was about to let loose his torpedo flotillas, to complete the destruction of the flying enemy, and meant that his torpedo officers should have no anxiety about hitting friends in the dark.

He had with the main fleet twenty-one destroyers organized in five squadrons. In the bays of Tsu-shima nearly eighty torpedo-boats had been sheltering all day. The destroyers had been directed to pursue and attack the beaten enemy during the night. No orders had been given to the torpedo-boats. The sea was going down, but it was still rough, and Togo had doubts about risking the smaller craft. But without orders, sixteen groups of four boats each, sixty-four in all, got up steam and sallied out into the darkness.

It was an awful night for the Russians. After dark they had extinguished the fires lighted by the enemy's shells, and in some cases got collision mats over the leaks. The dead were committed to the sea, the wounded collected and cared for. For more than an hour they were allowed to hold their course uninterrupted, and the lights of the Japanese fleet were disappearing far astern. After all, Vladivostock might be reached. But just after eight o'clock the throb of engines, the hurtling beat of propellers, came sounding through the night from all sides. On the sea black, low objects were rushing along with foaming phosphorescent wakes trailing behind them. Bugles ran out the alarm; crews rushed to quarters; searchlights blazed out, and the small quick-firers that were still serviceable mingled their sharp ringing reports with the crackle of machine-gun fire. The sea seemed to be swarming with torpedo craft. They appeared and disappeared in the beams of the searchlights, and the surface of the water was marked with the long white ripples raised by the rush of discharged torpedoes. Loud explosions, now here now there, told that some of them had found their target, though in the confusion and the rough sea there were more misses than hits. The "Sissoi Veliki," which had been on fire in the action, and pierced below the waterline, had a new and more serious leak torn open in her stern, the rudder was damaged and two propeller blades torn off. But she floated till next day. Several ships received minor injuries, but kept afloat with one or more compartments flooded. But the effect of the attack was to disperse the fugitive Russians in all directions.

When it began Nebogatoff was at the head of a line of ships in the old battleship "Imperator Nikolai I." In the confusion only three of the line kept up with him, the much-battered "Orel" and the "Admiral Apraxin" and "Admiral Senyavin." The "Orel" had no searchlight left intact. The "Nikolai" and the two others did not switch on their searchlights, and kept all other lights shaded. The remarkable result was that as they moved northwards through the darkness they were never attacked, though more than once between 8 p.m. and midnight they saw the enemy's torpedo craft rushing past them. The ships with searchlights drew all the attacks.

Admiral Enquist, with his flag in the "Oleg," and followed by the "Aurora" and "Jemschug," had run in amongst the remains of the transport flotilla at the first alarm, narrowly escaping collision with them. Then he turned south, in the hope of shaking the enemy off, but came upon another flotilla arriving from that direction. He had some narrow escapes. The look-outs of the "Oleg" counted seventeen torpedoes that just missed the ship. Having got away, he tried more than once to turn back to the northward, but each time he ran in among hostile torpedo-boats, and saw that beyond them were ships with searchlights working and guns in action, so he steered again south. At last he gave up the attempt and headed for the Tsu-shima Straits. He got safely through them, because the main Japanese fleet was miles away, steaming steadily north, with tired men sleeping by the guns. Next day he was in the open sea with no enemy in sight, and set his course for Shanghai.

At midnight the defeated Russians thought they had at last shaken off the pursuit of the sea-wolves. But at 2 a.m. the attacks began again. The "Navarin" and the "Admiral Nakhimoff," among the rearmost ships, were attacked by Commander Suzuki's squadron of destroyers. The "Navarin" was sunk after being hit by two torpedoes. The "Nakhimoff" was severely damaged. About the same time the "Vladimir Monomach" and the "Dimitri Donskoi" were torpedoed, but managed to keep afloat. The attacking force had a good many casualties. Torpedo-boats Nos. 35 and 65 were sunk by the Russian fire. Their crews were rescued by their consorts. Four destroyers (the "Harusami," "Akatsuki," "Izazuchi," and "Yugiri") and two torpedo-boats (Nos. 31 and 68) were so seriously damaged by hostile fire, or by collision in the darkness, that they were put out of action. As the dawn began to whiten the eastern sky the torpedo flotillas drew off.

