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Rh better protected than the Japanese armoured cruisers. All, too, appear to have had a fore and aft bulkhead down the centre line.

The career of the Baltic Fleet was, perhaps, the most interesting feature of the campaign. Its modern ships were hastily completed; its old ships obsolete units more detrimental than assisting. Its officers were mostly either cadets hastily promoted or military officers pressed into the sea service. Its men were chiefly raw, and in some ships mutinous as well. Sea experience was lacking to all the personnel, and the coal problem was acute.

Yet by the time the fleet reached Singapore it kept station well enough to excite remark, and in several other matters it was found to be at least superior to what had been anticipated. The credit of this belongs entirely to Admiral Kogestvensky whose abilities, owing to the defeat of Tsushima have not perhaps been properly recognised. The task he faced was undoubtedly a great one. When all things are considered impartially the wonder is rather that his men shot as well as they did than that they shot so badly, that his ships offered so much resistance as they did rather than that they were so easily defeated.

So far as, so soon after the event, the truth can be got at, it appears that Kogestvensky's scouts sighted what they took to be the main Japanese fleet off Formosa. Either the Japanese had—as Kussians assert—a dummy fleet lying there, or else Kogestvensky's