A long and intensely interesting account of the battle of
Tsushima, compiled from Japanese sources by their Tokio correspondent, is published in the Times of Tuesday. The process of reasoning which decided Admiral Togo to await the enemy's fleet in the Straits of Tsushima is very clearly and convincingly shown, and once its approach was signalled, he was able, by an elaborate method in which the sea was parcelled out into hundreds of sections, to locate its position to a nicety. But the Japanese are far from depreciating the achievements of Admiral Rozhdestvensky, and only charge him with two crucial errors,—the premature dismissal of his auxiliary ships, and the mixing of his units so that the speed of the whole had to be reduced to the speed of the slowest. The Russians had the advantage in heavy guns, and displayed splendid courage and tenacity; even the surrender of Admiral Nebogatoff is regarded by the Japanese experts as inevitable. But the victory was due to good tactics, good shooting, superior speed, and, above all, the astonishing persistence with which an elaborate plan of battle was carried out exactly as prearranged. It is expressly and positively stated that neither submarines nor floating mines were used by the Japanese. For the rest, the result of the battle has been to establish the paramount value of battleships and armoured cruisers, to rehabilitate the torpedo, and to illustrate the inaccuracy of light guns in rough seas on second-class cruisers.
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