At sunrise the Russian fleet was scattered far over the Sea of Japan. Some of the ships for a while steamed alone with neither consort nor enemy in sight within the circle of the horizon. But new dangers came with the day. Togo's fleet was at hand, flinging out a wide net of which the meshes were squadrons and detached cruisers to sweep the sea northwards, and gather up the remnants of the defeated enemy. The weather was clearing up, and it was a fine, bright day—just the day for the work the Japanese had to do.

Steaming steadily through the night, Togo, with the main body of the Japanese fleet, had passed to eastward of the scattered Russians, and was about twenty miles south of Ullondo. The distances covered in this battle of Tsu-shima were beyond any that had ever been known in naval war. The running fight during the night had passed over more than 150 miles of sea. At 5.20 a.m. the admiral on board the "Mikasa" received a wireless message from Kataoka's cruisers, reporting that they were sixty miles away to the southward of him, and that they could see several columns of black smoke on the horizon to the eastward. Shortly after Kataoka sent another wireless message—"Four of the enemy's battleships and two cruisers are in sight, steering north-west." Togo at once signalled to his own ships to head off this detachment of the enemy, and sent wireless orders to Kataoka and Uriu to close in on their rear. It was probably the main fighting division left to the Russians, and would soon be surrounded by an overwhelming Japanese force.

The ships sighted by the cruisers were those that Admiral Nebogatoff had led through the night, and was trying to take to Vladivostock. He had with him the battleships "Nikolai I" and "Orel," the coast-defence armour-clads "Admiral Apraxin" and "Admiral Senyavin," and the cruisers "Izumrud" and "Svietlana." This last ship was leaking badly and down by the bows. She could not keep up with the others, and at daylight fell far astern and lost sight of them. At 7 a.m. Uriu's division in chase of Nebogatoff came up with her, and the cruisers "Niitaka" and "Otowa" were detached to capture her. The Russian captain, Schein, had held a council with his officers. He had only a hundred shells left in the magazines, and the "Svietlana" was being kept afloat by her steam pumps. Under the regulations he could have honourably surrendered to a superior force, but it was unanimously resolved to fight to the last shot, and then sink with colours flying. The fight lasted an hour. There were heavy losses. The Japanese fire riddled the ship, and first the starboard, then the port engine was disabled. As the hundredth shot rang out from the "Svietlana's" guns, Captain Schein stopped the pumps and opened the sea-cocks, and the ship settled down rapidly in the water. The Japanese cruisers went off to join the fleet as the "Svietlana" disappeared, but an armed Japanese liner, the "America Maru," stood by and picked up about a hundred men.

At 10.30 a.m. Nebogatoff was completely surrounded eighteen miles south of the island of Takeshima. The "Izumrud" had used her superior speed to get away to the south-west. The four battered ships that remained with him saw more than twenty enemies appear from all points of the compass, including Togo's battleships and heavy armoured cruisers, all as fit for work as when the first fighting began. They opened fire at long range with their heavy guns.

The situation was desperate. Nebogatoff consulted his officers, and all those on board the "Nikolai" agreed that he must surrender. In a memorandum he subsequently wrote he pointed out that, though some ammunition was left, the Japanese were using their superior speed to keep a distance at which he could not reply effectively to their overwhelming fire; neither the shore nor other ships were within reach; most of the boats had been shattered, the rest could not be lowered; even the life-belts had been burned or used to improvise defences in the ships; continued resistance or the act of sinking the ships would only mean the useless sacrifice of some 2000 men. After the ships had been only a short time in action, during which time they received further severe damage, he hauled down his colours. Togo allowed the Russian officers to retain their swords, as a proof of his opinion that they had acted as befitted brave and honourable men.

