The poor choice of Admiral Nebogatov
Jean Leron d'Alembert
If there is among our naval officers who participated in the Russo-Japanese War a man whose ambiguity of actions could compete with the ambiguity of the actions of Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky, then this is certainly Rear Admiral Nebogatov. Any discussion of the events connected with his name that took place in the Sea of Japan on the 14th and especially on the 15th of May 1905 will certainly bring to life their literally polar assessments.
This article presents the quintessences of both points of view with the subsequent attempt to critically analyze the facts underlying each of them.
Career N.I. Nebogatova before the Russo-Japanese War
Nikolai Ivanovich Nebogatov was born in 1849.
At the age of twenty, he graduated from the Naval College and began his long service on the ships of the Russian Imperial fleet.
In 1882, Lieutenant N. I. Nebogatov was appointed to the post of senior clipper officer "Robber". Two years later, this ship made the transition to the Far East, where it cruised in the vast space between Chukotka and China until 1887. N.I. Nebogatov showed himself excellently during this long and difficult service, for which he was awarded the next rank of captain of the second rank.
In 1888, Nikolai Ivanovich was appointed commander of the gunboat "Thunderstorm", which, after only five months, was replaced by the same type "Grad". The future admiral received the first experience of independent command on these ships, which are already quite old and have increased their combat importance.
Three years later, Nebogatov was appointed commander of the cruiser of the second rank "Cruiser". It is curious that Z. P. Rozhestvensky was the predecessor of Nikolai Ivanovich in this post.
At the end of 1895, N. I. Nebogatov was promoted to the rank of captain of the first rank, after which he was transferred to the headquarters post in the Practical Squadron of the Baltic Sea. But after spending a short time on it, he again received command of a ship - the armored cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, on which he spent another three years sailing between the Far Eastern ports of Russia, Korea, Japan and China.
In 1901, N. I. Nebogatov, who was in the position of assistant chief of the Training and Artillery Unit of the Baltic Fleet, was promoted to Rear Admiral's rank "for distinction in service." In fact, this wording meant that Nikolai Ivanovich had at least four years of experience in commanding a ship of the first rank and served the required time in the previous rank. That is, on the one hand, N.I. Nebogatov was not marked by any exceptional “distinction” for receiving promotion, and on the other, one could hardly expect outstanding achievements in peacetime, as well as from most other officers.
Since 1903, Rear Admiral Nebogatov served as the head of the Training Division of the Black Sea Fleet, from where he was called to Libau in the fall of 1904 to monitor the preparations for the Third Pacific Squadron.
Appointment to office
Studying the question of the appointment of N. I. Nebogatov to the post of commander of the Separate Squadron of the Third Squadron, the author was confronted with remarkable ambiguity.
Thus, in the testimony of Admiral Nebogatov himself, it was stated that until January 28, 1905, he “did not consider himself the head of this detachment, since Admiral Avelan, the manager of the Naval Ministry, entrusted me only with monitoring the manufacture of this detachment, adding that he was currently electing the chief ... "
At the same time in work Historical the commission was told that the rear admiral was appointed on December 14, 1904, and three days earlier Nebogatov already participated in a meeting chaired by the Admiral, during which, among other things, he reported on his plan for sailing the detachment from Libava to Batavia, reported wishes regarding the manning of ships with coal reserves and discussed other issues that, it would seem, should have little to do with a person who had no intention of leading the outgoing unit.
Navigation of a Separate detachment before joining Admiral Rozhdestvensky’s squadron
Be that as it may, it is reliably known that on the morning of February 3, 1905, a separate detachment left Russia under the flag of Rear Admiral Nebogatov. There were few warships in it: the battleship Nicholas I, three coastal defense battleships of the Admiral Ushakov type, the armored cruiser Vladimir Monomakh, and the Rus cruiser. In addition, the squad included several transports, hospital and sump steamers.
Proceeding through the Baltic and North Seas, as well as the eastern part of the Atlantic, the ships of Admiral Nebogatov passed the Strait of Gibraltar, passed the Mediterranean Sea and reached the shores of the Suez Canal by March 12.
Having successfully overcome this narrowness and made the transition through the Red Sea, they ended up in the Gulf of Aden, where on March 28 the first artillery exercises of the detachment took place.
Shooting was conducted at shields from distances of 40 to 50 cable and their results were not very encouraging: not a single shield was drowned, and there was almost no damage to them.
