If there is a person among our naval officers who participated in the Russo-Japanese War, the ambiguity of whose actions could compete with the ambiguity of the actions of Vice Admiral Rozhdestvensky, then this is undoubtedly Rear Admiral Nebogatov. Any discussion of the events connected with his name that took place in the Sea of Japan on the 14th and especially on the 15th of May, 1905, certainly brings to life their literally polar assessments.
The proposed article provides the quintessence of both points of view, followed by an attempt to critically analyze the facts underlying each of them.
Career N. I. Nebogatov before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War
Nikolai Ivanovich Nebogatov was born in 1849.
At the age of twenty, he graduated from the Naval School and began his long service on the ships of the Russian Imperial Navy.
In 1882, Lieutenant N. I. Nebogatov was appointed to the post of senior officer of the clipper "Robber". Two years later, this ship made a transition to the Far East, where it cruised over the vast area between Chukotka and China until 1887. NI Nebogatov showed himself excellently during this long and difficult service, for which he was awarded the next rank of captain of the second rank.
In 1888, Nikolai Ivanovich was appointed commander of the gunboat "Groza", which, after only five months, was replaced by the same type "Grad". On these ships, which were already quite old and had lost their combat significance, the future admiral received the first experience of independent command.
Three years later, Nebogatov was appointed commander of the second-class cruiser "Cruiser". It is curious that the predecessor of Nikolai Ivanovich in this position was Z. P. Rozhestvensky.
At the end of 1895, N. I. Nebogatov was promoted to captain of the first rank, after which he was transferred to a staff position in the Baltic Sea Practical Squadron. But, having stayed on it for a short time, he again received command of the ship - the armored cruiser "Admiral Nakhimov", on which he spent another three years sailing between the Far Eastern ports of Russia, Korea, Japan and China.
In 1901, NI Nebogatov, who was in the position of assistant chief of the Training and artillery detachment of the Baltic Fleet, was promoted to the rear admiral's rank "for distinction in service." In fact, this wording meant that Nikolai Ivanovich had at least four years of experience in commanding a ship of the first rank and served the allotted time in the previous rank. That is, on the one hand, NI Nebogatov did not show any exceptional "difference" for getting a promotion, and on the other hand, one could hardly expect from him outstanding achievements in peacetime, like from most other officers.
Since 1903, Rear Admiral Nebogatov served as head of the Training Detachment of the Black Sea Fleet, from where in the fall of 1904 he was summoned to Libava to monitor the progress of the preparation of the Third Pacific Squadron.
Appointment to office
Studying the question of the appointment of N. I.
So, in the testimony of Admiral Nebogatov himself, it is stated that until January 28, 1905, he “did not consider himself the head of this detachment, since the manager of the Naval Ministry, Admiral Avelan, only instructed me to supervise the production of this detachment, adding that he was currently electing a head …"
At the same time, the work of the Historical Commission says that the Rear Admiral was appointed to the new position on December 14, 1904, and three days earlier Nebogatov had already taken part in a meeting chaired by the Admiral General, during which, among other things, he reported on the detachment's sailing plan drawn up by him from Libau to Batavia, communicated wishes regarding the acquisition of ships with coal reserves and discussed other issues that, it would seem, should have little concern for a person who had no intention of leading the outgoing unit.
Sailing a separate detachment to join the squadron of Admiral Rozhdestvensky
Be that as it may, it is reliably known that on the morning of February 3, 1905, a separate detachment left Russia under the flag of Rear Admiral Nebogatov. There were not many warships in it: the battleship Nikolai I, three coastal defense battleships of the Admiral Ushakov class, the armored cruiser Vladimir Monomakh, and the mine cruiser Rus. In addition, the detachment included several transports, hospital and dewatering steamers.
Having passed through the Baltic and North Seas, as well as the eastern part of the Atlantic, the ships of Admiral Nebogatov passed the Strait of Gibraltar, passed the Mediterranean and reached the shores of the Suez Canal by March 12.
Having successfully overcome this narrowness and made the transition through the Red Sea, they ended up in the Gulf of Aden, where the first artillery exercises of the detachment took place on March 28.
Shots were fired at the shields from a distance of 40 to 50 cables, and their results were not very encouraging: not a single shield was drowned, and almost no damage was found on them.
Such results were, in general, a logical consequence of the fact that the teams of the Separate Detachment were, according to Nikolai Ivanovich's definition, "rabble from all crews, ports and fleets … sick, weak, fined and even politically restless people …". Many artillerymen called up from the reserve first saw modern guns and optical sights only on their new ships.
In addition, significant errors were identified that arise when measuring distances to the target using rangefinders installed on ships. By order of the commander, all rangefinders were reconciled, and additional exercises were conducted with the sailors serving them.