While the brief action with Nebogatoff's squadron was in progress, the third of the Russian coast-defence battleships, the "Admiral Ushakoff," hove in sight. She turned off to the westward pursued by the armoured cruisers "Iwate" and "Yakumo." They soon overhauled her, and signalled a summons to surrender, adding that Nebogatoff had already done so. The "Ushakoff" replied with her 9-inch guns. The cruisers sank her in an hour, and then rescued some three-fourths of her crew of 400 men.

The "Sissoi Veliki," badly injured in the action of the day before, and torpedoed during the night, was in a sinking condition when the sun rose on 28 May. No ships were in sight, all the boats had been destroyed, and while the pumps were still kept going the crew was set to work to construct rafts. While this was being done with very scanty materials, the "Vladimir Monomach" hove in sight, accompanied by the destroyer "Iromki." In reply to a signal for help, the "Monomach" answered that she could do nothing, as she was herself expecting to sink soon. The "Iromki" offered to take a few men, but the captain of the "Sissoi" generously refused to deprive the "Monomach" of her help. The two ships then steamed away. An hour later the "Sissoi" was just settling down in the water, when three Japanese armed merchant steamers appeared and took off her crew. At half-past ten the "Sissoi" heeled over to starboard and sank.

Soon after she lost sight of the "Sissoi," the "Monomach" came upon the armoured cruiser "Admiral Nakhimoff," which also signalled that she was in a sinking condition. Presently there was smoke on the horizon, and then the armed steamer "Sadu Maru" and the Japanese destroyer "Shiranui" appeared. In such conditions the enemy proved a friend. The crews of the two unfortunate ships were transferred to the "Sadu," which stood by till, about ten o'clock, both the "Nakhimoff" and the "Monomach" went to the bottom.

The "Navarin" was comparatively little injured in the battle, but was torpedoed during the night. Leaking badly, she struggled northward at a slow rate till two in the afternoon of the 28th, when she was found and attacked by a Japanese destroyer flotilla. She still made a fight with her lighter guns, and was hit by two torpedoes. The crew were all at their battle stations when she began suddenly to sink. The order, "All hands on deck," came too late, and very few lives were saved.

The armoured cruiser "Dimitri Donskoi," last survivor of Rojdestvensky's fourteen battleships and armoured cruisers, escaped the torpedo attacks in the night, and eluded pursuit all through the morning of the 28th. At 4 p.m., when she was near the island of Ullondo, she sighted some Japanese ships in the distance, Uriu's cruiser division and some destroyers. They closed slowly on her, and it was not till six o'clock that she was attacked by the cruisers "Niitaka" and "Otowa," and three destroyers. The "Donskoi" made a gallant fight for two hours, beating off the torpedo-boats, losing sixty killed and twice as many wounded, and finally disengaging herself in the darkness about eight o'clock. The water-line armour was intact, but one boiler was penetrated and ammunition was nearly exhausted. In the night, the captain, who was himself slightly wounded, decided to land his men on Ullondo Island and sink the ship. All the boats had been shattered and the cutter that was left had to be hastily repaired before it could be lowered. With the one boat the disembarkation went on slowly during the night. At dawn the enemy's torpedo-boats were sighted. The rest of the crew jumped overboard and swam ashore, leaving a few men with the second-in-command on the ship. They ran the "Donskoi" out into a hundred fathoms of water, opened the sea-cocks, embarked in their one boat, and saw their ship go down as they pulled ashore. The Japanese sent a couple of steamers to take the crew off the island.

The torpedo destroyer that conveyed the wounded Admiral Rojdestvensky, Captain Semenoff, and a few other officers and men away from the fight was found and captured by a Japanese flotilla during the afternoon of the 28th.

