So the battle began. Usually it is divided into two phases, separated by a long break in the battle, but before proceeding to the description of the battle, the following should be noted. Different sources describe the maneuvering of the Japanese and Russian squadrons in the first phase in different ways, contradicting each other, and these contradictions cannot be excluded by a simple comparison of sources.
The opponents opened fire at about 12.00-12.22 - although there is no unanimity in the sources on this issue, the indicated time seems to be the most correct. There is no doubt that the distance at the beginning of the battle was very large and most likely exceeded 80 kbt. Thus, the commander of the second battleship Retvizan in the column, E. N. Szczensnovich later wrote:
"We started shooting by sighting from 12" guns, having a distance transmitted from the rangefinder of about 80 kb. The first shots did not reach."
Similarly, the commander of the battleship "Sevastopol" N. O. Essen, senior artillery officer of "Peresvet", lieutenant V. N. Cherkasov (who indicated the distance of the beginning of the battle 85 kbt) and senior officer of "Poltava" S. I. Lutonin. The latter wrote:
“The distance to the enemy was very great, over 74 cables. We fired several shots from 12-inch cannons, putting them on close-up, but the shells did not reach, the fire had to be stopped …"
However, the distance between squadrons is all that we reliably know about the beginning of the battle. The rest, alas, is shrouded in darkness - due to differences in evidence, we can build various hypotheses, leaning towards one or another option, but we are unlikely to know the truth. For example, from the point of view of the Japanese and most Russian eyewitnesses after the start of the battle, there was one fight on the counter-tack, but other eyewitnesses and the official "Conclusion of the Investigative Commission on the case of the 28 July battle" indicate that there were two such battles. At the same time, the evidence that mentions the two divergences on the countercourses strongly contradicts each other, and is most likely incorrect. For example, the official version describes the 1st fight on the counter courses as follows:
"Probably in order to prevent the enemy, who was going to the intersection, to cover the head of the wake column of our ships, Rear Admiral Vitgeft changed course consistently 3-4 rumba to the left and parted with the enemy almost counter-course on the right sides."
And here is how it happened in the opinion of N. O. Essen:
“The ships of the enemy squadron all of a sudden turned on the opposite course. We dodged to the right and parted with her in counterparts. After passing the distance of the shot, the first battle began."
Obviously, these descriptions are completely contradictory: the Investigative Commission believes that there was a turn of the Russian squadron to the left, Essen - that to the right, but in the latter case, the squadrons could not have had any opportunity to “disperse on their right sides”. But Essen's description is very similar to the maneuvers that happened later - not at the beginning of the battle, but about half an hour later.
Most likely the answer lies in the fact that, as A. Yu. Emelin:
“It is necessary to immediately make a reservation that information about the time of certain events in a naval battle is usually very conditional. At the beginning of the XX century. logbooks were almost always filled out completely after the battle, because it was perceived as a secondary matter"
To this should be added, here's another thing: any battle poses a threat to the life of those who take part in it, and this is a great stress for the human body. In such cases, memory often lets a person down - it does not preserve the true picture of what happened, but a kind of kaleidoscope of individual episodes, witnessed by an eyewitness, which is why the picture of the battle in his memories can be greatly distorted. It's good if someone took the trouble from the very beginning of the battle to thoroughly record all the events, such evidence is very reliable. But if a person devoted himself entirely to combat, and later tried to remember what and why, mistakes are not only possible, but almost inevitable.
According to the assumptions of the author of this article, the maneuvering of detachments in the 1st phase of the battle is the closest to the option presented by V. Yu. Gribovsky in the book “Russian Pacific Fleet, 1898-1905. The history of creation and death”. As mentioned above, the battle began at 12.20-12.22: at this moment, the deployed line of the 1st combat detachment of the Japanese went to the northeast, and V. K. Vitgeft, who was following to the southeast before the start of the battle, continued to slowly incline to the south. Sometimes one hears reproaches against Wilhelm Karlovich that he entered the battle on a turn, when his ships formed not a line, but an arc, which made the work of the squadron's artillerymen much more difficult, but the author of this article is not inclined to consider this a mistake of the Russian commander. The distance separating the squadrons was extremely large for the artillery battle of those times and the hope that a trained Russian squadron that never fired at such distances would be able to harm the enemy would be illusory. At the same time, the constant change in the course of the "Tsarevich" made it difficult for the Japanese to tip off, and this at that moment, perhaps, was more profitable than an attempt to give their own gunners the best conditions for battle. Basically, V. K. Vitgeft was supposed to arrange a firefight at long distances - in such conditions one should not expect a large number of hits, but the ammunition consumption of Japanese ships would be great, so the chances of not getting critical damage before dark increased significantly. But, at about 12.30, i.e. 8-10 minutes after the start of the battle, the "Tsarevich" makes a sharp turn by 3 or 4 rumba to the right. The reason is that floating mines were found on the flagship battleship.
