The cruiser "Izumrud," one of the few fast ships the Russians had with them, escaped the torpedo attacks in the night. In the morning she was chased by several of the enemy's cruisers. She kept up a good speed, and one by one they abandoned the chase, the "Chitose" being the last to give it up. By 2 p.m. all pursuit was left behind, and she reduced speed. In the battle and the chase she had burned so much coal that she had not enough left to make for Vladivostock, so she steered for Vladimir Bay, in the Russian Coast Province of Siberia, north of Korea. She was off the entrance of the Bay at midnight with only ten tons of coal left in her bunkers. Unfortunately, in trying to go in in the dark on the flood-tide she drove hard on a reef. Next day unsuccessful efforts were made to get his ship off and in the afternoon, as her captain expected the enemy's ships might arrive to secure the "Izumrud" and refloat her, he landed his crew on Russian ground, destroyed his guns one by one with blasting charges, and then blew up the ship.
The destroyer "Groki" was chased and captured by the Japanese destroyer "Shiranui" and a torpedo-boat, and after a sharp fight close to Tsu-shima Island surrendered at 11.30 a.m. She was so injured that she sank within an hour of her capture. Admiral Enquist, with the three protected cruisers "Oleg," "Aurora," and "Jemschug," had, after turning south for the last time during the night of torpedo attacks, got through the Tsu-shima Straits in the darkness. Next day no enemy was in sight, and he steered for Shanghai under easy steam, repairing damages on the way. He intended to lie off the port, bring a couple of colliers out of the Woosung River, fill his bunkers at sea, and try to reach Vladivostock by the Pacific and the La Pérouse Straits. On the morning of the 29th he was overtaken by the repairing ship and tug "Svir," and from her learned the full extent of the disaster. Fearing that if he approached Shanghai he would be driven into the port and blockaded by the enemy, he changed his course for Manila, where he arrived on 3 June. The "Svir," after communicating with him, had gone on to the Woosung River. She was joined on her way there by the transport "Anadir," which had got successfully south through the Tsu-shima Straits. The transport "Korea," which had escaped in the same way, and had a cargo of coal, did not go to Woosung, but crossed the Indian Ocean and appeared unexpectedly in the French port of Diego Suarez in Madagascar. Of the nine torpedo destroyers with the Russian fleet seven were hunted down and sunk or taken by the Japanese.
The only ships of all the Russian armada that finally reached Vladivostock were the two destroyers "Brawy" and "Gresny," and the small swift cruiser "Almaz." She had been with Enquist's cruiser division in the first hours of the night after the battle. During the torpedo attacks she had become separated from her consorts. Escaping from the destroyers, she headed at full speed first towards the coast of Japan, then northward. At sunrise on the 28th she was well on her way and many miles north-east of Togo's fleet. Next day she reached Vladivostock with 160 tons of coal still on board.
A hundred years after Trafalgar Togo had won a victory as complete and as decisive. The Russian power had been swept from the Eastern Seas, and the grey-haired admiral who had secured this triumph for his native land—"Father Togo," as the Japanese affectionately call him—had lived through the whole evolution of the Imperial Navy, had shared in its first successes, and for years had been training it for the great struggle that was to decide who was to be master in the seas of the Far East.
The war was followed by an immediate expansion of the Japanese Navy. Numbers of captured Russian ships were repaired, re-armed, and placed in the Navy List under Japanese names. No longer dependent on foreign builders, the Japanese yards were kept busy turning out yet a new navy of every class, from the battleship to the torpedo-boat. The laying down of the gigantic "Aki" and "Satsuma," battleships of over 20,000 tons, opened a new period in naval construction, and nations began to count their sea-power by the number of "Dreadnoughts" afloat or on the slips.
The great maritime powers are now engaged in a race of construction, and the next naval war will see forces in action far surpassing even the armadas that met at Tsu-shima. And maritime war, hitherto confined to the surface of the sea, will have strange auxiliaries in the submarine stealing beneath it, and the airship and aeroplane scouting in the upper air. But still, whatever new appliances, whatever means of mutual destruction science supplies, the lesson taught by the story of all naval war will remain true. Victory will depend not on elaborate mechanical structures and appliances, but on the men, and will be the reward of long training, iron discipline, calm, enduring courage, and the leadership that can inspire confidence, command self-sacrificing obedience, divine an enemy's plans, and decide swiftly and resolutely on the way in which they are to be frustrated.