The cruiser "Izumrud," one of the few fast ships the Russians had with them, escaped the torpedo attacks in the night. In the morning she was chased by several of the enemy's cruisers. She kept up a good speed, and one by one they abandoned the chase, the "Chitose" being the last to give it up. By 2 p.m. all pursuit was left behind, and she reduced speed. In the battle and the chase she had burned so much coal that she had not enough left to make for Vladivostock, so she steered for Vladimir Bay, in the Russian Coast Province of Siberia, north of Korea. She was off the entrance of the Bay at midnight with only ten tons of coal left in her bunkers. Unfortunately, in trying to go in in the dark on the flood-tide she drove hard on a reef. Next day unsuccessful efforts were made to get his ship off and in the afternoon, as her captain expected the enemy's ships might arrive to secure the "Izumrud" and refloat her, he landed his crew on Russian ground, destroyed his guns one by one with blasting charges, and then blew up the ship.

The destroyer "Groki" was chased and captured by the Japanese destroyer "Shiranui" and a torpedo-boat, and after a sharp fight close to Tsu-shima Island surrendered at 11.30 a.m. She was so injured that she sank within an hour of her capture. Admiral Enquist, with the three protected cruisers "Oleg," "Aurora," and "Jemschug," had, after turning south for the last time during the night of torpedo attacks, got through the Tsu-shima Straits in the darkness. Next day no enemy was in sight, and he steered for Shanghai under easy steam, repairing damages on the way. He intended to lie off the port, bring a couple of colliers out of the Woosung River, fill his bunkers at sea, and try to reach Vladivostock by the Pacific and the La Pérouse Straits. On the morning of the 29th he was overtaken by the repairing ship and tug "Svir," and from her learned the full extent of the disaster. Fearing that if he approached Shanghai he would be driven into the port and blockaded by the enemy, he changed his course for Manila, where he arrived on 3 June. The "Svir," after communicating with him, had gone on to the Woosung River. She was joined on her way there by the transport "Anadir," which had got successfully south through the Tsu-shima Straits. The transport "Korea," which had escaped in the same way, and had a cargo of coal, did not go to Woosung, but crossed the Indian Ocean and appeared unexpectedly in the French port of Diego Suarez in Madagascar. Of the nine torpedo destroyers with the Russian fleet seven were hunted down and sunk or taken by the Japanese.

The only ships of all the Russian armada that finally reached Vladivostock were the two destroyers "Brawy" and "Gresny," and the small swift cruiser "Almaz." She had been with Enquist's cruiser division in the first hours of the night after the battle. During the torpedo attacks she had become separated from her consorts. Escaping from the destroyers, she headed at full speed first towards the coast of Japan, then northward. At sunrise on the 28th she was well on her way and many miles north-east of Togo's fleet. Next day she reached Vladivostock with 160 tons of coal still on board.

A hundred years after Trafalgar Togo had won a victory as complete and as decisive. The Russian power had been swept from the Eastern Seas, and the grey-haired admiral who had secured this triumph for his native land—"Father Togo," as the Japanese affectionately call him—had lived through the whole evolution of the Imperial Navy, had shared in its first successes, and for years had been training it for the great struggle that was to decide who was to be master in the seas of the Far East.

The war was followed by an immediate expansion of the Japanese Navy. Numbers of captured Russian ships were repaired, re-armed, and placed in the Navy List under Japanese names. No longer dependent on foreign builders, the Japanese yards were kept busy turning out yet a new navy of every class, from the battleship to the torpedo-boat. The laying down of the gigantic "Aki" and "Satsuma," battleships of over 20,000 tons, opened a new period in naval construction, and nations began to count their sea-power by the number of "Dreadnoughts" afloat or on the slips.

The great maritime powers are now engaged in a race of construction, and the next naval war will see forces in action far surpassing even the armadas that met at Tsu-shima. And maritime war, hitherto confined to the surface of the sea, will have strange auxiliaries in the submarine stealing beneath it, and the airship and aeroplane scouting in the upper air. But still, whatever new appliances, whatever means of mutual destruction science supplies, the lesson taught by the story of all naval war will remain true. Victory will depend not on elaborate mechanical structures and appliances, but on the men, and will be the reward of long training, iron discipline, calm, enduring courage, and the leadership that can inspire confidence, command self-sacrificing obedience, divine an enemy's plans, and decide swiftly and resolutely on the way in which they are to be frustrated.

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