Such results were, in general, a logical consequence of the fact that the teams of the Separate Detachment were, by definition of Nikolai Ivanovich, "rabble from all crews, ports and fleets ... sick, weak, fined, and even politically restless people ...". Many artillerymen called up from the reserve for the first time saw modern guns and optical sights only on their new ships.
In addition, significant errors were identified that arise when measuring distances to a target using rangefinders installed on ships. By order of the commander, all range finders were reconciled, and additional classes were conducted with the sailors serving them.
The second (and last) firing took place on April 11th. Thanks to the measures taken with respect to rangefinders, as well as additional “theoretical” exercises with commandants, their performance was significantly better: of the five shields launched into the water, two were sunk and two were badly damaged.
In addition to artillery exercises, the admiral paid considerable attention to the classes "in mine, navigational and mechanical specialties." In particular, during these studies, N. I. Nebogatov taught the vessels of his detachment to sail in the wake of a column at night without lights.
Of course, two and a half months, during which the independent sailing of the Separate detachment continued, was not enough time to develop all the necessary skills from the crews of the ships. Admiral Nebogatov himself was fully aware of this, asserting that even "enhanced combat training did not make it possible to prepare a team in combat as required by the combat experience of the enemy." At the same time, if any other naval commander had been in place of Nikolai Ivanovich, he would hardly have done more.
Joining the squadron of Admiral Rozhdestvensky
During almost his entire independent voyage, Rear Admiral Nebogatov did not have accurate information about the plans of Admiral Rozhdestvensky and therefore did not know whether their connections would follow to Vladivostok jointly or separately.
In case the events began to develop according to the second scenario, the commander of the Separate detachment formed the following plan.
My repeated sailings in the Sea of Okhotsk and my acquaintance with them about the conditions for swimming in these waters gave me hope to safely lead a detachment to Vladivostok ... "
It should be noted that the plan was developed by Rear Admiral Nebogatov together with the officers of his headquarters, who together with him believed it was possible to reach Vladivostok only by following the route indicated above.
However, these ideas did not happen, because on April 26, 1905 a separate detachment met with the Second Squadron and ceased to exist as an independent unit; Rear Admiral Nebogatov at the same time became the junior flagship - the commander of the Third Armored Detachment, which included the battleship Nicholas I and three coastal defense battleships: Ushakov, Senyavin and Apraksin.
In the course of the personal meeting of the admirals Z. P. Rozhestvensky on the same day, he did not show the slightest interest in the thoughts of Nikolai Ivanovich on how best to follow to Vladivostok. This manifested the true democracy of Zinovy Petrovich, because in exactly the same way he treated the thoughts of almost all his subordinates. Urging N.I. Nebogatov to study all previously issued orders on the squadron, Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky finished the half-hour audience and no longer saw his interlocutor for almost three months, until they met in Japanese captivity.
Of course, from the point of view of universal values, it is difficult to understand why Z. P. Rozhestvensky did not consider it necessary to devote at least a couple of hours to depicting N. I. Nebogatov his general vision of the upcoming battle, the tactics that the Russian ships should adhere to, and the role of the detachment Nikolai Ivanovich.
According to the author, there are two reasons for explaining the laconicism of the commander.
First, Zinovy Petrovich had no clearly formulated plan, and he, accordingly, could not tell him.
Secondly, the vessels of Nebogatov seemed to Admiral Rozhdestvensky only as “rot”, weakening, and not strengthening, the squadron, and therefore he apparently considered it inadvisable to spend time discussing how the ships of no military value would operate.
However, it would be unfair to assert that Zinovy Petrovich had forgotten about the existence of the Third Armored Detachment immediately after its accession to the squadron. On the contrary, according to his testimony, “for the thirteen-day voyage, together with the detachment of Rear Admiral Nebogatov, he kept this detachment for 10 days in the squadron’s castle in the front line and, despite continuous persistent demands for all this time, could not get this detachment order close to the ranks. "
It should be noted that being on the Suvorov, which was about four kilometers ahead of Nebogatov’s detachment, Zinovy Petrovich could hardly objectively evaluate the intervals between his ships and the harmony of their evolutions - for this it was more logical to take a position on the beam of the Third detachment but, as we know, the squadron commander did not.
Taking into account the fact that the movement in the front formation for a long time, in principle, is significantly more difficult for connecting ships, than the movement in the wake formation, it is difficult to see in this “teaching” Admiral Rozhdestvensky anything other than the desire to drill out the recently joined detachment and show it to the commander that he should first of all focus on eliminating the shortcomings in the combat training of his ships, and not on elaborating initiatives on the further movement of the squadron.
Way to Tsushima
On May 1, 1905, Russian ships left the Vietnamese bay of Qua Be and headed for the Japanese islands.
