Battle of Tsushima (1905): Port Arthur falls

A world cruise, a strait, and a protectorate Tsushima was a gunnery action that ended a European fleet and opened a Japanese imperial decade on the Korean peninsula. Libau to Madagascar to Cam Ranh: a fleet that arrived exhausted, fouled, and politically already damaged by shooting at British trawlers (Dogger Bank). Coaling was a global logistic epic.

Rozhestvensky's choice of the Tsushima route (versus a longer Pacific loop) made the meeting likely. Togo's "U-turn" and the T, then a night of destroyers. Suvorov, Oslyabya, Borodino, Alexander III -- the named wrecks of the English diagrams. Nebogatov surrendered remnants on the 28th. The Baltic Fleet ceased to be a tool.

Roosevelt's mediation, Witte's diplomacy, and a treaty that gave Japan a free hand in Korea and a position in Manchuria -- without a huge indemnity, which sparked riots in Japan. The war was over; Korea's independence was not saved. Memory in three countries stays dated: 1905-05-14 (Baltic Fleet enters the theatre) in Tsushima Strait, between Korea and Japan. Theodore Roosevelt (Mediator) is a named witness -- Portsmouth won him a Nobel and wrote Japan into Korea -- a US diplomatic hinge. Cost band: Russian dead and drowned in the thousands; Japanese dead in the hundreds -- a lopsided fleet action. Encyclopedia, not a method.