The Armored Cruiser Askold after the battle at Port Arthur

The Russian fleet at the dawn of the 20th century was the fourth largest navy in the world.  It was led by Grand Duke Alexis and numbered 60,000 men of all ranks.  His fleets operated in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans from four major bases - Sevastopol, Libau, Kronstadt, and Vladivostok.  Unfortunately this fleet was largely a paper tiger.  Like many navies it suffered from severe neglect during times of peace.  Many of its ships were old and under-gunned; while its sailors were poorly led and badly trained.

Its officer corps also suffered as it had been undermined by having too many politically appointed officers and by the fact that it had never been tested in battle. In fact, many of the better educated officers had retired or resigned since they believed that the condition of the officer corps would not improve.

Facing these challenges it was no surprise that the Imperial Navy fared poorly during the Russo-Japanese war.  The Pacific squadron at Port Arthur was surprised and rendered ineffective for the rest of the war by the Japanese attack.  The Vladivostok cruiser squadron was also destroyed in the Korean straits.  The losses were actually less than the Japanese had expected, but the effect on Russian morale was devastating.

These actions prompted the navy to send the second squadron of Baltic fleet under Rear Admiral Rozhestvensky to deal with the Japanese fleet.  His mission would meet with little success.  The first difficulty the Baltic fleet encountered occurred at Dogger Bank when the fleet fired upon a British fishing flotilla believing it to be a Japanese squadron.  Four fishing trawlers were sunk and the battleship Aurora was damaged by friendly fire from the battleship Orel.

The fleet faced many difficulties getting to Korea, as they had to travel around the Cape of Good Hope to reach Korea.  This was because the British had denied them the use of the Suez Canal after the incident at Dogger Bank.

When the Baltic squadron finally reached the China Sea it moved at top speed to reach Vladivostok.  The Russian ships were soon spotted by Japanese intelligence gathering vessels who monitored their progress.  The Russian squadron did nothing to stop these ships and continued towards their destination.  It would prove to be a fatal miscalculation.  The Japanese under Admiral Togo attacked the Baltic squadron in the Tsushima strait it resulted in a staggering defeat for the Russians.  News of the loss of the squadron caused Russian morale to sink and led Nicholas II to seek a peace agreement with Japan.

Morale fell even further following the defeats of the Russo-Japanese war.  The strained relations between the privileged officers and poorly treated men soon came to a head in June of 1905 - the Potemkin mutiny.  It occurred when the ship took on rotten meat with the intent of serving it to the crewmembers.  Not surprisingly the crew protested.  The Potemkin's captain ordered the leaders of the protest to be shot, but the firing squad refused to carry out the orders.  Soon the captain and many officers were thrown overboard.  The mutineers sailed into Odessa harbor, but were not allowed to land.  They then fled to Romania where they surrendered to the local officials.  This incident highlighted the problems of the Russian navy, problems that would have to be addressed before the Great War.

Naval Aviation

Naval aviation during the turn of the century was limited to observation balloons that operated from bases on the coast of Baltic and Black Sea.  These had been in use since the early 1890's.  In 1904 the Imperial Russian Navy began trials to operate these balloons from on board ships.  They were to assist in mine laying, mine detection, and fire control operations.

The first Russian ship to launch a military balloon was the steamer Diomed.  When these trials proved successful other ships (mostly transports) began to use balloons.  During the Russo-Japanese war the cruiser Rossiya was equipped with an observation balloon which it used during a raiding cruise in the Sea of Japan.  It completed a dozen successful flights, but on its 13th flight its mooring line broke and it was damaged when it landed in the ocean.  These early efforts marked the first use of a balloon by a ship in a wartime high seas environment.

In 1910 the Russian Navy began to show interest in heavier-than-air aviation.  That March the fleet sent four officers to France to be trained as pilots and four petty officers to be trained as mechanics.  The following year the fleet ordered its first batch ten Voisin Canard seaplanes from France.

Despite this growing interest in aviation, the number of naval pilots would remain small.  By early 1914 the Baltic fleet had less than a dozen trained pilots flying from a base near Riga in the Baltic, and the Black Sea fleet had two groups of six pilots flying from Sevastopol and Kilen Bay.

The Imperial Naval Infantry

The Russian Naval Infantry had little independent role during this time.  Its troops may have been involved in the suppression of the Boxer rebellion and Russo-Japanese war, but we are not certain at this point as little has been written about them.