, 1905. Close to their bases, trained
to the last degree, inspired by success, the Japanese navy could
now face with confidence the approach of Russia's last fleet.

_Rojdestvensky's Cruise_

After a series of accidents and delays, the Baltic fleet under
Admiral Rojdestvensky--8 battleships, 5 cruisers, 8 destroyers, and
numerous auxiliaries--left Libau Oct. 18, 1904, on its 18,000-mile
cruise. Off the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, the ships fired into
English trawlers under the impression that they were enemy torpedo
craft, and thus nearly stirred England to war. Off Tangier some of
the lighter vessels separated to pass by way of Suez, and a third
division from Russia followed a little later by the same route.
Hamburg-American colliers helped Rojdestvensky solve his logistical
problem on the long voyage round Africa, and German authorities
stretched neutrality rules upon his arrival in Wahlfish Bay, for
the engrossment of Russia in eastern adventures was cheerfully
encouraged by the neighbor on her southern frontier. France also
did her best to be of service to the fleet of her ally, though
she had "paired off" with England to remain neutral in the war.

With the reunion of the Russian divisions at Nossi Be, Madagascar,
January 9, 1905, came news of the fall of Port Arthur. The home
government now concluded to despatch the fag-ends of its navy,
though Rojdestvensky would have preferred to push ahead without
waiting for such "superfluous encumbrances" to join. Ships, as
his staff officer Semenoff afterward wrote, were needed, but not
"old flatirons and galoshes"; guns, but not "holes surrounded by
iron."[1] After a tedious 10 weeks' delay in tropical waters, the
fleet moved on to French Indo-China, where, after another month
of waiting, the last division under Nebogatoff finally joined--a
slow old battleship, 3 coast defense ironclads, and a cruiser.
Upon these, Rojdestvensky's officers vented their vocabulary of
invective, in which "war junk" and "auto-sinkers" were favorite
terms.

[Footnote 1: RASPLATA, p. 426.]

Having already accomplished almost the impossible, the armada of
50 units on May 14 set forth on the last stage of its extraordinary
cruise. Of three possible routes to Vladivostok--through the Tsugaru
Strait between Nippon and Yezo, through the Strait of La Perouse
north of Yezo, or through the Straits of Tsushima--the first was
ruled out as too difficult of navigation; the second, because it
would