Experienced Russian officers and sailors could understand the odds awaiting them, making morale as serious a problem as machinery. Rozhestvensky's force of personality held the expedition together across the full voyage. Togo was the superior fighting admiral, while Rozhestvensky's organizational and leadership achievement met a different test of command. Port Arthur had fallen while some detachments were still departing, yet the government did not recall them. The surviving plan required a run toward Vladivostok past Japanese bases, so either route around Japan merely changed where Togo would intercept the fleet.
Notable Point · 1:51:03-1:54:33
Rozhestvensky's leadership carried a foredoomed expedition
Getting an exhausted and ill-matched fleet to East Asia was itself a command achievement, even though Port Arthur's fall left no favorable strategic destination.