Over the next two weeks, their swimming was generally quite calm, but still there were several episodes that deserved attention.
On May 2, rangefinding exercises were held, which showed that the errors in determining distances by the rangefinders of the same ship can reach ten or more cable (1,8 kilometers). In the order for the squadron, Admiral Rozhestvensky stated that "the rangefinder ... on the eve of the battle is in utter negligence" and added to it instructions that should improve the situation. This instruction in general copied the one that had previously been developed by the headquarters of Rear Admiral Nebogatov for his detachment, “but with the addition that destroyed all its significance” (from the testimony of Captain Cross rank II).
On May 10, after a long illness, the commander of the Second Armored Detachment, Rear Admiral D. G. Felkersam, died. Considering that the news of his death could negatively affect the morale of the personnel, Z. P. Rozhestvensky did not announce this event by squadron and did not even consider it necessary to inform the remaining admirals - N. I. Nebogatov and O. A. Enquist . The powers of the commander of the Second Armored Detachment passed to the commander of the battleship "Oslyabya", captain of the first rank V. I. Baer.
On the same day, coastal battleships of Rear Admiral Nebogatov’s detachment received coal from transports. According to the testimony of Nikolai Ivanovich, he believed that it would be enough to take 400 tons per ship, which he informed Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky. Being a very consistent person, in particular, in eradicating the incitement to independence in his subordinates, Zinovy Petrovich replied: “To the chief of the Third armored squad to teach his ships to accept 500 tons of coal.”
On May 12, six transports were separated from the squadron and sent to Wuzung, where they arrived in the evening of the same day. Their appearance in the raid was reported to the Commander of the United Fleet of Japan, Admiral Kheitahiro Togo, on the basis of which he reasonably suggested that the Russian ships would try to pass to the Vladivostok through the Korean Channel.
On May 13, already at a distance of less than one day's transition from the throat of the Korean Strait, Admiral Rozhestvensky decided to conduct educational evolution, the first since the joining of the detachment of N. I. Nebogatov. These evolutions lasted a total of about five hours and passed, “rather sluggish” and “rather unsettled” (from the work of the Historical Commission).
One of the reasons for the "lethargy" of the maneuvers made by the detachments was the complexity and complexity of the flag signals, with the help of which the flagship gave them orders to perform certain actions.
So, for example, Rear Admiral N. I. Nebogatov in his testimony reported that “at the same time 5 signals were raised that indicated what to do for each detachment, for example: II detachment to do this, I’m that, III -mu, cruisers, transports, etc .; since all these considerations of the admiral appeared before our eyes for the first time, reading, assimilating and understanding the goals of each movement required a considerable amount of time, and, naturally, sometimes there were misunderstandings that needed to be clarified, and therefore these evolutions were executed very slowly and unsettledly, which , in turn, caused additional instructions of the admiral; in a word, all these evolutions were carried out in such a natural way as any business that is conducted for the first time, without any preliminary preparation ... ”
Zinovy Petrovich was extremely dissatisfied with the maneuvers, in connection with which he even expressed a signal of his dissatisfaction with the Second and Third armored units. However, the commander refrained from commenting in some detail on what their mistakes were and what, in his opinion, was the desired course of action. Therefore, we can confidently say that, if Admiral Rozhestvensky thought about it, repeating exactly the same evolutions the next day, they would have proceeded as "sluggishly" and "out of tune" as the day before.
On the night of May 13-14, a Russian squadron consisting of 12 armored ships, 9 cruisers, 9 destroyers, 4 transports, 2 hospital and 2 auxiliary vessels (a total of 38 vessels) entered the Korea Strait and began to advance to its eastern arm with the goal of passing between Tsushima Island and the west coast of Japan to Vladivostok, to which a little more than 600 miles remained.
Day fight May 14
A whole book can be written about the Tsushima battle. And not even one. And if each of them is based on the testimonies of different participants in the battle, the content of the books will differ significantly. Moreover, it is obvious that the inconsistency of the testimony is mainly due not to the pathological deceitfulness of the people who gave them, but to the fact that in the heat of battle these people could not calmly concentrate on objective observation of the events. The flagstur of the headquarters of Admiral Rozhdestvensky, captain of the second rank V. I. Semenov, wrote about this in his book "Payback":
Without claiming to be the ultimate truth, the author of this article invites the reader to familiarize himself with his view of the general course of events on May 14th, as well as how the ships of the Third Armored Detachment acted during and after the battle, and his commander.
