As we know, the news of the death of the 1st Pacific Squadron reached Z. P. Rozhestvensky on the very first day of his stay in Madagascar. The first reaction of the commander was perfectly sound - he wanted to continue the campaign as soon as possible, without waiting not only for the 3rd Pacific squadron, but even for the "Catching up detachment", which included "Emerald". It would seem that L. F. It would have been possible to wait for Dobrotvorsky with his cruisers, but the problem was that Oleg, Izumrud and destroyers moved so slowly that the French press humorously renamed the squad from “catching up” to “lagging behind.” And just at the moment of the concentration of the ships of the 2nd squadron in Madagascar, the news about it looked like it completely collapsed, and it is not clear when it will be able to gather again.
Of course, in the proposal of Z. P. Rozhestvensky made sense - to try to lead the 2nd Pacific to Vladivostok, while the Japanese were repairing the ships damaged at Port Arthur (that the Japanese did not suffer too much, ZP Rozhdestvensky, of course, could not know). Nevertheless, the Naval Ministry insisted on its own: in its reasoning there was also some logic, which consisted in the fact that the forces entrusted to the command of Zinovy Petrovich were expected not to break through to Vladivostok, but to achieve victory over the Japanese fleet in a general battle, but with at the disposal of forces it was unrealistic.
Be that as it may, the squadrons had to unite, and is of some interest, as Z. P. Rozhestvensky saw the organization of his cruising forces (excluding the ships of Rear Admiral N. I. Nebogatov). Apart from the armored cruiser "Admiral Nakhimov", which was supposed to be part of the 2nd armored detachment, the commander divided them into 3 parts, which, not counting the destroyers, included:
1. "Svetlana" and auxiliary cruisers "Kuban", "Terek" and "Ural" - a reconnaissance detachment.
2. Armored "Oleg", "Aurora", "Almaz", the old armored "Dmitry Donskoy" and auxiliary "Rion" and "Dnepr" - a cruising detachment, whose main task was to protect the detachment of transports.
3. And, finally, "Pearl" and "Emerald" did not form any detachment at all, but were ranked among the main forces.
Thus, we can say that Z. P. Rozhestvensky saw "Pearls" and "Emerald" not as scouts or "battle" cruisers, which could be put in line with armored cruisers of the 1st rank, but assumed their use as rehearsal ships and to protect armored ships from mine attacks.
However, we will return to this issue in more detail later.
In Madagascar, between January 11-25, 1905, the largest and most intense artillery exercises of the 2nd Pacific Squadron took place during the entire period of its march to Tsushima. "Emerald" did not take part in these exercises, because at that time the "Catching up squadron" had not yet joined the main forces of the squadron - this happened only on February 1, 1905. As for the "Pearl", the degree of its participation in these exercises, to unfortunately not clear. The fact is that according to the recollections of the commander of the "Pearl", P. P. Levitsky (testimony of the Investigative Commission):
“The cruiser fired only five practical firing: the first time - in Reval at anchor at night against the shields, the second time - during anchorage in the Sudskoy Bay for which the cruiser went out to sea, the third and fourth time - during the cruiser's sailing from Sudskaya Bay to Madagascar and the 5th time - during one of the squadron's exits to the ocean during the stay of the squadron in Nossi-Be Bay near Madagascar."
The first detachment artillery exercises took place on January 11, when auxiliary cruisers fired at the shields, and Zhemchug, naturally, did not participate in them. Then the squadron went to sea on January 13, while, according to our official historiography, “all battleships, except for the Sisoy the Great, and all the cruisers,” and hence the Pearl as well, went to the exercises. This is indirectly confirmed by V. P. Kostenko: “After their return, the ships took their places in the roadstead in a new order, and the Eagle turned out to be more seaward than all the battleships. "Pearl" was ahead of "Eagle" in the column of cruisers. " Once "became", it means he was removed from the anchor before, but why did it, if only not to escort the squadron? True, V. P. Kostenko does not mention Zhemchug among the ships that went out to sea for exercises: “The column consists of 10 ships: 4 battleships of the 1st detachment, Oslyabya, Navarin and Nakhimov from the 2nd detachment and Almaz, "Aurora", "Donskoy" from among the cruisers ". But after all, “Pearl could follow outside the column, which he usually did.