A small explanation should be given here: we cannot 100% assert that the destroyers, constantly looming along the course of the Russian squadron, dropped mines: Japanese sources do not confirm or deny the use of mines in the battle on July 28 But they were visually observed on many Russian ships - so, for example, Vl. Semyonov, Diana's senior officer. In the previous article, we already hypothesized that the incomprehensible maneuvers of H. Togo, undertaken by him from the moment of visual contact of the main forces until the opening of fire, were explained precisely by the desire of the Japanese to undermine at least one Russian ship. If we assume that there was no mining, then one can only wonder why H. Togo neglected the benefits of his position at the beginning of the battle. Consequently, the author is inclined to assume that mining was still taking place: it should be borne in mind that, of course, we are talking about floating mines, i.e. Japanese mines floated on the surface of the sea, rather than anchored.
So, the Japanese began the battle with the left side, and the Russian squadron, turning sequentially after the "Tsarevich" - right. Japanese shells during this period of the battle hit the battleships of V. K. Vitgeft exactly on the starboard side, there was only one exception - the first hit to the "Tsesarevich" was on the left side. How could this happen if the Russians at that moment had an enemy on the right side? The fact is that this happened in the interval from 12.25 to 12.30, and it can be assumed that the shell hit the Russian flagship during the evasion of the "Tsarevich" from mines, when the latter for a short time turned to the Japanese line with its nose and it was possible to hit the left side (this event is marked in the diagram above).
Having bypassed the mine bank "Tsarevich" again went on the previous course - now it was not even going east, but inclined to the northeast. Such a course led directly to the shores of the Korean Peninsula, but all this did not mean anything - the main thing was that the Russians laid down a parallel course for the Japanese at a sufficiently large distance and, as we said above, this was quite acceptable for V. K. Vitgefta option. And besides …
At the beginning of the battle, the Russian squadron hardly had more than 10-11 knots, because shortly before that, due to a technical malfunction, the battleship Pobeda was forced to leave the formation and returned only at 12.10. Then the "Tsarevich" tried to increase the speed, but the emerging mine bank forced him to maneuver, which took some time. In the end, the Russians laid down on a course parallel to the Japanese and went at 13 knots, but nevertheless the Japanese detachment, possessing superior speed, pretty much got ahead, overtaking the Russian squadron. For some time, Vice Admiral S. Kataoka on his flagship "Nissin" led the first combat detachment on the course, which the Japanese ships laid down upon the completion of the "all of a sudden" turn (after which, in fact, the battle began). But then he changed course, taking to the north, as if wishing to reduce the distance to the Russian ships, but movement in that direction and with the same speed would have led to the fact that the Japanese ships were between the battleships of V. K. Vitgefta and Korea.
This situation did not suit either the Russian or the Japanese commanders. It is obvious that V. K. Vitgeft did not at all need the Japanese to reach a position for the third time from where they could put a "stick over the T" across the course of the Russian squadron. In the end, once they had to succeed … At the same time, Kh. Togo should have blocked the way to Vladivostok for the Russian squadron, and for this it would have been necessary to be either south of it, or southeast, but not between it and Korea. From the very beginning of the battle, the squadrons moved to the northeast (the Japanese - even before the opening of fire, the Russian - making a turn sequentially and lying on a course parallel to the Japanese), but now the time has come again for energetic maneuvers.
At approximately 12.40-12.45 V. K. Vitgeft turned to the southeast, and H. Togo again commanded "all of a sudden," and, turning 180 degrees, lay down on the opposite course.