At about 7 o’clock in the morning, the cruiser Izumi was seen marching from our ships along a parallel course. It became obvious that the location of the squadron was disclosed, and even the hypothetical possibility to go to Vladivostok without a fight no longer remained.
At 12:05 from the flagship battleship "Suvorov" a signal was made to lie down on the course NO 23º.
At 12:20 - 12:30, realizing the complex tactical plan of Admiral Rozhestvensky, the Russian main forces lined up in two parallel wake columns: four newest battleships - “Suvorov”, “Alexander III”, “Borodino and“ Eagle ”- in the right column and eight other ships - Oslyabya, Sisoy the Great, Navarin, Nakhimov, Nikolay, Senyavin, Apraksin, Ushakov - in the left.
Initially, the distance between the columns was about 8 cable, but then, obviously, due to a slight discrepancy in their courses, it began to increase and, after 45 minutes, probably reached 12-15 cable. Around this time, from the battleship Suvorov, and then from other ships, the main forces of the Japanese were opened, following almost perpendicular to the course of our squadron from the southeast to northwest.
At 13:20, Admiral Rozhestvensky decided to rebuild his ships in one column, for which the ships of the First Armored Detachment headed by him were given a signal to increase their speed to 11 knots and lean to the left.
Assuming that the distance between the columns of his armadillos is 8 cable, Admiral Rozhestvensky, applying the Pythagorean theorem, calculated that by 13:49 the lead ship of the right column - “Suvorov” - should be ahead of the lead ship of the left column - “Oslyabya” - by 10.7 cable which was enough for the rest of the battleships of the First Detachment to take their places between them, given the four two-cable intervals between the matelots and the two cable lengths of the total length of the three hulls of the Borodino-type ships.
However, since the true interval between the wake columns of our ships was significantly greater (12-15 cable ones, as already mentioned), the distance from Suvorov to Oslyabya calculated at the same theorem at 13:49 was not 10.7, but only 8.9-9.5 cable.
Therefore, when the Suvorov embarked on the same course as the Second Armored Troop, the fourth ship of the right column, the Eagle, was only a little ahead of the right traverse of the battleship Oslyabya. The latter, in order to avoid a collision, "almost stalled the car, which instantly caused crowding of the battleships of the Second detachment and the failure of the terminal ones" (from the testimony of the second-rank captain Ivkov, senior officer of the battleship "Sisoy Veliky", rear assault ship "Oslyabya").
Thus, the rebuilding undertaken by Zinovy Petrovich led to the fact that four Borodino-type battleships led the main forces and continued to move at a speed of NO 23º at a speed of 9 knots, and the ships of the Second and Third Squads dragged them away from them and upset their wake.
During the time taken by the evolution described above, the Japanese battleships, having made a series of two left turns “sequentially”, laid down on a course converging with the course of the Russian squadron.
Passing through the point of the last turn, the enemy ships first fired at the battleship Oslyabya, which was the closest, largest and also sedentary target, and then concentrated their fire on the ships of the First armored squad, primarily its flagship, the battleship Suvorov . Using a significant advantage in speed, the Japanese convoy was able to quickly advance and occupy a position relative to the Russian system, which allowed it to “press on the enemy’s head units” (from the report of Admiral Togo), while remaining an extremely inconvenient target for the Second and Third armored detachments, forced to shoot at close to maximum range and not having the ability to fire all overboard.
In this regard, the ships of Admiral Nebogatov were in the worst position, because, firstly, they were farthest from the enemy, and, secondly, because the obsolete guns of the battleship Nicholas I could not shoot at a distance of over 45 cable, from - for which he was able to open fire on the Japanese only five minutes after the start of the battle.
Nevertheless, even at such a disadvantage, the vessels of the Third Armored Detachment were able to achieve a number of hits in the enemy armored cruisers, in particular Asamu and Izumo.
At the end of the first half hour of battle, the battleship Oslyabya, which received critical damage in the bow and had a strong roll to the port side, lost control and rolled out of the wake column of our ships. Twenty minutes later, a badly beaten ship went down.
At 14:26, the flagship battleship Suvorov ceased to obey the helm. Because of this, he began a sharp circulation to the right and, having completed a complete turn, cut through the formation of the Second Armadillo Detachment, passing between the battleships Sisa the Great and Navarin, and the latter had to reduce the course to avoid a collision and describe the coordinate to the right. This led to the fact that the line of our armored ships stretched even further and “upset”. Thus, the assertion that the Third Armored Detachment strongly pulled away from the lead ships (as, for example, Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky and captain of the second rank Semenov spoke in their testimony) is true, but it must be borne in mind that this did not happen at will its commander, and due to objective events that occurred in the initial phase of the battle.
