Tsushima begins with the decision to send the fleet

The Second Pacific Squadron's voyage to East Asia was an extraordinary feat of logistics and organization. Sending it remained the central blunder. National honor committed an exhausted fleet, senior officers, and scarce trained personnel to a battle far from support after Port Arthur had already fallen. Turning back would have been expensive and humiliating, yet diverting the force to European waters would have preserved ships and trained crews. The campaign shows that proving a deployment is possible does not make the deployment strategically sensible.