The second (and last) shooting took place on April 11. Thanks to the measures taken in relation to rangefinders, as well as additional "theoretical" exercises with gunners, their effectiveness was significantly better: out of five shields launched into the water, two were drowned and two more were badly damaged.
In addition to artillery exercises, the admiral paid considerable attention to classes "in mine, navigational and mechanical specialties." In particular, in the course of these studies, N. I. Nebogatov taught the ships of his detachment to walk in a wake formation at night without lights.
Of course, two and a half months, during which the independent sailing of the Separate Detachment continued, was not enough time for the crews of the ships to practice all the necessary skills. Admiral Nebogatov himself was fully aware of this, arguing that even "intensified combat exercises did not make it possible to prepare a command in a combat relation as required by the combat experience of the enemy." At the same time, if any other naval commander were in the place of Nikolai Ivanovich, he would hardly have done more.
Joining the squadron of Admiral Rozhdestvensky
Throughout almost his entire independent voyage, Rear Admiral Nebogatov did not have accurate information about the plans of Admiral Rozhestvensky and therefore did not know whether their formations would follow to Vladivostok together or separately.
In case events began to develop according to the second scenario, the commander of the Separate Detachment formed the following plan.
“… going out into the Pacific Ocean, south of Formosa, bypassing the eastern side of Japan, keeping at a distance of at least 200 miles, enter the Sea of Okhotsk by one of the passages between the Kuril Islands and further, under the cover of very thick fogs prevailing at this time of the year, through the La Peruz Strait to reach Vladivostok. The detachment had very large reserves of coal on transports, favorable weather at that time in the Pacific Ocean, the already established experience of loading coal from transports to the ocean, the possibility of towing small battleships with transports - all these circumstances allowed me to look at this plan of reaching Vladivostok as very likely in execution, especially since I was convinced that the entire Japanese fleet would not dare to cruise at that time in the Sea of Okhotsk, due to the danger of sailing in these waters, and besides, it would need to protect the sea communication of Japan with the Kwantung Peninsula, this last consideration allowed I hope in the worst case to meet in the La Perouse Strait only with a part of the Japanese fleet and, moreover, not of the best ships.
My repeated voyages in the Sea of Okhotsk and the acquaintance with the sailing conditions in these waters, acquired in them, gave me hope to safely lead the detachment to Vladivostok …"
It should be noted that the plan was developed by Rear Admiral Nebogatov together with the officers of his headquarters, who, together with him, believed it was possible to reach Vladivostok only by following the route indicated above.
However, these ideas did not happen to be realized, since on April 26, 1905, the Separate detachment met with the Second Squadron and ceased to exist as an independent unit; Rear Admiral Nebogatov at the same time became the junior flagship - the commander of the Third Armored Detachment, which included the battleship Nikolai I and three coastal defense battleships: Ushakov, Senyavin and Apraksin.
During the personal meeting of the admirals, ZP Rozhestvensky, which took place on the same day, did not show the slightest interest in Nikolai Ivanovich's thoughts about how best to follow to Vladivostok. This was the manifestation of Zinovy Petrovich's genuine democratism, since in exactly the same way he treated the thoughts of almost all of his subordinates. After urging N. I. Nebogatov to study all previously issued orders for the squadron, Vice Admiral Rozhdestvensky ended his half-hour audience and did not see his interlocutor again for almost three months until they met in Japanese captivity.
Of course, from the point of view of universal human values, it is difficult to understand why Z. P. Rozhestvensky did not consider it necessary to devote at least a couple of hours to outline to N. I. Nikolai Ivanovich.
According to the author, the commander's laconicism can be explained by two reasons.
Firstly, Zinovy Petrovich did not have any clearly formulated plan, and, accordingly, he could not tell it.
Secondly, Nebogatov's ships seemed to Admiral Rozhdestvensky only "rot", weakening, not strengthening the squadron, and therefore he apparently considered it inexpedient to waste time discussing how the ships of no military value would act.
However, it would be unfair to say that Zinovy Petrovich forgot about the existence of the Third Armored Detachment immediately after it joined the squadron. On the contrary, according to his testimony, “for thirteen days, joint with the detachment of Rear Admiral Nebogatov, he kept this detachment for 10 days in the castle of the squadron in the front line and, despite continuous insistent demands during all this time, he could not get this detachment an order close to the order.
At the same time, it should be noted that while on the Suvorov, which was about four kilometers ahead of Nebogatov's detachment, Zinovy Petrovich could hardly objectively assess the intervals between his ships and the harmony of the evolutions they were making - for this it was more logical to take a position abeam of the Third Detachment, but, as we know, the squadron commander did not do this.