Those who believe that the main reason for the “delay” was N. I. Nebogatov’s personal cowardice, it probably makes sense to recall that Nikolai Ivanovich spent the whole battle on the bridge of the “Nicholas I” sailing under the admiral’s flag, and then looked at the diagram damage to this battleship.
It is doubtful that a cowardly person would have had the courage to spend several hours in one of the most dangerous places on the ship and at the same time, “to set an example of rare courage by personal courage” (from the testimony of the ensign on the sea side, A. N. Shamie).
After the failure of the Suvorov, the squadron was led by Alexander III, but, having held the lead for only fifteen minutes, also left the system, after which Borodino took his place.
By no means diminishing the prowess and dedication of the crew of this ship, we note that over the next four hours, while he was the first in the column of our battleships, all of their evolution was reduced to the indecisive evasion of the Japanese pushing on the head guns and easily predictable attempts to break into northeast during those periods of the battle, when the enemy lost contact with them due to fog and smoke.
Rear Admiral Nebogatov, who had clearly seen Oslyabya’s death and the helpless position of Suvorov, made no attempt to lead the squadron and give its course of action a more focused character, although, according to senior flag officer Lieutenant Sergeyev, he wondered “why are we all spinning in one place and make it easy to shoot ourselves. ”
Oddly enough, from a formal point of view, the passive behavior of Nikolai Ivanovich was quite consistent with the order of the squadron commander No. 243 dated 10.05.1905/XNUMX/XNUMX (... if the Suvorov is damaged and unable to control, the fleet should follow the Alexander, if the Alexander is damaged - for Borodino ...), which incidentally convinces little of his consistent critics who believe that the real naval commander in that situation should not be guided by the letter of a written order, but by the spirit of the unfolding battle, which urged a more active exercise leniyu actions of the Russian ships.
According to the author of this article, Rear Admiral Nebogatov could probably violate the order of Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky, but only if he was sure that the latter would approve such initiative. And this confidence, in turn, could come to him only if their relations as a whole were harmonious and trusting. However, taking into account the number of episodes already mentioned that occurred during the joint voyages of the admirals on the eve of the battle, their relationship could hardly be characterized by such definitions.
Therefore, it is not at all surprising that N. I. Nebogatov chose to refrain from any manifestation of initiative, while the situation generally fit into the framework of the order he had received earlier.
Transfer of command to Rear Admiral Nebogatov. Night from May 14th to May 15th
At about 15 p.m., Admiral Rozhestvensky, wounded in the head and back, left the conning tower of the battleship Suvorov and went to the right middle tower of the six-inch guns, where, according to him, “he lost consciousness, then came to himself, however he was not aware of what was going on time. "
Despite the fact that at that moment the commander of the squadron was obviously no longer able to control the actions of his ships, the officers of his headquarters did not realize this and made no attempt to inform Admiral Nebogatov of the need to take over command.
Between approximately 17 p.m. and 00 p.m., the destroyer Buyniy, which had heavily banked the flagship armadillo, was able to approach, which removed Admiral Rozhestvensky, seven officers and fifteen lower ranks from Suvorov.
Finding themselves in a relatively safe environment at Buiny, the staff officers finally realized that the admiral who was falling into unconsciousness from time to time could not lead the squadron and therefore it was necessary to raise the issue of transferring command.
At the same time, curiously, the captain, who spoke with Zinovy Petrovich, captain of the first rank, Klapier-de-Colong, in his testimony of the Investigative Commission, said that “... the admiral, not being able to continue to command the squadron because of heavy wounds, ordered to signal destroyer "Violent":
Be that as it may, at about 18 p.m. the signal “Admiral transfers command to Admiral Nebogatov” was raised on the mast of the “Buiny”, and it was correctly dismantled and rehearsed by all the ships of the squadron ... except for those that were part of the Third Armored Detachment.
The officers of Nikolai, Apraksin and Senyavin almost unanimously showed that they had not seen the signal of the transfer of command and only heard a voice message from the destroyer Impeccable that the commander ordered to go to Vladivostok.
What exactly they shouted from the “Impeccable”, it is not possible to find out, since this ship died along with all its crew on the night of May 14th to 15th.