Thus, it is quite possible that the cruiser still went out for exercises on January 13 (V. P. Kostenko, for some reason, indicated this exit on January 14).
Then the squadron went to sea for firing on January 18 and 19, while the official Russian historiography does not report anything about the participation or non-participation of the "Pearl". But according to V. P. Kostenko both times the cruiser remained to guard the bay. And finally, on January 24, "reporting" squadron firing took place. Again, the participation of "Pearl" in them is bypassed by our officialdom, but V. P. Kostenko gives a very colorful description of the cruiser's maneuvers:
The Zhemchug and the destroyers maneuvered as if in a combat situation. When firing from long distances, they took cover behind the line of battleships, as if hiding from enemy fire, and when repelling an attack, they rushed to the line of fire. "Pearl", passing from one flank to another, boldly cut off the nose of the "Suvorov" and rushed straight to the shields, not paying attention to the fact that the sea in front was foaming from the falling shells from the "Borodino" and "Alexander". At the same time, the "Pearl" itself developed a great intensity of fire."
Of course, the memoirs of V. P. Kostenko is full of mistakes and outright manipulations, but still this passage can hardly be considered as invented by him from beginning to end. But in this case, it turns out that "Pearl" went out to fire with the squadron not once, but twice. Could the cruiser commander have forgotten about one of the shooting? This is doubtful, and we can only assume that on January 13, when Zhemchug first accompanied the squadron to the firing, he did not take part in these firing. Or the commander of the cruiser P. P. Levitsky was overcome by forgetfulness, and Zhemchug took part in 6 rounds.
Of interest are the small "maneuvers" undertaken by the ships of the squadron on January 15, in the interval between firing.
The armored cruiser "Svetlana" went out to sea, which was supposed to represent no less than the main forces of the 2nd Pacific Squadron, heading east. At the same time, the commander of "Svetlana" was informed that somewhere in the islands "enemy" destroyers lurked, which have the task of attacking Russian battleships.
The "Japanese" were the most "real", they were portrayed by the 2nd squad of destroyers. The latter left Nossi-be in advance. The destroyer commanders knew that the "Russian squadron" would go out to sea, but of course they were not informed of the time of its departure or the exact route. In this case, the task of the "ambush" detachment, of course, was to detect and attack the "main forces" of the Russian squadron. At the same time, "Svetlana" went to sea by no means defenseless - she was covered by the "Pearl" and the 1st squad of destroyers, which were supposed to advance to the islands and prevent the attack of the "Japanese".
Unfortunately, it is not known how these maneuvers ended and who won: the official historiography is limited to information that "the maneuver was performed satisfactorily" and also reports that these maneuvers aroused great interest and excitement in the squadron. But, unfortunately, in the future they had to be abandoned, due to the deterioration of the destroyer mechanisms, although Z. P. Rozhestvensky planned a whole series of such exercises.
Concluding the topic of artillery exercises, we also note that "Pearl" and "Emerald" took not only an active, but also a "passive" role in them. It was done this way: during the campaign, when the ships went to sea, a combat alert was announced on the squadron. This was usually done in the morning, after which "Aurora", "Dmitry Donskoy", "Zhemchug", "Izumrud", "Rion" and "Dnepr" left on both sides of the formation of armored ships, and went at different speeds and courses, while The 1st and 2nd armored detachments practiced determining distances on them and trained to set the correct sight of the guns, the latter, of course, without a shot. Similar exercises during the campaign were conducted, if not daily, then regularly, usually from 08.00 to 10.30.
When the squadron was sailing through the Strait of Malacca, a funny incident happened: on March 24 at 17.00, approximately "Pearl" raised the signal "I see the enemy fleet at SO 30 degrees." On closer inspection, this "fleet" turned out to be a heavily smoking commercial steamer heading for the intersection of the squadron's course. However, the Japanese on the ships of the squadron at that time "saw" a lot, because the Strait of Malacca is long and narrow, and it would not be surprising if the Japanese tried to do some sabotage there. From "Almaz" we saw a dozen destroyers hiding behind an English steamer, from "Oleg" - submarines, and so on. And during the passage of Singapore, a small steamer approached the squadron, on which there was a Russian consul, court adviser Rudanovsky: he said that on March 5 the main forces of the Japanese fleet (!), Consisting of 22 ships under the flag of H. Togo, entered Singapore, but now they left NS. Borneo, and only single cruisers are suitable for the Strait of Malacca.