Taking into account the fact that movement in the front line for a long time, in principle, for the connection of ships is a significantly more difficult task than movement in the wake formation, it is difficult to see in this "teaching" of Admiral Rozhdestvensky anything other than the desire to drill the newly joined him detachment and show it to the commander that he should primarily focus on eliminating shortcomings in the combat training of his ships, and not on working out initiatives for the further movement of the squadron.
The road to Tsushima
On May 1, 1905, Russian ships left the Vietnamese bay of Cua-Be and headed for the Japanese islands.
Over the next two weeks, their voyage was generally quite calm, but still there were several episodes worthy of attention.
On May 2, a rangefinder exercise was held, which showed that errors in determining distances by rangefinders of the same ship can reach ten or more cables (1.8 kilometers). In the order for the squadron, Admiral Rozhestvensky stated that "the rangefinder business … on the eve of the battle is in extreme neglect" and added instructions to it, which was supposed to correct the situation. This instruction generally copied the one that had previously been developed by the headquarters of Rear Admiral Nebogatov for his detachment, "but with an addition that destroyed all its significance" (from the testimony of Captain Second Rank Cross).
On May 10, after a long illness, the commander of the Second Armored Detachment, Rear Admiral DG Felkerzam, died. Considering that the news of his death could negatively affect the morale of the personnel, Z. P. Rozhestvensky did not announce this event to the squadron and did not even consider it necessary to inform the other admirals about it - N. I. Nebogatov and O. A. Enquist … The powers of the commander of the Second Armored Detachment were transferred to the commander of the battleship "Oslyabya", Captain First Rank V. I. Beru.
On the same day, coastal battleships of Rear Admiral Nebogatov's detachment took coal from transports. According to the testimony of Nikolai Ivanovich, he believed that it would be enough to take 400 tons per ship, as reported to Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky. Being a very consistent person, in particular, in eradicating the desire for independence in his subordinates, Zinovy Petrovich replied: "The head of the Third Armored Detachment to teach his ships to take 500 tons of coal."
On May 12, six transports were separated from the squadron and sent to Vuzung, where they arrived in the evening of the same day. Their appearance on the roadstead was reported to the commander of the United Fleet of Japan, Admiral Haitahiro Togo, on the basis of which he reasonably suggested that Russian ships would try to pass to Vladivostok through the Korean Strait.
On May 13, already at a distance of less than one day's march from the throat of the Strait of Korea, Admiral Rozhestvensky decided to carry out training evolutions, the first since the joining of the detachment of N. I. Nebogatov. These evolutions lasted for a total of about five hours and passed, "rather sluggishly" and "rather discordantly" (from the work of the Historical Commission).
One of the reasons for the "lethargy" of the maneuvers performed by the detachments was the complexity and confusion of the flag signals, with the help of which the flagship gave them orders to perform certain actions.
For example, Rear Admiral N. I. Nebogatov, in his testimony, reported that “5 signals were raised simultaneously, which indicated what to do to each detachment, for example: the II squad should do this, the first, the third, cruisers, transports, etc..; since all these considerations of the admiral appeared before our eyes for the first time, then reading, assimilating and understanding the purpose of each movement required a lot of time, and, naturally, sometimes there were misunderstandings that needed to be clarified, and therefore these evolutions were performed very slowly and out of tune, which, in turn, caused additional instructions from the admiral; in a word, all these evolutions were carried out in such a natural way, like any business that is conducted for the first time, without any preliminary preparation …"
Zinovy Petrovich remained extremely dissatisfied with the maneuvers, in connection with which he even expressed with a signal his dissatisfaction with the Second and Third Armored Detachments. However, the commander refrained from any detailed comments on what the mistakes they made and what, in his opinion, the desired course of action should have been. Therefore, we can confidently assert that if Admiral Rozhestvensky tried to repeat exactly the same evolutions the next day, they would have proceeded as “sluggishly” and “out of tune” as the day before.
On the night of May 13-14, a Russian squadron consisting of 12 armored ships, 9 cruisers, 9 destroyers, 4 transports, 2 hospital and 2 auxiliary ships (38 vessels in total) entered the Korean Strait and began to advance to its eastern arm with the aim of passing between the island of Tsushima and the western coast of Japan to Vladivostok, to which a little more than 600 miles remained.
Day fight May 14
A whole book can be written about the Tsushima battle. And not even one. And if each of them is based on the testimony of different participants in the battle, then the content of the books will differ significantly. Moreover, it is obvious that the inconsistency of the testimony is explained mainly not by the pathological deceit of the people who gave them, but by the fact that in the heat of the battle these people could not calmly concentrate on objective observation of the events taking place. The flagship of the headquarters of Admiral Rozhdestvensky, captain of the second rank V. I. Semenov, wrote about this in his book "Reckoning":
“… From personal experience I could see (and repeatedly) how deceiving“memories”are… More than once, rereading my own notes, I… incriminated myself, found that a very definite idea of the details of a particular moment was obviously created under the influence … of the stories heard afterwards was in contradiction with the recording made "at the time of the commission" …"
Without pretending to be the ultimate truth, the author of this article invites the reader to get acquainted with his view of the general course of events on May 14, as well as how the ships of the Third Armored Detachment and its commander acted during and after the battle.
At about 7 o'clock in the morning from our ships the cruiser "Izumi" was seen walking parallel with them. It became obvious that the location of the squadron had been revealed, and there was no longer even a hypothetical opportunity to go to Vladivostok without a fight.
At 12:05, a signal was made from the flagship battleship "Suvorov" to steer towards NO 23º.
At 12:20 - 12:30, realizing the complex tactical plan of Admiral Rozhdestvensky, the Russian main forces lined up in two parallel wake columns: four newest battleships - Suvorov, Alexander III, Borodino and Eagle - in the right column and eight other ships - "Oslyabya", "Sisoy Veliky", "Navarin", "Nakhimov", "Nikolay", "Senyavin", "Apraksin", "Ushakov" - on the left.
Initially, the distance between the columns was about 8 cables, but then, apparently, due to a slight divergence of their courses, it began to increase and, after 45 minutes, probably reached 12-15 cables. Around this time, the main forces of the Japanese were opened from the battleship Suvorov, and then from other ships, following almost perpendicular to the course of our squadron from the southeast to the northwest.
At 13:20, Admiral Rozhestvensky decided to rebuild his ships in one column, for which the ships of the First Armored Detachment led by him were given a signal to increase their speed to 11 knots and lean to the left.
Assuming that the distance between the columns of its battleships is 8 cables, Admiral Rozhdestvensky, applying the Pythagorean theorem, calculated that by 13:49 the lead ship of the right column - "Suvorov" - should have outstripped the lead ship of the left column - "Oslyabya" - by 10.7 cables, which was enough for the rest of the battleships of the First Detachment to take their places between them, taking into account the four two-cable intervals between the matelots and the two cables of the total length of the three Borodino-class ships' hulls.
However, since the true spacing between the wake columns of our ships was significantly greater (as already mentioned, 12-15 cables), the distance from Suvorov to Oslyaby calculated according to the same theorem at 13:49 was not 10.7, but only 8.9-9.5 cable.
Therefore, when the Suvorov took the same course as the Second Armored Detachment, the fourth ship of the right column, the Eagle, was only a little ahead of the right traverse of the battleship Oslyabya. The latter, in order to avoid a collision, “almost stopped the car, which instantly caused the overcrowding of the battleships of the Second Detachment and the failure of the terminal” (from the testimony of the captain of the second rank Ivkov, senior officer of the battleship “Sisoy Veliky”, rear matelot of “Oslyabya”).
Thus, the rebuilding undertaken by Zinovy Petrovich led to the fact that four battleships of the "Borodino" class led the main forces and continued to move on the NO 23º course at a speed of 9 knots, and the ships of the Second and Third detachments, due to the forced decrease in speed, were strongly pulled away from them. and upset their wake.
During the time that the evolutions described above took, the Japanese battleships, having made a series of two left turns "in succession", laid down on a course converging with the course of the Russian squadron.
Passing through the last turning point, the enemy ships first fired at the battleship Oslyabya, which was the closest, largest and, moreover, sedentary target, and then concentrated their fire on the ships of the First Armored Detachment, first of all, its flagship, the battleship Suvorov … Using a significant advantage in speed, the Japanese column was able to quickly move forward and take such a position relative to the Russian system, which allowed it to "press on the enemy warheads" (from the report of Admiral Togo), while remaining an extremely inconvenient target for the Second and Third armored detachments, forced to shoot at close to the maximum range and unable to fire with the entire side.
In this regard, the ships of Admiral Nebogatov turned out to be in the worst position, since, firstly, they were farthest from the enemy, and, secondly, because the outdated guns of the battleship "Nikolai I" could not shoot at a distance of more than 45 cables, from - why he was able to open fire on the Japanese only five minutes after the start of the battle.
Nevertheless, even being in such a disadvantageous position, the ships of the Third Armored Detachment were able to achieve a number of hits on enemy armored cruisers, in particular "Asamu" and "Izumo".
At the end of the first half hour of the battle, the battleship "Oslyabya", which received critical damage in the bow and had a strong roll to the left side, lost control and rolled out of the wake column of our ships. Twenty minutes later, the heavily battered ship sank.