As for the undetected flag signals shown by the Riot and other vessels, the testimony of the senior officer of Nicholas I, the captain of the second rank Vedernikov, is quite interesting in this sense: "... the signal was seen on Anadyr -" Is Admiral Nebogatov known " . In view of the proximity in alphabetical order of the word “Known” with the word “Command”, it seems to me that there was no mistake in any letter of the signal ... ” Moreover, according to the report of the Anadyr commander, captain of the second rank Ponomarev, he, of course, “rehearsed a signal raised by one of the destroyers:“ The admiral passes the command to Admiral Nebogatov ... ”
In general, on the one hand, it is difficult to assume that N. I. Nebogatov and other officers of the Third Armored Detachment did not notice the signal about the transfer of command inadvertently. And, on the other hand, if the signal on Nikolai was nevertheless seen and correctly dismantled, it is no less difficult to admit the idea that Nikolai Ivanovich managed to persuade all the people who knew about this (not only officers, but also lower ranks, whom there were several hundred) to hide this information and give very close in meaning false testimony both when answering questions of the Investigative Commission and during court hearings in the case of surrender.
According to Rear Admiral Nebogatov himself, he “about five o’clock in the evening, not seeing the orders of the Squadron Commander, ... decided to take a course of NO 23 °, indicated before the battle and leading to Vladivostok ...” At that time, on his order, the battleship “Nikolai I” began to move forward relative to the wake convoy of Russian ships and after about two hours led it.
At 19:15, the main forces of the Japanese turned away to the east and retreated, providing an opportunity to attack our ships with their destroyers.
Theoretically, the main load on protecting the squadron from mine attacks was to lie with a detachment of cruisers, but he, obeying the order of his commander, Rear Admiral Enquist, left the main forces and, having developed the maximum speed, headed south.
Thus, the Russian battleships were left to their own devices. To increase their chances of survival, Admiral Nebogatov ordered to increase the speed to 12 knots and make a turn to the south-west in order to transfer the attacking destroyers from the right cannonball to the right shell of the system and thereby force them to catch up with their ships, and Do not move towards them.
There is an opinion that before giving such orders, Nikolai Ivanovich had to find out the condition of all the ships under his command (of which, after the deaths of Oslyaby, Alexander, Borodino and Suvorov, eight more remained), and navigate the choice of speed on the most damaged and slowest of them. But he cowardly preferred to move at the highest possible speed for his ship than condemned the battleships that had received the battle to certain death.
This point of view seems erroneous for at least two reasons.
1. Taking into account how much the masts of a number of Russian armadillos ("Eagle", "Sisoy", "Navarina") were severely damaged, it was hardly possible to find out their condition by exchanging flag signals with them. The light signaling was mastered so poorly on the squadron that the ships had difficulty even recognizing each other's callsigns, so there was no need to think about more complex signals.
2. Even if NI Nebogatov could find out the condition of the battleships remaining in service and learn, for example, that the “Admiral Ushakov”, due to a hole in the bow, is not able to develop a move of more than 9 knots, it still shouldn’t cost him to limit the speed of the entire detachment, since in this case it would be much easier to detect both by the destroyers attacking it, and by the main forces of the Japanese (after dawn), which would rather increase rather than reduce losses.
Thus, if anything can be blamed on Rear Admiral Nebogatov, it is that he did not assign any ships any rendezvous point at which they could assemble the next day. However, in practice this would not have changed much, since all the battleships of the Second Detachment, who survived the daytime battle on May 14, were extremely unsuccessful in repelling night attacks: they betrayed their position with the help of searchlights and gunshots, and therefore became light targets for destroyers of the enemy. As a result, the Navarin, Sisoy the Great and Admiral Nakhimov received extensive holes from the torpedoes that hit them and sank, so that none of these ships would have anyway joined N.I. Nebogatov’s detachment in the morning. At the same time, one cannot but pay attention to the fact that the tactics of repelling mine attacks, which led to such tragic consequences, were introduced in agreement with Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky, who paid much attention and time to practicing it during the long parking of the squadron.
The morning of May 15th. Surrender to the Japanese
By dawn on May 15, only five vessels remained in the squad under the command of Rear Admiral Nebogatov: the flagship Nicholas I, coastal defense battleships General Admiral Apraksin and Admiral Senyavin, battleship Orel and the cruiser Emerald ".
At about six in the morning, the detachment was opened by Japanese ships. In fact, at that moment all Russian sailors (and N.I. Nebogatov, of course, was no exception) should have realized that the remains of the squadron could not slip into Vladivostok and that their interception by the main forces of the enemy fleet was only a matter of several hours.
Nevertheless, the detachment commander did not take any measures (apart from a slightly naive attempt to fire at Japanese scouts who, taking advantage of their speed advantage, easily retreated to a safe distance for themselves) and his ships continued to head north-east.