In general, the situation remained rather nervous. So, on March 29 and again at 17.00 "Svetlana", marching in the reconnaissance detachment in front of the squadron, reported "I see the enemy." Z. P. Rozhestvensky was about to send "Emerald" and "Pearl" for reconnaissance, but it soon became clear that this was a mistake, and the cruiser was returned.
Approaching at 06.00 on March 31 to Kamrang Bay, the Russian commander feared possible sabotage, so he did not enter the squadron immediately, but sent destroyers ahead to sweep the entrance and anchor points (it is not clear, however, how this trawling was carried out, but in the official Russian history it is written that way) … Soon the morning fog cleared away, and a steamer was found in the bay, immediately trying to hide. "Pearl" and "Emerald" were sent to him, but they did not inspect him, but were released after a short questioning. On the night of April 1, the Zhemchug with two destroyers were sent to check another steamer, which at 0200 passed between the ships of the squadron and the shore. The alarm turned out to be false, since it was a Chinese cargo-and-passenger steamer, but nevertheless, so to speak, "in order to avoid" it was escorted for several miles, illuminated by searchlights.
Z. P. Rozhestvensky assumed that his squadron could be attacked in Cam Ranh by the Japanese fleet. In this case, he was going to take the battle, while the main task of the "Pearl" and "Emerald" was to protect the flanks of armored detachments from mine attacks. For this, they were assigned a place opposite the middle of the formation of battleships on the opposite side of the enemy main forces. In addition, the "Pearl" and "Izumrud" had to put in two fires of the enemy cruisers, if they tried to bypass the formation of Russian battleships and provide assistance and cover the damaged armored ships.
After information appeared about the approach of the 3rd Pacific Squadron, "Pearls" and "Rion" were sent to Saigon. At the same time V. V. Khromov claims that "Pearl" lagged behind "Rion", and when trying to catch up with him, he could not develop more than 18 knots due to insufficient qualifications of the stokers. However, the commander of the cruiser P. P. Levitsky describes this episode in a completely different way:
“During the voyage, the crew did not have to practice driving the ferry and cars at the highest speed, but once such a case presented itself when the cruiser made a run from Kamrang Bay to Saigon and back, and the average speed of this run there and back was equal to 18 knots; however, the number of revolutions of cars on this run was only 130, due to the fact that the stokers were not sufficiently practiced to keep an even bunk of high pressure in the boilers (the highest number of revolutions of cars on the cruiser is 165)."
It is interesting that if we take the data of P. P. Levitsky that Zhemchug needed to add 6-7 rpm in order to raise the speed by 1 knot, it turns out that while at Saigon, Zhemchug could have developed 23 knots, or so.
In search of a suitable detachment of Rear Admiral N. I. Nebogatov also went out and "Izumrud", together with the auxiliary cruiser "Dnepr". The cruiser's senior officer, Patton-Fanton-de-Verrion, describes the search results as follows:
“… On the eve of joining up with the detachment of Admiral Nebogatov, they were sent on the proposed route to Cape Padaran. We cruised the night, the detachment was not met. Then, on the day the detachment was joined, they were sent along a certain rumba, at a certain distance, in order to open Nebogatov's detachment. The detachment was not met. He approached the squadron from a completely different rumba.
We will only note that in the second case the Emerald was no more than 25 miles away from the main forces of the squadron.
Later, after the 2 nd and 3 rd Pacific squadrons were united and up to the battle of Tsushima itself, the Zhemchug several times had a chance to perform “purely cruising” work. The first time this happened during the detention of "Oldgamia". Late in the evening of May 5 (22.45) the cruiser Oleg discovered an unknown steamer sailing without lights parallel to the course of the Russian squadron. The cruiser immediately went out of action, illuminated the ship with a searchlight and fired a blank shot, and when the ship stopped, sent a search party at it. It turned out to be the British steamship Oldgamia, carrying a smuggled cargo of kerosene to Japan, but there was no way to deal with it at night. Accordingly, an officer with three sailors was landed on board and instructed to lead the Olgdamia after the Oleg in order to inspect the British ship in detail in the morning, when the squadron was supposed to stop running.