At 14:26, the flagship battleship Suvorov stopped obeying the helm. Because of this, he began a sharp circulation to the right and, having made a full turn, cut through the formation of the Second Armored Detachment, passing between the battleships "Sisoy the Great" and "Navarin", and the latter, in order to avoid a collision, had to reduce the speed and describe the coordonate to the right. This led to the fact that the line of our armored ships was even more stretched and "upset". Thus, the assertion that the Third Armored Detachment was strongly pulled away from the lead ships (which, for example, Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky and Captain Second Rank Semyonov spoke about in their testimony) is true, but it must be borne in mind that this did not happen by will his commander, but as a result of objective events that occurred in the initial phase of the battle.
For those who believe that the main reason for the "delay" was the personal cowardice of NI Nebogatov, it probably makes sense to remember that Nikolai Ivanovich spent the whole battle on the bridge of "Nicholas I" flying under the admiral's flag, and then look at the diagram damage to this battleship.
It is doubtful that a cowardly person would have had the guts to spend several hours in one of the most dangerous places on the ship and at the same time "set an example of rare courage with personal courage" (from the testimony of warrant officer for the naval unit AN Shamie).
After the failure of "Suvorov" the squadron was led by "Alexander III", but, having held out as the lead for only fifteen minutes, he also left the system, after which his place was taken by "Borodino".
Without in any way belittling the valor and dedication of the crew of this ship, we note that for the next four hours, while he was the first in the column of our battleships, all their evolutions boiled down to indecisive evasion of the Japanese pressing on the head matelots and easily predictable attempts to break through to northeast during those periods of the battle when the enemy lost contact with them due to fog and smoke.
Having well seen the death of Oslyaby and the helpless position of Suvorov, Rear Admiral Nebogatov made no attempts to lead the squadron and give its mode of action a more focused character, although, according to senior flag officer Lieutenant Sergeev, he wondered “why are we all circling in one place and we make it easier to shoot ourselves."
Oddly enough, from a formal point of view, the passive behavior of Nikolai Ivanovich fully corresponded to the order of the commander of squadron No. 243 dated 1905-10-05 (… if the Suvorov is damaged and unable to be controlled, the fleet should follow the Alexander, if the Alexander is also damaged - for "Borodino" …), which, however, little convinces his consistent critics, who believe that a real naval commander in that situation should have been guided not by the letter of a written order, but by the spirit of the unfolding battle, which urged more active control of the actions of Russian ships.
According to the author of this article, Rear Admiral Nebogatov could probably violate the order of Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky, but only if he was sure that the latter would approve of such initiative. And this confidence, in turn, could appear in him only if their relationship as a whole were harmonious and trusting. However, taking into account a number of the already mentioned episodes that happened during the joint voyage of admirals on the eve of the battle, their relationship could hardly be characterized by such definitions.
Therefore, it is not at all surprising that N. I. Nebogatov preferred to refrain from any manifestation of initiative, while the situation generally fit within the framework of the order he had received earlier.
Transfer of command to Rear Admiral Nebogatov. Night from May 14th to May 15th
At about 15:00, Admiral Rozhestvensky, wounded in the head and back, left the conning tower of the battleship "Suvorov" and moved to the right middle tower of six-inch guns, where, in his words, “he either lost consciousness or came to himself, not realizing, however, what had happened. time ".
Despite the fact that at that moment the squadron commander was obviously no longer able to control the actions of his ships, the officers of his headquarters did not realize this and did not make any attempts to inform Admiral Nebogatov about the need to take command.
Approximately between 17:00 and 17:30 the destroyer "Buyny", which removed Admiral Rozhdestvensky, seven officers and fifteen lower ranks, was able to approach the flagship battleship, which was heavily heeled to the port side.
Finding themselves in a relatively safe environment on the Buinom, the headquarters officers finally realized that the admiral, who periodically fell into unconsciousness, could not lead the squadron and therefore it was necessary to raise the issue of transferring command.
At the same time, curiously, the flag-captain who spoke with Zinovy Petrovich, the captain of the first rank Clapier-de-Colong, in his testimony to the Investigative Commission, said that “… the admiral, unable to continue commanding the squadron due to severe wounds, ordered to make a signal from destroyer "Exuberant":
"I transfer command to Admiral Nebogatov" … ", and at the court session on the case of the delivery of the destroyer" Bedovy "he (Kolong) said that" … whether the admiral himself ordered the transfer of command to Admiral Nebogatov, he does not remember well …"
Be that as it may, at about 18:00 the signal "Admiral transfers command to Admiral Nebogatov" was raised on the mast of "Buyny", and it was correctly disassembled and rehearsed by all ships of the squadron … except for those that were part of the Third Armored Detachment.
