Dogger Bank incident

It was known that enemy intelligence had been heavily active in the region.^[7] Torpedo boats, a recent development of the major navies, had the potential to damage and sink large warships and were very difficult to detect, which caused psychological stress to sailors at war.

While en route, Rozhestvensky received an intelligence report from the Russian transport Bakan in the Langeland Belt of "four torpedo-boats which only showed lights on the mizenmast-head so that at a distance, they might be taken for fishing boats". He took the report seriously, quickened his coaling and commenced sailing.^[8]

Similar accidents and rumours affected the Russian fleet. There was a general fear of attack, with widespread rumours that a fleet of Japanese torpedo boats were stationed off the Danish coast, talk of the Japanese having mined the seas and alleged sightings of Japanese submarines. Before the Dogger Bank incident, the nervous Russian fleet had fired on fishermen carrying consular dispatches from Russia to them near the Danish coast. No damage was caused because of the Russian fleet's poor gunnery.^[9]

After navigating a non-existent

Later that night, during fog, the officers on duty sighted the British trawlers, interpreted their signals incorrectly and classified them as Japanese torpedo boats although they were more than 20,000 miles (30,000 km) from Japan. The Russian warships illuminated the trawlers with their searchlights and opened fire. As the trawlers had their nets down, they were unable to flee. The British trawler Crane was sunk, and its captain and boatswain were killed. Four other trawlers were damaged, and six other fishermen were wounded, one of whom died a few months later.

In the general chaos, Russian ships began to shoot at each other. The cruisers Aurora and Dmitrii Donskoi were taken for Japanese warships and bombarded by seven battleships sailing in formation, damaging both ships and killing a chaplain and at least one sailor and severely wounding another. During the pandemonium, several Russian ships signalled torpedoes had hit them, and on board the battleship Borodino, rumours spread that the ship was being boarded by the Japanese, with some crews donning life vests and lying prone on the deck and others drawing cutlasses. More serious losses to both sides were avoided only because of the extremely low quality of Russian gunnery, with the battleship Oryol reportedly firing more than 500 shells without hitting anything.^[9]

After twenty minutes of gunfire, the fishermen finally saw a

It is almost inconceivable that any men calling themselves seamen, however frightened they might be, could spend twenty minutes bombarding a fleet of fishing boats without discovering the nature of their target.[5]

The

Concerns that the draught of the newer battleships, which had proven to be considerably greater than designed,^[11] would prevent their passage through the Suez Canal caused the fleet to separate after leaving Tangiers on 3 November 1904. The newer battleships and a few cruisers proceeded around the Cape of Good Hope under Rozhestvensky while the older battleships and lighter cruisers passed through the Suez Canal under the command of Admiral Dmitry Gustavovich von Fölkersahm. Both sections of the fleet then rendezvoused at Madagascar as planned.^[11] The fleet then proceeded to the Sea of Japan, where it was soundly defeated in the Battle of Tsushima.^[12][13]

On 25 November 1904, the British and the Russian governments signed a joint agreement in which they agreed to submit the issue to an international commission of inquiry whose proceedings were to be based on the Hague Convention.^[14] The International Commission met in Paris from 9 January to 25 February 1905.^[15] The report produced by the International Commission concluded that "the commissioners declare that their findings, which are therein formulated, are not, in their opinion, of a nature to cast any discredit upon the military qualities or the humanity of Admiral Rojdestvensky, or of the personnel of his squadron". It also concluded that "the commissioners take pleasure in recognising, unanimously, that Admiral Rozhestvensky personally did everything he could, from beginning to end of the incident, to prevent trawlers, recognised as such, from being fired upon by the squadron".^[16]

Russia voluntarily paid compensation of £66,000 to the fishermen.^[17] In 1906 the Fisherman's Memorial was unveiled in Hull to commemorate the deaths of the three British sailors. The memorial, approximately 18 feet high, shows the dead fisherman George Henry Smith and carries the following inscription:

Erected by public subscription to the memory of George Henry Smith, (skipper) and William Richard Leggett, (third hand) of the ill-fated trawler "Crane", who lost their lives in the North Sea by the action of the Russian Baltic Fleet October 22nd 1904, and Walter Whelpton, (skipper) of the trawler "Mino", who died from shock May 13, 1905.

References