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I've been working on a new TL lately. I think the time is right for the first installment.


The Dogger Bank War


Chapter I: The Russo-Japanese Conflict and the Dogger Bank Incident, February-October 1904.

The Russo-Japanese War started in 1904 and was initially fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of operations were the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden in Southern Manchuria and the seas around Korea, Japan and the Yellow Sea. Russia sought a warm-water port on the Pacific for its navy and for maritime trade because Vladivostok was operational only during the summer. Port Arthur, however, a naval base in Liaodong Province leased to Russia by China, was operational all year. Since the end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japan feared Russian encroachment on its plans to create a sphere of influence in Korea and Manchuria. Japan saw Russia as a rival and was alarmed by the Russian garrison of 177.000 men that remained in Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion (a major uprising against Western colonial and Christian influence spearheaded by a proto-nationalist martial artist militia, which pressured Dowager Empress Cixi to declare war, which resulting in a crushing defeat by an Eight Nation Alliance that included Russia and Japan among others). Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for recognition of Korea as being within the Japanese sphere of influence. Russia refused and demanded Korea north of the 39th parallel to be a neutral buffer zone between Russia and Japan.

The Japanese government perceived a Russian threat to its plans for expansion into Asia and chose to go to war. After negotiations broke down in 1904, the Japanese Navy opened hostilities by attacking the Russian Eastern Fleet at Port Arthur, China, in a surprise attack on February 8th 1904. The attack heavily damaged the Tsesarevich and Retvizan, the heaviest battleships in Russia’s far Eastern theatre, and protected cruiser Pallada. This developed into the Battle of Port Arthur the next morning. A series of indecisive naval engagements followed, in which Admiral Togo was unable to attack the Russian fleet successfully as it was protected by the shore batteries of the harbour, and the Russians were reluctant to leave the harbour for the open seas, especially after the death of Admiral Stepan Makarov on April 13th 1904. Initial Japanese successes dealt a blow to the confidence of Russia about the prospect of war. A blockade followed in which Japan offensively laid sea mines, which heavily damaged Pobeda and almost instantaneously sunk Petropavlovsk (both pre-dreadnought battleships). The Russians quickly copied this tactic and sank enemy battleships Yashima and Hatsuse in May, but a second breakout attempt of their own led by Admiral Wilgelm Vitgeft was unsuccessful. On land, Imperial Japanese Army troops started a siege of Port Arthur, but for now their frontal assaults on the fortified hilltops remained unsuccessful.

With the death of Admiral Makarov during the siege of Port Arthur, Admiral Vitgeft was appointed commander of the battle fleet and was ordered to make a sortie from Port Arthur and deploy his force to Vladivostok. Flying his flag in the French-built pre-dreadnought Tsesarevich, he proceeded to lead his six battleships, four cruisers, and fourteen torpedo boat destroyers into the Yellow Sea in the early morning of August 10th 1904. Waiting for him was Admiral Togo and his fleet of four battleships, ten cruisers, and eighteen torpedo boat destroyers.

At approximately 12:15 PM, the battleship fleets obtained visual contact with each other, and at 1:00 PM with Togo crossing his opponent’s T, they commenced main battery fire at a range of about eight miles, the longest ever conducted up to that time. For about thirty minutes the battleships pounded one another until they had closed to less than four miles and began to bring their secondary batteries into play. At 6:30 PM, a hit from one of the Japanese battleships struck Vitgeft's flagship’s bridge, killing him instantly.

With the Tsesarevich’s helm jammed and their admiral killed in action, she turned from her battle line, causing confusion among her fleet. However, Togo was determined to sink the Russian flagship and continued pounding her, and it was saved only by the gallant charge of the American-built Russian battleship Retvizan, whose captain successfully drew away Togo’s heavy fire from the Russian flagship. Knowing of the impending battle with the battleship reinforcements arriving from Russia (the Baltic Fleet), Togo chose not to risk his battleships by pursuing his enemy as they turned about and headed back into Port Arthur.

It was the Baltic Fleet on its way to the Far East that would cause this conflict to escalate in the so-called Dogger Bank Incident during the night of October 21st to 22nd 1904. The disaster of 21 October began in the evening, when the captain of the supply ship Kamchatka, which was last in the Russian line, took a passing Swedish ship for a Japanese torpedo boat and radioed that he was being attacked. Later that night, during fog, the officers on duty sighted the British trawlers, interpreted their signals incorrectly and classified them as Japanese torpedo boats, despite being more than twenty thousand miles (32.000 km) from Japan. The Russian warships illuminated the trawlers with their searchlights and opened fire. British trawler Crane was sunk, and its captain and first mate were killed. Four other trawlers were damaged, and six other fishermen were wounded, one of whom died a few months later. As the trawlers had their nets down, they were unable to flee and, in the general chaos, Russian ships shot at each other: cruisers Aurora and Dmitrii Donskoi were mistaken for Japanese warships and bombarded by seven battleships sailing in formation, damaging both ships and killing a chaplain and at least one sailor and severely wounding another. During the pandemonium, several Russian ships signalled torpedoes had hit them, and on board the battleship Borodino rumours spread that the ship was being boarded by the Japanese, with some crews donning life vests and lying prone on the deck, and others drawing cutlasses. More serious losses to both sides were only avoided by the extremely low quality of Russian gunnery, with the battleship Oslyabya reportedly firing more than five hundred shells with only two hitting anything.

The crucial event was that HMS Apollo, a protected cruiser on patrol in the area that night to monitor the Russian fleet, proved to be that one ship hit by two of Oslyabya’s shells. The Apollo was hit by two 6 inch (152 mm) shells that penetrated her deck armour amidships. She sped away as fast as she could with her damage and while under fire and also began broadcasting a distress signal. In the meantime, several 10 inch (25.4 cm) and 6 inch (152 mm) shells fired from Oslyabya landed near the damaged Apollo, and the explosions inflicted further damage. The command crew of the Oslyabya had misidentified the Apollo as a Japanese cruiser and continued to fire in her general direction while reporting to being Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky, the commander of the Baltic Fleet, that they were in pursuit of an enemy vessel. Rozhestvensky gave the Oslyabya’s captain to destroy the supposed Japanese vessel, which at this point was slowed down to the point that the Russian battleship had a speed advantage of a quarter knot. The Apollo fled westwards while Russian shells kept splashing into the sea left and right and kept broadcasting distress signals for hours. Help was underway.
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