The officers of Nikolai, Apraksin and Senyavin almost unanimously showed that they did not see the signal for the transfer of command and only heard a voice message from the destroyer Impeccable that the commander had ordered to go to Vladivostok.
It is not possible to find out what exactly they were shouting from the "Impeccable", since this ship died along with all its crew on the night of May 14-15.
As for the unnoticed flag signals shown by Buyny and other vessels, the testimony of the senior officer of Nicholas I, captain of the second rank Vedernikov, is quite interesting in this sense: “… a signal was detected on the Anadyr -“Is it known to Admiral Nebogatov” … In view of the proximity in alphabetical order of the word "Known" with the word "Command", it seems to me if there was an error in any letter of the signal … ". At the same time, according to the report of the commander of the "Anadyr", captain of the second rank Ponomarev, he, of course, "rehearsed the signal raised on one of the destroyers:" The admiral passes the command to Admiral Nebogatov "…"
In general, on the one hand, it is difficult to assume that N. I. Nebogatov and other officers of the Third Armored Detachment did not notice the signal about the transfer of command unintentionally. And, on the other hand, if the signal on the Nikolay was nevertheless seen and correctly disassembled, then it is no less difficult to admit the idea that Nikolai Ivanovich managed to persuade all people who knew about it (not only officers, but also lower ranks, who there were several hundred) to hide this information and give false testimonies that are very close in meaning both when answering the questions of the Investigative Commission, and during the court hearings on the surrender case.
According to Rear Admiral Nebogatov himself, "at about five o'clock in the evening, not seeing the orders of the Squadron Commander, … decided to take course NO 23 °, indicated before the battle and leading to Vladivostok …" At this time, on his order, the battleship Nikolai I began to move forward relative to the wake column of Russian ships and after about two hours led it.
At 19:15, the main forces of the Japanese turned to the east and withdrew, allowing their destroyers to attack our ships.
Theoretically, the main burden of protecting the squadron from mine attacks was to lie with a detachment of cruisers, but he, obeying the order of his commander, Rear Admiral Enquist, left the main forces and, having developed a maximum speed, headed south.
Thus, the Russian battleships were left to their own devices. To increase their chances of survival, Admiral Nebogatov ordered an increase in speed to 12 knots and a turn to the south-west in order to transfer the attacking destroyers from the right crabball to the right shell of the formation and thus force them to catch up with their ships, and do not move towards them.
There is an opinion that before giving such orders, Nikolai Ivanovich had to find out the state of all ships that came under his command (of which, after the death of Oslyabi, Alexander, Borodino and Suvorov, eight more units remained), and to be guided in the choice of the travel speed on the most damaged and slowest of them. But he cowardly preferred to move with the maximum possible speed for his ship, than dooming the battleships that had received holes in the battle to certain death.
This point of view seems to be erroneous for at least two reasons.
1. Taking into account how badly the spars of a number of Russian battleships ("Eagle", "Sisoy", "Navarina") suffered, it was hardly possible to find out their condition by exchanging flag signals with them. Light signaling was mastered in the squadron so poorly that the ships experienced difficulties even with recognizing each other's call signs, so that more complex signals did not have to be thought of.
2. Even if NI Nebogatov could find out the condition of the remaining battleships in the ranks and learned, for example, that the "Admiral Ushakov" due to a hole in the bow is not able to develop more than 9 knots, he still should not have would limit the speed of movement of the entire detachment, since in this case it would be much easier to detect both the destroyers attacking it and the main forces of the Japanese (after dawn), which would rather increase, rather than reduce, losses.
Thus, if anything can be blamed on Rear Admiral Nebogatov, it is that he did not assign any rendezvous point to all ships at which they could gather the next day. However, in practice, this would have changed little, since all the battleships of the Second Squad, which survived the daytime battle on May 14th, acted extremely unsuccessfully when repelling night attacks: they betrayed their position with the light of searchlights and cannon shots, and therefore became easy targets for enemy destroyers. As a result, "Navarin", "Sisoy Veliky" and "Admiral Nakhimov" received extensive holes from torpedoes that hit them and sank, so that none of these ships in any case would have joined the detachment of N. I. Nebogatov in the morning. At the same time, it is impossible not to pay attention to the fact that the tactics of repelling mine attacks, which led to such tragic consequences, were introduced in agreement with Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky, who paid much attention and time to working out it during the long stay of the squadron.
Morning May 15th. Delivery of ships to the Japanese
By dawn on May 15, only five ships remained in the detachment under the command of Rear Admiral Nebogatov: the flagship Nikolai I, the coastal defense battleships Admiral Apraksin and Admiral Senyavin, the battleship Orel and the cruiser Izumrud.