The only problem is that we do not know who performed his maneuver first. This somewhat complicates the interpretation of what happened, however, insignificantly, since both admirals had reason to do so. We will consider both options.
Option 1
If V. K. Vitgeft, then his plan is perfectly clear. Firstly, on the "Tsarevich" right on the course they again saw a minefield, which had to be bypassed and it was necessary to decide where to turn, to the right or to the left. Secondly, turning to the right returned the squadron to the course to Vladivostok. And thirdly, this turn allowed the Japanese to pass behind the stern, or maybe - why the monk is not joking? - even set up the "crossing T" and shoot well at its ends, that is. flagship Mikasa. In this case, the reaction of H. Togo is also understandable - seeing that the Russian squadron is about to pass under his stern, he commands a turn "all of a sudden" in order to cross the course of the Russian squadron again, imitating "a stick over T".
But if everything was exactly like that, then we have to admit that H. Togo again missed a good opportunity to deliver a strong blow to the Russian ships. Before the start of the maneuver, the leading Tsesarevich and Nissin were separated by approximately 45-50 kbt (although 60 kbt cannot be ruled out), and after the Russians turned south the distance between the detachments began to decrease. H. Togo completely correctly turned "all of a sudden", but he performed this maneuver in the direction of "away from the enemy", and by the time the U-turn was completed, the "Tsesarevich" was separated from the Japanese line by about 40 cables (or even more), which for "crossing T" there was still too much. But if H. Togo, instead of turning "from the enemy", turned "to the enemy", then by the time the Japanese ships formed a line, the "Tsesarevich" would go directly to it at a distance of hardly more than 25 cables and the Japanese again had a good chance of destroying the head Russian battleships.
Option 2
If, nevertheless, he turned X. Togo first, then it should be admitted that he had sufficient grounds for this. From the very beginning of the battle, the flagship of the commander of the United Fleet "Mikasa" was closing, and H. Togo clearly had to strive to regain control, once again leading the 1st combat detachment. In addition, such a course returned the Japanese to a position between the Russians and Vladivostok, and moreover, their ships again took up a position under the very sun, blinding the Russian gunners.
All this is reasonable, but in this case, the response maneuver of Wilhelm Karlovich Vitgeft puts H. Togo in an extremely uncomfortable position - seeing that the Japanese are turning "all of a sudden" on the opposite course, he puts the rudder to the right in order to pass under the stern of the Japanese ships and again well - what is the monk-devil not joking with? - to pat the Japanese end armored cruisers.
Thus, we see that whoever started the U-turn, the Russian squadron remained the winner. If the Russians turned first, then H. Togo, probably, had the opportunity to strike at them the strongest blow, but he again missed it. If the commander of the United Fleet himself turned first, then by doing so he, in fact, opened V. K. Vitgefta road through Vladivostok behind his stern, which the Russian commander did not fail to take advantage of.
Be that as it may, the subsequent maneuvers of H. Togo are extremely difficult to understand. After completing the “all of a sudden” turn, he again goes to the starboard side of the Russian squadron and diverges with it in opposite directions. As a result, a battle takes place on the counter-tack, and the Russian squadron turns out to be southeast of the battleships of H. Togo. In fact, V. K. Vitgeft achieves what he wants - he broke through the main forces of the Japanese and, leaving them at the stern, goes to Vladivostok!
What prevented H. Togo from turning consistently to the southeast? In this case, he retained a comfortable position, "hanging" over the head of the Russian column directly along its course and would have all the benefits of the position.
The only thing that speaks against such a maneuver - in this case, the end armored cruisers "Nissin" and "Kasuga" could be dangerously close to the head Russian battleships. But if H. Togo was guided precisely by these considerations, then it turns out that his divergence on the counter-tack with the Russian squadron is a forced maneuver undertaken solely in order to save his end cruisers from concentrated fire?
