The squadron was undertrained, overworked, underprepared, and already convinced that Japanese torpedo boats might reach European waters with British help. Japan lacked the logistics to deploy an attacking force to the North Sea. British support on that scale would itself have brought the Channel and Atlantic fleets into the war, so a covert Japanese attack made little strategic sense. A Russian transport nevertheless reported supposed torpedo boats that might have been fishing boats, and a false report placed an unmarked minefield across busy British, French, Dutch, and Belgian shipping routes. Poor readiness and repeated false reports turned ordinary merchant traffic into evidence for a threat the fleet already expected.
Chapter · 3:13-7:04
Fear and false reports aboard the Baltic Fleet
An undertrained fleet bound for Port Arthur interprets merchant traffic and imagined minefields as evidence of a Japanese threat in the North Sea.