At about six o'clock in the morning, the detachment was opened by Japanese ships. In fact, at that moment, all Russian sailors (and N. I. Nebogatov, of course, was no exception) should have realized that the remnants of the squadron had not managed to slip into Vladivostok and that their interception by the main forces of the enemy fleet was only a matter of several hours.
Nevertheless, the commander of the detachment did not take any measures (apart from a slightly naive attempt to fire at the Japanese scouts, who, taking advantage of their speed, easily retreated to a safe distance for themselves) and his ships continued to move towards the northeast.
By ten o'clock in the morning our ships were caught in the "pincers" by more than two dozen enemy ships. When the distance between the Russian and Japanese ships was reduced to 60 cables, enemy battleships opened fire.
Within a few minutes after that, the signals "Surrounded" and "Surrendered" were raised on the mast of the flagship "Nikolai I", which almost immediately rehearsed all the ships of the detachment, except for the cruiser "Izumrud", which managed to break out of the encirclement and escape from pursuit.
Of course, the very fact of the descent of the Andreevsky flag in front of the enemy, and even not on one, but on several ships of a great power is very painful for any patriotic citizen of it. But, leaving aside emotions, let's try to figure out whether the decisions made by Admiral Nebogatov were optimal or, with all the lack of choice, he had better options for action, but did not take advantage of them.
To begin with, let's try to answer the question: could our detachment, having accepted a battle, inflict at least some significant damage to the enemy? To do this, we will analyze the state of each of the Russian ships at the time of delivery, what kind of artillery it retained and how many shells it had.
Battleship "Nicholas I"
In the battle on May 14, Rear Admiral Nebogatov's flagship received ten hits, including six by 6-12 dm shells, mainly hitting the bow end, the main caliber turret, the bridge and the front tube. The battleship's artillery remained mostly in good condition (with the exception of one twelve-inch cannon), but since it consisted mainly of outdated guns that could shoot at a distance of no more than 45 cables, the Nikolai I was unable to respond to the fire of the Japanese. … There were still enough shells on the ship (about 1/3 of the normal ammunition), but taking into account the fact that he could not reach the enemy with them, this fact did not matter.
Battleship "Eagle"
According to an eyewitness, Warrant Officer Shamie, "…" Eagle "was a warehouse of old cast iron, steel and iron, it was all riddled …", which is not surprising, since at least forty large-caliber shells hit this ship the day before. Its unarmored side was pierced in many places and, although at night the crew of the "Eagle" managed to seal the holes and pump out the water accumulated in the lower decks, there was no doubt that with new hits the canvas plasters and supports from the beams would not withstand. And this, in turn, would lead to an uncontrolled inflow of water into the ship, loss of stability and overkill at the first steep circulation.
Of the sixteen guns that made up the main armament of the battleship, only six could operate: two twelve-inch (one in each tower) and four six-inch. The situation was further complicated by the fact that only four shells remained in the aft tower of the main caliber, and it was not possible to deliver shells to it from the bow tower due to severe damage to the decks of the ship.
Coastal defense battleships "Admiral Senyavin" and "General-Admiral Aprakin"
These ships of the same type received practically no damage in the daytime battle on May 14th, their artillery remained intact and there were plenty of shells for it. The weak point of these BrBOs was the high wear of the gun barrels and, as a result, their low range and high dispersion of shells. The article by respected Valentin Maltsev "Battleship" Admiral Ushakov "in battles" states that "the accuracy of the fire of eleven ten-inch guns, which fired in aggregate about five hundred shells … can be judged by the absence in the main Japanese sources of explicit mentions of Japanese ships being hit by ten-inch shells … "But the battle on May 14th was fought at distances significantly less than those 60-70 cables from which the Japanese squadron began firing on the morning of May 15th. And we have absolutely no reason to believe that at that moment the gunners of the Senyavin and Apraksin would have demonstrated better performance than the day before.
Thus, of the four battleships surrendered to the Japanese by N. I. Nebogatov, three had extremely speculative chances of achieving even one hit on the enemy. So the only conditionally combat-ready ship of the detachment was the Eagle. How long he, who already had, according to battalier A. S. Novikov, “three hundred holes”, could he hold out under concentrated fire from the entire Japanese fleet: five minutes, ten? Hardly more. At the same time, it is far from the fact that the artillerymen of the "Eagle", on which there was not a single serviceable rangefinder, would have been able to aim for the short time allotted to them and at least once to hit the enemy ship.
Summing up, we can confidently assert that the detachment of Rear Admiral Nebogatov did not have the opportunity to inflict any significant damage on the Japanese ships and, from this point of view, the conduct of the battle in this situation was absolutely meaningless.
Could Nikolai Ivanovich prevent the capture of his ships by sinking them?