The version that the Japanese commander undertook all this in order to prevent the return of the ships of V. K. Vitgefta in Port Arthur does not stand up to criticism at all. All his previous maneuvers blocked the way to Vladivostok for the Russian squadron, while V. K. Vitgeft did not show the slightest desire to return to Port Arthur, so there was no point in taking a position between Arthur and the Russian battleships. Most likely, H. Togo did not calculate his maneuver (if V. K. Witgeft turned first) or V. K. Vitgefta took him by surprise (if the Russian squadron went to the southeast after the Japanese turned "all of a sudden"), as a result of which H. Togo was forced to open the way to Vladivostok for the Russian commander.
Further events of the 1st phase of the battle in the Yellow Sea leave no doubts and for their graphical presentation we will use the excellent scheme of V. Yu. Gribovsky:
Until now, the battle was a one-sided game: while the distance between opponents decreased from more than 80 to 50-60 kbt, Japanese ships from time to time hit the enemy, and they themselves did not suffer losses. But by 12.48 the distance between the squadrons was reduced - now the leading Russian and Japanese ships were separated by no more than 40-45 kbt (and the distance from the "Tsesarevich" to the "Nissin" most likely was completely reduced to 30 kbt) and the Russian shells finally began to find the target - at about 13.00 (at about 12.51 and at 12.55) the battleship Mikasa received two hits with twelve-inch shells. The first of them almost dropped the mainmast (2/3 of its circumference was torn out), but the second hit could have a significant impact on the further course of the battle.
The projectile hit the 178-mm armor belt of the starboard side opposite the barbette of the bow tower. The armor plate made by the Krupp method did not allow the projectile to pass through (or it did not explode after its penetration), but at the same time it was badly damaged - an irregularly shaped hole with a total area of about 3 square feet was formed in it. At the same time, according to W. K. Packingham:
“Fortunately, the sea was calm and there was no water coming in. Otherwise, it could lead to serious consequences for the Japanese."
Imagine that the sea was not calm, or the Russian shell hit a little lower - right into the waterline - and in either case water would enter the ship. In this case, "Mikasa" received damage similar to the "Retvizan", and, having no time to reinforce the bulkheads (the Russian battleship had a whole night), was forced to limit speed. In this case, the Japanese commander, who managed to let the Russian ships pass by his main forces, had only to leave the Mikasa and catch up with V. K. Vitgefta with three battleships out of four! However, fortune was merciful to the Japanese, and a rather dangerous Russian hit did not lead to the loss of the course of the flagship H. Togo.
Diverging to starboard on counter-tack with the Russian squadron, the Japanese 1st combat detachment at some point brought down fire on the cruiser Reitenstein, following in a wake column at the tail of the Russian battleships. At 13.09 "Askold" received an unpleasant hit with a twelve-inch shell at the base of the first chimney. The pipe turned out to be flattened, the chimney was blocked, and the boiler was damaged, which caused the latter to be stopped - now the cruiser could no longer expect to give full speed. Russian armored cruisers were created for many things, but the classic artillery battle in parallel wake columns with battleships, of course, was not included in their tasks. Therefore, N. K. Reitenstein raised flags "B" (more move) and "L" (keep to the left), which made the cruisers of his detachment, increasing their speed and making a coordinate to the left, took cover behind the battleships. This was definitely the right decision.
At 13.20 the fire stopped briefly. A short but fierce battle on the counter-tack lasted for about half an hour, but the battleships fought at full strength even for less than 20 minutes, because the courses of the Japanese and Russian squadrons and the distance between them soon after 13.00 forced the ships of H. Togo to transfer fire to the cruiser N. TO. Reitenstein. Now the Japanese squadron was to the left and behind the ships of V. K. Vitgeft and the distance between them continued to increase. Moreover, the Russian commander immediately after the end of the battle took a little more east than not much, but nevertheless increased the speed of the squadrons' divergence. And the Japanese first combat detachment continued to march to the northwest, i.e. in the opposite direction from the Russian course, and only when the distance between the opponents reached 100 kbt did he turn around and lay down on a parallel course, slightly converging with the Russians. Now H. Togo, having completely and completely unsuccessfully squandered all his positional advantages, which he possessed at the beginning of the battle, found himself in the position of catching up.
