The Tsar's Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima (edition 2003)
The Tsar's Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima by Constantine Pleshakov
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Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0465057926, Paperback)It took the Russians nine months to sail their navy 18,000 miles from the Baltic Sea around the horn of Africa and to the Sea of Japan in 1905, where their Japanese enemies wiped them out in just a few hours at the Battle of Tsushima. The Japanese triumph and Russian disaster, "largely forgotten in the West," according to Constantine Pleshakov, marked a vital turning point in world history. Not only did it inaugurate a new era of naval technology, but it also announced Japan's ascent as a global force (which would culminate during the Second World War) and Russia's collapse into "the dark tsardom of Bolshevism." Pleshakov ranks the battle alongside other classic naval engagements, such as Lepanto, Trafalgar, Jutland, and Midway. Yet the bulk of The Tsar's Last Armada focuses on the Russians' long journey to doom, led by the "frightfully imposing" and "savage" admiral Zinovy Petrovich Rozhestvensky. Pleshakov has a good eye for little details. As the fleet approached the tropics, he reports, the humidity became so bad that the crew's "towels and underwear would not dry." The Battle of Tsushima receives full coverage at the end of the book, but Pleshakov's engaging account of what preceded it is what readers will find most memorable. --John Miller