After they were already surrounded - hardly. After all, for this it was necessary, firstly, to transfer several hundred crew members of each ship into boats (which, for example, did not remain at all on the Orel), secondly, to prepare the ships for destruction, and thirdly, to explode the laid charges (which, given the unsuccessful attempt to undermine the destroyer "Buiny", was a completely non-trivial task) and to make sure that the damage they inflicted was so significant that the enemy would no longer be able to save the ships. Taking into account the fact that the Japanese destroyers could approach the detachment within 15-20 minutes after raising the white flag, it is absolutely obvious that the Russian sailors did not have enough time for all these actions.
But, perhaps, Admiral Nebogatov should have taken some action before his detachment ended up in a half-ring of Japanese ships? After all, he had at least four hours at his disposal, separating the moments of detection by enemy scouts and surrender.
At six o'clock in the morning, when the detachment was opened by the enemy, it was located approximately one hundred kilometers northwest of the nearest point of the island of Honshu. Probably at this time it made sense for N. I. Nebogatov to let the cruiser "Izumrud" go on an independent voyage, having previously transferred the wounded from the "Eagle" to it, and to change the course, taking significantly more to the right, so that the detachment would continue to move closer to the coast of Japan …
In this case, the battleships of the United Fleet would not have been able to meet him on the easily predictable route to Vladivostok, but they had to start pursuit, which would give our sailors a head start in several hours.
In addition, being close to the island, Russian ships could take a battle with their pursuers and, after receiving critical damage, either throw themselves ashore or sink at a short distance from it, hoping that the crew could reach land by swimming or on rowing ships. if the opportunity presented itself to lower them. In this case, the history of the Russian fleet would not have been replenished with a shameful episode of the surrender, but with a glorious page, similar to the one that the cruiser Dmitry Donskoy wrote into it on the same day.
The case of the surrender of the squadron of Rear Admiral Nebogatov to the Japanese
Why did Nikolai Ivanovich not accept the rather obvious solution proposed above? Or any other that would allow not to surrender the ships in such an inglorious way?
During the meeting of the naval court, which was examining the case of the surrender of the squadron, NI Nebogatov explained this in a captivatingly simple way: "… he did not think about it, being occupied with only one thought: to fulfill the order of Admiral Rozhdestvensky to go to Vladivostok."
It is difficult not to discern in this answer of the Rear Admiral a desire to relieve himself of responsibility for what happened and shift it to the commander of the squadron, which, of course, could hardly arouse sympathy for him from the judges and the representative of the prosecution, Comrade Chief Naval Prosecutor, Major General A. I. Vogak.
The latter, in his concluding speech, did not fail to draw their attention to the fact that the explanations given by Nikolai Ivanovich during the process of explanation contradicted both the testimony of other eyewitnesses and his own words spoken at the preliminary investigation.
In particular, before the trial, NI Nebogatov said that “the surrender signal concerned exclusively the battleship Nicholas I,” and later said that he “surrendered the squadron.” Moreover, in response to a request to clarify this discrepancy, he got off with an indistinct excuse that "gentlemen judges know this better …"
Or, for example, according to Admiral Nebogatov, he made the decision to surrender "in a firm consciousness of the need for what he is doing, not at all under the influence of passion," since he nobly preferred "to save 2,000 young lives by giving the old ships to the Japanese." although, according to the testimony of a number of lower ranks of the battleship "Nicholas I", immediately after raising the signal "I surrender," Nikolai Ivanovich cried, said that he would be demoted to sailors, and called what had happened a shame, realizing that he was committing not a good deed, but a serious crime, for which he will have to bear responsibility.
According to A. I. Vogak (which is generally shared by the author of the article), by dawn on May 15 N. I. at night, and on the other, he quite clearly realized that the four ships remaining under his command were in no way capable of turning the tide of an unsuccessful war for Russia, although it was for this purpose that they were sent on a campaign across the half of the world. And that is precisely why this experienced and certainly competent admiral showed any lack of initiative that could allow his ships to reach Vladivostok anyway, or at least avoid the shame of surrender.
Despite the fact that Rear Admiral Nebogatov's motivation was well understood from a purely human point of view, it came into clear conflict both with the concepts of military duty and honor of the flag, and with the formal provisions of the current edition of the Naval Regulations, which were violated more than once during his decision to hand over the battleship "Nicholas I". Accordingly, the decision taken by the court to find him guilty was quite fair. And just as fair was the mitigation of the punishment imposed by law (10 years of imprisonment instead of the death penalty), because its main meaning, even from the point of view of the prosecutor, was “to prevent shameful surrenders in the future that would bring complete demoralization to the fleet”, and not in the most severe punishment over several officers who, by the will of fate, had to answer for the entire Tsushima catastrophe, although its true perpetrators went unpunished.
