If you've been watching this channel for a while — or studying history at all,
for that matter — you're surely aware that wars are a hotbed for the straight-up ridiculous.
Against the backdrop of the Russo-Japanese War, one particularly ridiculous — no,
ludicrous — incident took place in the North Sea, involving the Imperial Russian Navy
and, in quotation marks, some "Japanese torpedo boats." What we're referring to is, of course,
the Dogger Bank incident, which put some serious strain on Anglo-Russian relations and absolutely
shamed Imperial Russia. In this video, we're going to dive right into that fustercluck.
Early in February 1904, tensions between Russia and Japan over influence in Manchuria and Korea
boiled over when Japanese naval forces attacked the Russian Pacific Fleet in Port Arthur,
Manchuria. While the battle was over by the 9th of February that same year, it marked the beginning
of the Russo-Japanese War, and fighting continued in the Yellow Sea for the rest of 1904 and beyond.
In October 1904, the Imperial Russian Navy decided that that theatre could use a little extra
attention, and called upon the Baltic Fleet, which was J-chilling in the Baltic Sea at the time.
Loading the fleet onto the back of a truck and hauling it across Eurasia wasn't really an option,
however, so the situation called for a bit of a round-the-continent play, with the fleet departing
the Baltic Sea through the North Sea and then proceeding, via the British-held Suez Canal,
around Eurasia into the Yellow Sea, after which it could wage war on the Japanese in the Sea
of Japan. It was a bold operation to which the Russians ironically assigned only their
very worst naval personnel. The outcome was a steaming hot mess, and that's putting it mildly.
In the lead up to the Baltic Fleet's departure, there was a lot of tension in the air.
Russian Naval intelligence suggested that the Japanese might have — *somehow* — pre-empted
their round-the-continent play and sent some of their own forces halfway round the world to
intercept them, and the man in charge of the fleet, Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky,
had also told his sailors to be on extra, extra high alert.
Serving only to tighten the already-taut string, the Russians were particularly afraid of torpedo
boats, which were a relatively new naval threat in the early 1900s, and had even come to believe that
Japanese torpedo boats posing as fishing boats were operating in the North Sea. If that wasn't
enough cause for concern, the Japanese and British were actually hella bros at this point in time,
having formalised their bromance with the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, so it was not
unreasonable to think that the Japanese could have worked with the British to set up some sort
of ambush. As it would turn out, however, most, if not all, of the Baltic Fleet's apprehension
was the consequence of poor intelligence and a collective nervousness which unfortunately
reached a crescendo when British civilians (not Japanese military personnel) were in the area.
It started on the night of the 21st October, when the Baltic Fleet approached the Dogger
Bank area of the North Sea, where a British trawling fleet known as the Gamecock fleet
just happened to be going about its business. Intending to identify themselves,
the fishing vessels turned on their lights and fired flares, but these signals were
misidentified by the Russians, who apparently thought the flares were some sort of weapon.
Even after bringing the fishing vessels to light with their powerful searchlights,
the Baltic Fleet *still* opened fire, certain they had Japanese torpedo boats in their sights.
Cannon fire struck the British trawler *Crane,* ending two lives and sinking the vessel,
though most the crewmen were able to escape. Realising that the Russians weren't buying the
truth, the rest of the Gamecock fleet tried to flee, but were slowed by their trawling nets,
which pretty much rendered them sitting ducks in the face of the Russian onslaught.
But this so-called "onslaught" was actually more of a fireworks display than a cannonade.
The Baltic Fleet fired *thousands* of projectiles at the Gamecock fleet,
with the battleship *Oryol* firing over *500* shells on its own — and for all that fuss,
they only managed to *damage* an additional two trawlers and injured a few more sailors;
the gunmen of Baltic Fleet were *that* bad. And as if that wasn't embarrassing enough,
in the pure chaos of it all, the Russians mistook some of their own warships for the enemy,
with friendly fire aimed at the Russian battleship *Aurora* leading to the deaths of a Russian sailor
and a Russian priest. When the Russians finally figured out that the Gamecock fleet was not,
indeed, a fleet of Japanese torpedo boats, rather than rush to their aid, they *gave it legs,*
leaving the trawlers to limp back to the British coast, which was some 96 kilometres
or 60 miles away. Before we go into what the Baltic Fleet got up to after that mess,
it's important to understand that the Dogger Bank incident was *not* an isolated event. In fact,
something *very* similar went down earlier that day. Having fallen behind the rest of the fleet,
the Russian supply ship *Kamchatka* bumped into a trio of — in quotation marks — "Japanese
warships" and summarily attacked them, firing over 300 shells at what turned out to be a
Swedish merchantman, a German trawler, and a French schooner, all without landing a hit.
While the Baltic Fleet was freaking the frak out, the British Empire prepared to go to war
with Russia, and even stalked the Russian fleet as it fled down the English Channel into the Bay of
Biscay. Trying to dig themselves out of the hole the Baltic Fleet had dug, the Russian Navy ordered
the fleet to dock in Vigo, Spain, where Admiral Rozhestvensky could catch his breath while the
Russian government figured out a more diplomatic solution than going to war with the Brits.
Before any such solution was finalised, though, the Baltic Fleet was allowed to leave Spain,
so long as Rozhestvensky left behind the officers he believed were responsible for the Dogger Bank
incident. The OG plan of going through the Suez Canal, however, had to be abandoned,
as some of the fleet's newer, larger warships would have bottomed out. While this put a spanner
in the works, the Russian Navy was still pretty keen on backdooring the Japanese in the Yellow Sea
and the Sea of Japan, so they simply changed things up a bit. Instead of sailing under Eurasia,
the larger warships took a little detour around the entire continent of Africa
After a 32,000-kilometre or 20,000-mile journey which lasted several months, the Baltic Fleet,
having regrouped, *finally* arrived in the Sea of Japan just in time for the Battle of Tsushima,
which took place on the 27th and 28th of May 1905.
The Russians probably wished they had just stayed in Spain or Madagascar or something,
because the fleet got its backside handed to it by the Japanese in this tragic engagement,
with over 5,000 Russian sailors losing their lives, as opposed to just 117 Japanese dead.
They had gone around the world just to embarrass themselves then get crushed.
Earlier that year, however, the Russians and British were able to iron out the Dogger Bank
incident, with Admiral Rozhestvensky essentially getting let off the hook
and a compensation of 66,000 pounds paid out to the British fishermen (as of 2014,
that would have been the equivalent to around 5 million pounds).
But we're interested to hear what you think. Had you heard of the Dogger Bank incident before
today? Do you think it's somewhat funny that the only reason so many British fishermen survived
is that the Russians couldn't aim? Lastly, would you be interested
to learn more about the Russo-Japanese War? Please share your thoughts in the comments.