The first phase of the battle in the Yellow Sea is not over yet, and we will return to it later, but for now we will note a very surprising fact. As we saw earlier, Wilhelm Karlovich Vitgeft did not have even a tenth of Heihachiro Togo's combat experience. The latter took part in a number of major naval battles, went through the entire Sino-Japanese war as a cruiser commander, and led the United Fleet from the very beginning of the Russian-Japanese war. The Japanese admiral showed a certain ability for non-standard actions: he started the war with a surprise attack by destroyers of the ships of the Pacific Ocean squadron, he tried to block the passage to Arthur with firecrackers, the fleet under his leadership achieved success in the mine business. Of course, we are talking about the undermining of "Petropavlovsk", although in fairness we note that the role of H. Togo in this is unclear. VC. Vitgeft also commanded the squadron during the sinking of "Yasima" and "Hatsuse", but he had almost nothing to do with that, and therefore, not knowing the circumstances of the Japanese planning of that operation, one cannot write off the death of the Russian battleship together with S. O. Makarov exclusively on the genius of the commander of the United Fleet. In addition, Heihachiro Togo showed great management by organizing a flying base of the fleet on the Elliot Islands, and in these conditions, which were certainly difficult for the Japanese, he managed to establish the combat training of his ships.
In contrast to the energetic Japanese admiral, V. K. Vitgeft was more of an armchair worker with no military experience at all. He never commanded squadrons of modern armored ships and, in general, spent the last five years of service at the headquarters of the governor. His leadership of the Port Arthur squadron before the battle on July 28 can in no way be described positively, and he himself did not consider himself an admiral capable of leading the forces entrusted to him to victory. Let us recall his phrase “I am not a naval commander!”, Said at the very first meeting of the flagships. VC. Vitgeft was inclined to meticulously fulfill the instructions given to him and showed almost no initiative (except for such a diligent evasion from a breakthrough to Vladivostok)
As if that were not enough, in battle all the tactical advantages were on the side of the Japanese. Their crews were much better prepared, and the Russian commander could not even count on the technical reliability of his own ships. Recall that after leaving Arthur and before the start of the battle, "Tsarevich" left the formation twice, and "Victory" - once, while it was completely unknown how long the bulkheads of the damaged "Retvizan" could hold out. The squadron speed of the battleships V. K. Vitgefta was below the 1st combat detachment of H. Togo, and the position of the Japanese commander in the outset of the battle was better. It seemed that all of the above guaranteed a quick tactical victory of the most experienced Heihachiro Togo over the Russian clumsy admiral and the defeat of the 1st Pacific Squadron at the very beginning of the battle.
Instead, Wilhelm Karlovich "I am not a naval commander" Witgeft (readers will forgive us this Englishism), with just a few simple and timely maneuvers, outright beat H. Togo and left him behind. Without any fuss and throwing (which one would expect from a Russian commander!) Acting calmly and measuredly, V. K. Witgeft won a convincing tactical victory: so an experienced grandmaster who has gone through the crucible of international matches, playing with only half of the pieces, puts check and checkmate on a neophyte who has just begun to comprehend chess science.
Of course, winning the Russians in maneuvering at this stage did not mean winning the battle at all. One should never forget that Wilhelm Karlovich received a clear and unambiguous order to break through to Vladivostok, avoiding battle as much as possible. He followed this order - all his maneuvers were not aimed at routing the Japanese fleet, but at breaking through the main forces of H. Togo. It was impossible to avoid the battle, and the Russian Rear Admiral strove to enter Vladivostok so that his ships would not receive severe damage that would prevent a breakthrough. This was the goal of V. K. Vitgeft, and at the beginning of the battle, in the period considered above, he certainly achieved it.
We know for sure that V. K. Vitgeft was not at all the best, nor one of the best Russian admirals, and was never considered such - and yet he managed to "leave with his nose" the most experienced Japanese. And therefore one can only guess what results the battle on July 28, 1904 could have led, if the command was preparing the ships of the 1st Pacific Ocean for battle, and not "pickling" them in the inner roadstead, if the squadron received an order not to break through to Vladivostok, but give a decisive battle to the Japanese fleet, and if one of the best domestic admirals were at the head of the squadron. Such as the dead S. O. Makarov, or F. V. Dubasov, G. P. Chukhnin, N. I. Skrydlov …
But this would already be an alternative history genre, and it's time for us to return to the 1st phase of the battle in the Yellow Sea.