This was done, but when the squadron stopped at 05.00 am on May 6, another steamer was discovered on S. The Zhemchug was sent to search him: a combat alarm was triggered. But it turned out to be the Norwegian steamer Oscar II, which was sailing empty from Manila to Japan, despite the fact that its documents were in perfect order. Accordingly, Z. P. Rozhestvensky had no choice but to let the "Norwegian" go, despite the risk that the Oscar II crew could easily transfer the location and composition of the Russian squadron to the Japanese.
And, again, different interpretations of this event are interesting: V. V. Khromov claims that the decision to release the Norwegian transport by P. P. Levitsky accepted on his own, and the commander did not approve of his act, cursing him with an "iron head". At the same time, the official Russian historiography indicates that it was Zinovy Petrovich who made the decision to release Oscar II.
When the squadron passed not far from the coast of about. Formosa, from the "Pearl" reported that they see … a balloon. It is difficult to say what it was confused with, but other ships of the squadron confirmed the cruiser's message. The commander ordered Zhemchug to make reconnaissance, but no further than 12 miles from the main forces, and Oleg ordered to support Zhemchug if necessary. Intelligence, of course, found nothing.
May 9 Z. P. Rozhestvensky built the forces entrusted to him as a "house" - in front, at a distance of 3-4 cables, there was a reconnaissance detachment, followed by the main forces in 2 columns, one of which was the 1st armored detachment and the ships of N. I. Nebogatov, and the second - the 2nd armored detachment, while the "Pearl" and "Izumrud" were to follow on the traverse of the flagship battleships "Prince Suvorov" and "Oslyabya". Now they were obliged to drive away from the squadron any ships they encountered, without waiting for special orders.
On May 12, the Zhemchug and Izumrud departed several miles from the squadron, so that the rest of the ships would calibrate their rangefinders and, in addition, to observe the sea, but no ships or vessels were found. The next day, the squadron, continuing the march, was engaged in evolutions. I must say that at the last crossing Z. P. Rozhestvensky tried to intensify combat training as much as possible - artillery exercises were conducted daily, rangefinders were checked, etc.
The most tragic naval battle of all the Russian fleet had ever participated in was approaching. But, before we move on to describing the participation of our 2nd rank armored cruisers in it, let us raise one more question that we have repeatedly discussed earlier. Why did the commander of the Russian squadron, having at his disposal a lot of auxiliary cruisers and specialized scout cruisers Zhemchug and Izumrud, did not undertake long-range reconnaissance of the Korea Strait?
Zinovy Petrovich Rozhestvensky explained the refusal of long-range reconnaissance by the fact that the cruisers sent ahead could not provide him with any useful information, but their very appearance would have warned the Japanese about the imminent approach of the main forces. It is interesting that the historical commission that compiled the official history of our fleet in the Russian-Japanese war, in this part, fully and completely confirmed the validity of such a decision of the vice admiral.
The members of the historical commission believed that, having decided to break through to Vladivostok by the Korean Strait, Z. P. Rozhestvensky was simply obliged to build his plans on the basis that the main forces of the United Fleet in full strength would prevent his passage. If suddenly, for some unclear reason, Heihachiro Togo divided his fleet and met the 2nd and 3rd Pacific squadrons with only part of his forces, this should be taken as an unexpected and pleasant surprise, a gift of fate.
In other words, if long-range reconnaissance had discovered the entire Japanese fleet, then it would not have informed the commander of anything new, and if it had seen only part of the Japanese fleet, then Z. P. Rozhestvensky (according to the members of the commission) should not have believed such data. The commander still had to proceed from the fact that he was opposed by the entire Japanese fleet and to believe that the reconnaissance was not done well enough and its data were erroneous.
The only benefit that could be achieved by conducting long-range reconnaissance, according to the members of the commission, could arise only if Z. P. Rozhestvensky sent a reconnaissance detachment to the Korea Strait, and he himself would have gone to the breakthrough by some other route. Then there could still be a small likelihood that the Japanese would be carried away by the cruisers that appeared and would miss the main forces of the squadron. But at the same time, the authors of the official history of the fleet noted that the likelihood of such an outcome would be very small, and very significant forces would have to be sent to distract the enemy, which created the preconditions for the defeat of the Russian squadron in parts. In other words, the official Russian historiography fully supports Z. P. Rozhestvensky in refusing long-range reconnaissance.
True, the members of the commission have a completely different opinion about close intelligence, but we will talk about this in the next article of our cycle.