By ten o’clock in the morning, our ships were taken to the “pincers” by more than two dozen enemy ships. When the distance between the Russian and Japanese ships was reduced to 60 cable ships, the enemy armadillos opened fire.
Within a few minutes thereafter, the signals “Surrounded” and “Surrender” were raised on the mast of the flagship “Nicholas I”, which almost immediately rehearsed all the ships of the detachment, except for the cruiser “Emerald”, who managed to escape from the environment and escape from pursuit.
Of course, the very fact of the launching of the St. Andrew’s flag in front of the enemy and not on one, but on several ships of a great power is very painful for any patriotic citizen. But, leaving aside emotions, we will try to figure out whether the decisions made by Admiral Nebogatov were optimal or, with all the wealth of choice, he had better options for action, but did not use them.
To begin with, let's try to answer the question: could our squad, having accepted the battle, inflict at least some significant damage to the enemy? To do this, we will analyze the state in which each of the Russian ships was at the time of delivery, what artillery he kept and how many shells were on it.
The battleship "Nicholas I"
In the battle on May 14, Rear Admiral Nebogatov's flagship received ten hits, including six with shells of 6-12 dm caliber, mostly in the bow, the main caliber tower, the bridge and the front tube. The artillery of the armadillo remained basically in good condition (with the exception of one twelve-inch gun), but since it consisted mainly of obsolete guns that could shoot at a distance of no more than 45 cable, the Nicholas I could not respond to the Japanese fire . There were still enough shells on the ship (about 1/3 of the normal ammunition), but taking into account the fact that he couldn’t reach the enemy, this fact did not matter.
Battleship "Eagle"
According to an eyewitness, warrant officer Chamie, “... the“ Eagle ”was a warehouse of old cast iron, steel and iron, it was all riddled with ...”, which is not surprising, since at least forty large-caliber shells hit this ship on the eve. Its unarmored side was pierced in many places, and although at night the crew of the Eagle managed to close up holes and pump out the water that had accumulated in the lower decks, there was no doubt that with new hits the canvas patches and supports from the boards would not have survived. And this, in turn, would lead to an uncontrolled flow of water into the ship, loss of stability and overkill on the first sharp circulation.
Of the sixteen guns that made up the main armament of the battleship, only six could operate: two twelve-inch (one in each turret) and four six-inch. The situation was further complicated by the fact that only four shells remained in the aft caliber of the main caliber, and it was not possible to deliver shells from the bow tower due to severe damage to the ship's decks.
Battleships of coastal defense "Admiral Senyavin" and "Admiral General Aprakin"
These ships of the same type received virtually no damage in the afternoon battle on May 14th, their artillery remained intact and there were plenty of shells for it. The weak point of these BrBOs was the high wear of gun barrels and, as a result, their low range and high dispersion of shells. In an article by respected Valentin Maltsev, “The battleship Admiral Ushakov in battles,” it is stated that “the accuracy of fire of eleven ten-inch guns firing a total of about five hundred shells ... can be judged by the absence in the main Japanese sources of explicit references to the receipt by Japanese ships of hits of ten-inch shells ... “But the battle on May 14th was conducted at distances substantially shorter than those 60-70 cable ones from which the Japanese squadron began firing on the morning of May 15th. And we have absolutely no reason to believe that at that moment the Senyavin and Apraksin commandos would have shown better results than the day before.
Thus, of the four battleships surrendered to the Japanese by N.I. Nebogatov, three had extremely speculative chances of achieving even one hit in the enemy. So the only conditionally combat-capable ship of the detachment was the Eagle. How much did he already have, according to the words of the battalionist A.S. Novikov, “three hundred holes”, could he hold out under the concentrated fire of the entire Japanese fleet: five minutes, ten? Hardly more. Moreover, it is far from a fact that the gunners of the "Eagle", on which there was not a single operational rangefinder, could have managed to shoot and at least once hit an enemy ship in the allotted short time.
Summing up, we can confidently assert that Rear Admiral Nebogatov’s detachment was not able to inflict any significant damage on the Japanese courts and, from this point of view, the conduct of the battle in this situation was absolutely pointless.
Could Nikolai Ivanovich prevent the capture of his ships, flooding them?
