RN cruiser sunk at Dogger Bank, Oct 1904

[Admiral Beez]

To the British populace there is only one reason for the existence of the Royal Navy, and that is to protect British territory, its citizens and trade. With that in mind, I'd argue that had a RN warship been sunk along with the fishing boats by the Russians in 1904, the British people and its politicians would be calling for blood, and it would have been acted upon.

All it would have taken is for there to be one British protected or small cruiser bearing direct witness to the Russian attack on the fishing fleet. There is no way that any British commander is going sit back and W/T back to the Admiralty for instructions when British merchant seaman are being murdered in plain sight. I would expect the W/T message from our sole light RN vessel to the Admiralty to be as follows....

"HMS Retribution, Dogger Bank...unknown warships, estimated over one dozen cruisers and several battleships and light vessels, suspect Russian, attacking British fishing trawlers, two Brits sunk, enemy fire continuing...moving to engage, God Bless the King...."

By the time the Admiralty is roused out of bed, and reads the initial W/T, HMS Retribution (Apollo class, HMS Retribution) will have been destroyed by Russian gunfire, with her surviving wireless operator sending a second and final W/T advising that they were disabled, on fire and sinking, marking their position. Almost 300 RN sailors are dead, though some survivors will be picked up by the British trawlers.

By morning, the W/T transmissions are leaked to the newspapers, and the British Public is enraged, the Royal Navy has been attacked. A hugely powerful RN fleet meets Rozhdestvensky in the morning off Gibraltar, and demands his immediate surrender and interment in a British port. Hoping to receive assistance from the French Navy nearby, Rozhdestvensky refuses, and his fleet is destroyed by the RN.

We have to remember how close Britain came to war over this. Am I wrong to suggest a chance encounter with a RN cruiser as I propose above would have tipped the balance?

 

[Acheron]

A quite plausible outcome. I wonder what the longer term consequences would have been though, particularly ten years later in 1914.

 

[Dana Bell]

Not only malarky, but old malarky...

Cheers,



Dana

 

[vikingBerserker]

Weren't the Russians reoccupied with the war with Japan? I'm not sure they'd have the bandwidth to engage the UK at the same time.

 

[tlott01]

The Japanese were already thumping the Russians by land and sea; if the RN had delayed or defeated Rozhdestvensky they may well have lost even more territory. The Soviets got their pound of flesh at the beginning and end of WW2, Khalkhin Gol and taking the Kurile Islands.

 

[GreenKnight121]

Weren't the Russians reoccupied with the war with Japan? I'm not sure they'd have the bandwidth to engage the UK at the same time.

The event with the Russian fleet firing on the British fish trawlers is historic fact.

The Russians were at the start of their long voyage to the far east to attack the Japanese after the Japanese destruction of the Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur - a voyage which would end with the Russian relief fleet being shattered at Tsushima.

Why they thought random fishing vessels north of the English Channel were Japanese torpedo boats (the official explanation offered by the Russians) is, to many, incomprehensible! Since they apparently did, and even fired on their own ships in the confusion, a British cruiser entering the fray to defend the trawlers would sutrely have been fired on, and destroyed by, more than one Russian warship before anyone even tried to identify it!


The Dogger Bank Incident | Britishseafishing.co.uk

Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre | Dogger Bank incident, Gamecock 1904 - The Russian fleet attacks Hull trawlers

Do note that the RN was indeed placed on alert ready to engage the Russians if necessary... if the fiction of the presence of a RN cruiser and it being sunk is added, I can easily see the RN being ordered to stop and arrest the Russians - or sink them if they resisted.

Dogger Bank incident - Wikipedia

 

[michaelmaltby]

Frankly, I doubt the Russian fleet had the fire control to sink HMS Resolution at night. The seamanship of the Russian Fleet was not to high standards altho their equipment was to a good standard. It was a case of the same thing we see today, Russia can build ships and deploy them but the country has no legacy of blue water, naval service. As I oft repeat, when Peter the Great came to the throne, Russia had no access to saltwater except Archangel on the White Sea, IIRC. Peter wanted a navy because he truly loved ships and saw them as a way of projecting Russian power and influence. But because Russia didn't need a navy, unlike Britain or Japan (and the USA) that were first and foremost trading states, a well-trained navy that could operate in blue water was always a discretionary defense matter; until war-ship race concurrent with the rise of Germany. Then, warships became status symbols among the boy cousins.
China will discover the same is true when she moves to police the belt and road routes. That is a royal Navy assignment that the Chinese will need to master,

 

[vikingBerserker]

I understand the historical of what actually happened, but with the Czar being pretty close to the King of England and already engaged in a war with Japan, I just do not see him wanting to engage in a war with Britain.

 

[Acheron]

I understand the historical of what actually happened, but with the Czar being pretty close to the King of England and already engaged in a war with Japan, I just do not see him wanting to engage in a war with Britain.

