May 8, Sunday. Took the maritime report. Walked with Dmitry. Killed the cat. After tea he received Prince Khilkov, who had just returned from a trip to the Far East.
May 19, Thursday. Now the terrible news of the death of almost the entire squadron in a two-day battle has finally been confirmed. Rozhdestvensky himself was taken prisoner! It was a wonderful day, which added even more sadness to my soul. Had three reports. Petyusha had breakfast. I rode on horseback.
May 21, Saturday. Fredericks had breakfast. Walked with Alix in the warm rain. Later the weather improved, went for a ride on the pond.
From the diary of Nicholas II.
Son, remember, no matter how difficult and difficult it may be for you - no one cares about it. An ordinary earthly bustle, if this man was not the sole ruler of an empire with a population of 130 million people. While the Grand Duke of Khodynsky and Tsushima rode on the pond, on the other side of the Earth, thousands of Russian sailors were killed, sent there by his order. So what? He didn't care about that.
All naval affairs were in the reliable hands of his uncle, Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich. Which was also not a miss.
All hands on deck! Here are some details on the exploits of this super admiral.
A socialite from head to toe, "le Beau Brummell", Alexey Alexandrovich traveled a lot. The mere thought of spending a year away from Paris would have forced him to resign. But he was in the civil service and held a position no less than no less than an admiral of the Russian Imperial Navy.
Memories of his cousin, Alexander Mikhailovich.
There was also a well-known story. Eliza Balletta. The melodrama was overshadowed only by a disrupted full house at the Mikhailovsky Theater: an ungrateful audience threw all kinds of rubbish at the French dancer, while shouting: "On your diamonds is the blood of Russian sailors." The superadmiral immediately resigned and, taking his beloved by the arm, drove off with her to Paris. Ten thousand miles to the east, thirty steel coffins were left under the cold waves. The worst perished were those who were trapped inside the battleships, when they turned over and sank to the bottom. Darkness, cold, rumbling and hum of breaking mechanisms. These people did not die immediately, but slowly suffocated and drowned in the compartments under the thickness of the sea water.
It's okay son. It was a long time ago.
"Prostitutes in Paris cost Russia one battleship a year." But you never know what the people say there! In 1904, two first-class battleships for the Argentine Navy were built at the Livorno shipyard. By then, the Latin Americans had suddenly abandoned plans to have a strong navy and put their ships up for sale. A Russian delegation immediately arrived in Italy and bargaining began.
“You must ask at least three times as much,” the Russians explained to the surprised Argentines. “Otherwise, we have nothing to bother about. The Grand Duke will receive six hundred thousand from the sale price of each battleship. Four hundred thousand must be given to Madame Balletta. And what will remain for our share - the ranks of the naval ministry?
The deal fell through. The armored cruisers were acquired by Japan.
"Nissin" and "Kasuga" (like "Giuseppe Garibaldi"). They were part of the 1st armored detachment in the Tsushima battle. It was they who turned from their rapid-fire cannons the board of the "Oslyabya" EBR (500 dead).
Box "Balletta" by Faberge. Gold, enamel, diamonds. Decorated with an enamel anchor with the initial “A”.
Still, a smart man was the Grand Duke. I knew that building battleships was the most profitable occupation.
There are wonderful legends about those times. The mess and embezzlement in the Admiralty reached such an extent that the sheathing sheets of new destroyers were fastened with wooden bushings. Not only was the cruiser Varyag built in Philadelphia, the second participant in that legendary battle, the gunboat Koreets, was built in Sweden …
Let me know, did tsarist Russia even have its own production?
The newest, just built battleship "Eagle" sank right in the port of Kronstadt. The preparation of the Second Pacific Squadron was delayed. EBR "Eagle" for two weeks could not put on an even keel - while one brigade was draining the compartments of the starboard side, the other flooded adjacent rooms on the same side …
This is the background to the tragedy. Requiem for mourning.
The fact that the squadron was not expecting anything good became clear only 20 days after leaving Libava.
On the night of October 22, 1904, the ships of the Second Pacific Squadron entered into battle with British fishermen in the Dogger Bank area (North Sea). Disputes about the causes of the tragicomic incident do not subside to this day. Bad organization, increased security measures, a typical naval mess - the main thing is that the officers and lower ranks firmly believed that they were attacked by a Japanese squadron, when Port Arthur was still not close at all.
500 gun rounds in the night. They shot accurately. Sank and damaged six "Japanese destroyers", incl. cruiser "Aurora" (three dead).
The consequences of the Hull incident were serious. Rozhdestvensky's squadron was blocked by the British fleet in the Spanish port of Vigo until the circumstances of the incident were clarified. The court found no malicious intent in the actions of the Russian sailors, but decided to pay compensation in the form of 65 thousand lb. sterling. After that, the Second Pacific Squadron continued on its way to the point of no return.
In the era of the heyday of steam engines and transoceanic voyages, the story of the “unparalleled campaign” of the Second Pacific Squadron sounds, to say the least, strange. When civilian liners received "blue ribbons" for high-speed crossing of the Atlantic, and the fleets of the European powers plowed the Pacific and Indian oceans without interruption.
The word "unparalleled" has a simple explanation: Rozhdestvensky's squadron was so incapable of combat that it could not even move on the sea. A detailed chronicle can be read from Novikov-Priboy - about the manners and customs on board, about nepotism and chaos, about a long stay in Madagascar and other horrors of that trip. It is worth noting that a direct participant in the Russo-Japanese War exaggerates somewhat. In fact, sailor life and entertainment have been unassuming at all times. The ordinary life of ordinary people. All questions - only to the fathers-commanders.
Why was nothing done during the entire campaign to increase the combat readiness of the crews and equipment? Where are the regular artillery fires, where are survivability exercises, where is everything that is usually done on ships going to war?
And the main question - why did they go to the Tsushima Strait at all?
After the fall of Port Arthur. Straight into the mouth of the Japanese dragon.
Then there was a fight. Complete passivity of the command and the doomed squadron, crawling in a 9-knot course, under hurricane fire from all sides.
Then they will argue about the reasons for the failures of the fuses in the Russian shells and the effectiveness of the Japanese shimosa. Was the decision to surrender the surviving ships of Nebogatov's squadron correct? What is the moral assessment of the flight of the headquarters officers from the dying EBR "Prince Suvorov", under the pretext of "saving the wounded commander" of the already defunct squadron (900 lower ranks remained on the battleship and died). In continuation of the bloody farce, the destroyer "Bedovy" with the squadron headquarters on board voluntarily surrendered to the Japanese ships. This time no one dared to repeat the feat of “Guarding”, who fought to the last shell. Later, during the transition to Japan, when the destroyer "Bedovy" accidentally fell off the tug at night, the sailors were ordered to fire signal flares. So that the Japanese find the destroyer again and escort it to Japan.
Monument to sailors from the destroyer "Guarding" in St. Petersburg
What do all these episodes associated with the preparation and natural death of the squadron mean? And most importantly - there is no one to ask! Who will take responsibility? Not the one who shot the cat walk?
Tsarist Russia of the end of the Romanovs' reign is just "tin". There are no other words here.
Then all these people will run away, not forgetting to take precious boxes with them, and will whine from Paris about "Russia we have lost."
Five thousand Russian sailors did not lay down their heads in vain. The tragedy in the Far East was the main impetus for the beginning of the great transformations that, after just half a century, will turn our country into the most powerful superpower that has ever existed on Earth.
As for the feats of arms, those who survived the Tsushima pogrom said rightly: "We will return here, but with other commanders."
And they are back!
Here is just one little-known episode. The story of how the pilots of the USSR Air Force destroyed the largest Japanese airbase on about. Taiwan (raid on Formosa, 1938, "How Soviet pilots bombed Japan's largest airbase").