After they were already surrounded - hardly. Indeed, for this it was necessary, firstly, to transfer several hundred people of the crew of each ship to boats (which, for example, did not remain at all on the Eagle), secondly, to prepare the ships for destruction, thirdly, to make explosions of the laid charges (which, given the unsuccessful attempt to detonate the destroyer Buiny, was a completely non-trivial task) and make sure that the damage they inflicted was so significant that the enemy could no longer save the ships. Taking into account the fact that the Japanese destroyers could approach the detachment within 15-20 minutes after raising the white flag, it is absolutely obvious that the time for all these actions of the Russian sailors was completely insufficient.
But, perhaps, Admiral Nebogatov should have taken some action before his detachment ended up in a semicircle of Japanese ships? After all, he had at least four hours at his disposal, sharing the moments of detection by enemy scouts and surrender.
At six in the morning, when the detachment was opened by the enemy, it was located about a hundred kilometers northwest of the nearest point on Honshu Island. It was likely that at that time N. I. Nebogatov made sense to let the Emerald cruiser go on an independent voyage, after transferring the wounded from the Oryol to it, and change course, taking it to the right, so that the detachment continued to move closer to the coast of Japan .
In this case, the battleships of the United Fleet could not meet him on the easily predicted route to Vladivostok, but were forced to start the pursuit, which would give our sailors a head start in a few hours.
In addition, if they were close to the island, Russian ships could take the battle with their pursuers and, after receiving critical damage, either land on the shore or flooded at a small distance from it, hoping that the crew could get to the land by boat or on rowing ships, if you had the opportunity to lower them. In this case, the history of the Russian fleet would be supplemented not with a shameful episode of surrender, but with a glorious page, similar to the one that the cruiser Dmitry Donskoy inscribed on it on the same day.
The case of the surrender of Rear Admiral Nebogatov’s squadron to the Japanese
Why didn’t Nikolai Ivanovich accept the rather obvious decision proposed above? Or any other that would allow not to hand over ships in such an inglorious way?
During the meeting of the naval court, which was considering the case of surrender of the squadron, N. I. Nebogatov explained it captivatingly simply: "... he did not think about it, busy with only one thought: to fulfill the order of Admiral Rozhdestvensky to go to Vladivostok."
It is hard not to see Rear Admiral’s response to this desire to relieve himself of responsibility for what happened and transfer it to the squadron commander, which, of course, could hardly arouse sympathy for him from the judges and the representative of the prosecution, comrade chief naval prosecutor, major general A.I. Vogak.
The latter, in his closing speech, did not fail to draw their attention to the fact that the data provided by Nikolai Ivanovich during the clarification process conflicted both with the testimonies of other eyewitnesses and with his own words spoken at the preliminary investigation.
In particular, before the trial, N. I. Nebogatov said that “the delivery signal concerned exclusively the battleship Nicholas I”, and later stated that “he had handed over the squadron.” Moreover, in response to a request to clarify this discrepancy, he escaped with an indistinct excuse that “gentlemen judges know this better ...”
Or, for example, according to Admiral Nebogatov, he decided to surrender “in a firm mind the need for what he is doing, by no means under the influence of affect”, since he nobly chose to “save 2,000 young lives by giving the old ships to the Japanese,” although according to the testimony of a number of lower ranks of the battleship "Nikolai I", immediately after raising the signal "Surrender", Nikolai Ivanovich cried, said that he would be demoted to sailors, and called the incident a disgrace, realizing that he was not committing beneficence, but a serious crime for which he have to bear from responsibility.
According to A.I. Vogak (which the author of the article also generally shares), by dawn on May 15, N.I. Nebogatov completely lost the ability to intelligently control the actions of his detachment, since, on the one hand, he was severely exhausted by the heavy battle on the eve and sleepless at night, and on the other, he clearly realized that the four ships remaining under his command were in no way capable of turning the tide of the unsuccessful war for Russia, although it was with this purpose that they were sent on a campaign across half the world. And that is why this experienced and certainly competent admiral showed every lack of initiative that could allow his ships to reach Vladivostok, or at least avoid the shame of surrender.
Despite the fact that the motivation of Rear Admiral Nebogatov was well understood from a purely human point of view, it came into clear contradiction both with the concepts of military duty and the honor of the flag, and with the formal provisions of the current edition of the Maritime Charter, which were repeatedly violated during his decision to surrender the battleship Nicholas I. Accordingly, the decision made by the court to convict him was completely fair. And the justification was the mitigation of the punishment prescribed by law (10 years of imprisonment instead of the death penalty), because its main point, even from the point of view of the prosecutor, was "to prevent future shameful surrenders that bring complete demoralization to the fleet," and not as harsh as possible over several officers who, by the will of fate, had to answer for the entire Tsushima disaster, although its true culprits remained unpunished.
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