Of course the Czar didn't want to go to war with Britain. But his hysterical underlings almost brought him exactly that, had they screwed up even worse, it might well have happened.

Remember this was an age where one Great Power (France) declared war upon another (Prussia) over their ambassador being (reportedly - wrongly) treated with arrogance.

 

[The Basket]

The Royal Navy would act in the best interest of UK.

So if Russia did sink a warship...although the Russians couldn't hit a barn door at 20 paces....it may not be in the best interest of the UK.

Japan and UK were allies in 1904 so maybe a few Russian ships sunk would be a nice gift to the Emperor.

 

[Admiral Beez]

The Royal Navy would act in the best interest of UK.

So if Russia did sink a warship...although the Russians couldn't hit a barn door at 20 paces....it may not be in the best interest of the UK.

In my proposal above things are happening faster than the sleeping politicians can react to. A Royal Navy cruiser has just sent a wireless message to every RN warships in radio range that British shipping is under fire and that they need help, followed by a second wireless message that the cruiser is sinking.

It's close to midnight on Oct 21, 1904 when the first message from HMS Retribution goes out, and about 1am when the final message is sent. The PM, First Sea Lord and Foreign Minister are all asleep. Meanwhile every wireless office on every RN warship within range has received both calls for help, by midnight every captain has been waken, stokers bristling as they bring their boilers to full steam and men called to general quarters. By the time the second message from Retribution is received there will be at least a dozen RN ships racing to the scene. It's at least another hour or so before some aide wakes up the PM.

Here's the area where the incident took place. Can you imagine how many RN warships are at sea in this area? Plenty is my guess.

IMO, the wheels of government will move too slowly to prevent the first arriving RN warships from shooting. It might not be in the best interest of the UK, but the men on HM warships and the British fishing fleet don't GAF.

 

[The Basket]

Remember at Jutland, the RN were paralyzed by their own command structure and lack of free thought or initiative.

So a RN captain taking the law into his one hands....that's a no from me.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Remember at Jutland, the RN were paralyzed by their own command structure and lack of free thought or initiative.

So a RN captain taking the law into his one hands....that's a no from me.

By coincidence the Dogger Bank incident occurred the day after Admiral Fisher becomes First Sea Lord on October 20, 1904. It was Fisher's revolutionary changes to RN command and organization from 1905 onwards that led to much of the paralyzation of initiative. First of all, in reaction to growing German naval strength Fisher recalled the RN's battleships and cruisers from across the empire to home waters, eliminating the need for local and isolated command initiative. Next, ships were moved into large squadrons, whose admirals were under direct command by wireless communications from the First Sea Lord in Whitehall. We see the folly of this at Coronel in 1914, where interference and micromanaging from a distant FSL and Admiralty led to Craddock's destruction.

But this is October 1904, the paralyzation of initiative has not set in.

 

[Peter Gunn]

Interesting "What if".

A couple of observations, the RN would have intercepted the IRN loooong before it got anywhere near Gibraltar, Russian fleet speed being what it was. Historically, units of the RN did "escort" the Russian fleet all the way down the Bay of Biscay if I'm not mistaken, ostensibly to make sure they got out of home waters safely. In reality I'd wager it was to blow them out of the water if things escalated diplomatically.

It might have been better if Rozhestvensky's fleet HAD been sunk in the North Sea, perhaps more survivors rescued and the stupid war ended sooner, but that's just my uneducated two cents worth.

What effect that has on the events of August 1914 no one can say with any certainty, but politics (and war) make strange bedfellows.

 

[Admiral Beez]

With good crews some of the Russia warships of 1900 - 1905 were competitive, especially the ships made elsewhere, like the US-built battleship Retvizan (made by the same US yard that made USN BB-1, 2 and 4), the US, French and German built cruisers (Varag, Bayan, Askold, Bogatyr) and their Russian-built copies, the French-built battleship Tsesarevich and the Russian-built Peresvet-class and Petropavlovsk-class battleships, were as good as what Japan had.

It goes to show that whenever we compare military kit, we need to consider the operators as well.

 

[Acheron]

Regarding the Russian fleet, anyone else heard/read about the supply ship Kamchatka being particularly imbecilic?

 

[GreenKnight121]

Regarding the Russian fleet, anyone else heard/read about the supply ship Kamchatka being particularly imbecilic?

Yes, her over-reactions and flat-out hallucinations of both "Japanese warships disguised as trawlers" and of being attacked when no shots or torpedoes were ever fired, were a part of why the main Russian fleet opened fire on the trawlers.

 

[Acheron]

Yes, her over-reactions and flat-out hallucinations of both "Japanese warships disguised as trawlers" and of being attacked when no shots or torpedoes were ever fired, were a part of why the main Russian fleet opened fire on the trawlers.

Sorry for necroing this old thread, but this just came up in another forum I patronize: