5 Naval Battles That Defined Russian History

For much of its history, Russia, and its predecessor Muscovy, have been a land power. It was only at the turn of the 18th century that Russia acquired an ocean fleet. This article provides an overview of five of the most important battles fought by the Russian navy over the last 300 years, beginning with a victory over the Swedish fleet during the reign of Peter the Great and ending with a calamitous defeat to Japan on the eve of the First World War.

As a young man, Tsar Peter the Great of Russia was fascinated by maritime affairs, even though Russia’s only port was in the Arctic Sea. When Peter assumed effective power in 1689, Russia was at war with the Ottoman Empire. In 1696, Peter captured the fortress of Azov on the Black Sea. In October of that year, he founded the Russian Navy at nearby Taganrog to support further military action against the Ottomans.

The navy was part of a wider project to modernize the Russian state, and members of the Russian nobility were sent to study abroad in Western European countries. In 1697-98, Peter himself visited Western Europe in his Grand Embassy. Although Peter did not achieve his main objective of finding allies against the Ottomans, he took many foreign artisans, specialists, and mercenaries back to Russia.

In 1700, Russia joined Denmark and Saxony-Poland in attacking Sweden in an effort to take advantage of the new teenage king, Charles XII. Peter and his allies were astonished when Charles proved to be a brilliant military commander, defeating Danish and Polish armies in quick succession before routing Peter’s Russians at Narva on November 30, 1700.

However, the Swedish forces then turned to Poland and eventually dethroned King Augustus II, giving Peter valuable time to reorganize his army. In 1703, he captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans and founded what is now St. Petersburg. By the time Charles turned his attention to Russia, Peter was ready to meet the challenge and defeated him at the decisive Battle of Poltava in 1709.

By the spring of 1713, Tsar Peter had begun an offensive in Finland and quickly gained control of southern Finland, but a Swedish blockade in the Baltic Sea threatened to cut off supplies.

Determined to break through the blockade and occupy the Hanko Peninsula (Gangut in Russian), the Tsar sent a fleet under Admiral Fyodor Apraksin from Kronstadt in May 1714. By the end of June, the fleet of 80 galleys arrived near the Hanko Peninsula and was met by the Swedish fleet under the command of Admiral Gustaf Wattrang, which had 16 ships of the line and seven smaller ships.

Admiral Apraksin asked for reinforcements and requested that the Tsar personally assume command of the battle. Peter I arrived from Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia) to the fleet on July 20. In the following weeks, the Russians made a breakthrough after several attempts to run the blockade against the naval detachment led by Rear Admiral Nils Ehrenskiöld. On August 7, Ehrenskiöld refused to surrender, and the Russians made three attacks on his detachment. Though lightly armed, the Russian galleys were more agile, and all Swedish ships were either captured or sunk, and Ehrenskiöld was wounded and captured.

Tsar Peter took great pride in the victory at the Battle of Gangut. At Poltava, the Russians had defeated the Swedes on land, and Gangut demonstrated that the Russians could also win at sea. The victory continues to be celebrated in Russia as the Day of the Russian Navy on the last Sunday of July.

The Ottoman Empire was one of Russia’s main rivals during the 18th century, and the two fought a series of wars during this period. Following the Russian successes in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca was signed between the two parties, which made the Khanate of Crimea a Russian protectorate. The Crimean peninsula was subsequently annexed by Russia in 1783, and the naval base of Sevastopol was founded that year.

The Ottoman Empire considered the annexation of Crimea a violation of the terms of the Treaty of

Küçük Kaynarca and prepared a campaign to regain the lost territories. Britain and France offered diplomatic support as they became increasingly alarmed by Russian expansion, and hostilities resumed in August 1787.

Although the Ottoman navy enjoyed a numerical advantage, the Ottoman fleet was defeated by Rear-Admiral Marko Voinovich’s Sevastopol Squadron at the Battle of Fidonisi in July 1788. Empress Catherine the Great believed that Voinovich was not being aggressive enough, and in March 1790, appointed Fyodor Ushakov as commander of the Black Sea Fleet.

A dynamic and aggressive naval tactician, Ushakov was Voinovich’s second-in-command at Fidonsi. His intervention at the decisive moment prevented the enemy from splitting the Russian fleet. In July, Ushakov won the Battle of the Kerch Strait to prevent the Ottomans from landing in Crimea.

The Ottoman fleet under Hussein Pasha and Admiral Seyid Bey restored their damaged ships. It anchored between Khadjibey (now Odesa, Ukraine) and Cape Tendra, blocking Russian communications with Sevastopol and preventing the Sevastopol flotilla from joining the Liman flotilla, intended to support Field Marshal Grigory Potemkin’s army in the Lower Danube.

On September 5, Ushakov took the Sevastopol squadron, with ten ships of the line, six frigates, and small craft, to sea from Sevastopol to Kherson in three columns. On September 8, the Ottoman fleet of 14 battleships, eight frigates, and 23 other ships was still anchored between Odesa and Cape Tendra.

The Ottoman fleet was taken by surprise and hurried towards the mouth of the Danube. With Ushakov at his tail, Hussein Pasha turned to face the Russian fleet. Ushakov closed the distance and targeted the Ottoman vanguard.

The Battle of Tendra began at around 3 p.m., and Ushakov’s flagship Rozhdestvo Christovo was engaged in battle with three ships at once. By 6 p.m., the Ottomans began to retreat, allowing the Russians to inflict heavy damage for another two hours.

The following morning, two Ottoman ships, including the 74-gun Kapitana, Seyid Bey’s flagship, were still lagging behind. The Kapitana continued to fight despite being surrounded by Russian ships and engulfed in flames, and it exploded shortly after its surrender. At 4:30 p.m., Ushakov recalled the other Russian ships that were pursuing the enemy.

Ushakov’s victory at the Battle of Tendra allowed the Liman flotilla to support the Russian land forces in the Danube region. This enabled General Alexander Suvorov to capture the Ottoman stronghold at Izmail on December 22, which compelled the Ottomans to formally concede Crimea at the 1792 Treaty of Jassy.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there were several Greek revolts and uprisings against Ottoman rule. Russia was sympathetic towards their fellow Orthodox believers in Greece, and the prospect of conquering Constantinople was always in the minds of Russian rulers.

By the beginning of the 19th century, there was a significant Greek diaspora in southern Ukraine, recently conquered by Russia. The Russians also briefly ruled over Corfu and the Ionian islands, and the Greek politician Ioannis Kapodistrias was appointed joint foreign minister by Tsar Alexander I of Russia in 1816.

Alexander was concerned that hostilities in Greece would disrupt the balance of power in Europe, but his Greek adjutant Alexander Ypsilantis led an insurrection against Ottoman rule in February 1821. Although Ypsilantis was defeated, further revolts broke out, and the rebels gained control of the Peloponnese, declaring independence in January 1822.

Kapodistrias urged Alexander to support the Greek revolutionaries, but the Tsar refused. The former resigned as foreign minister in 1822, and in 1827, he was elected president by the Greek National Assembly.

Although the Ottomans regained control of the Peloponnese and Athens in 1826-27, they were becoming diplomatically isolated. The British government was sympathetic towards Greek independence, and in the Protocol of St. Petersburg of 1826 concluded between the Duke of Wellington and the new Tsar Nicholas I, the two powers agreed to mediate between the Greeks and the Ottomans in favor of a Greek autonomous state under Ottoman sovereignty. The Greeks formally accepted Anglo-Russian mediation, while the Ottoman Empire refused.

Meanwhile, King Charles X of France reversed his pro-Ottoman stance in response to pro-Greek sentiment. On July 6, 1827, the Treaty of London was signed between Britain, France, and Russia to support Greek autonomy while limiting Russian expansionism in the Eastern Mediterranean.

When the Ottoman Empire rejected the treaty, a British fleet led by Admiral Sir Edward Codrington sailed to the Ionian Sea to put diplomatic pressure on the Ottomans. Codrington was a staunch supporter of the Greek cause and lacked the tact for such a mission.

An Egyptian-Ottoman fleet left Alexandria on August 5 and joined other Ottoman units on September 8 at Navarino on the western Peloponnese. Codrington’s squadron arrived on September 12. Further negotiations were unsuccessful; the Ottoman leader Ibrahim Pasha saw that Codrington still allowed the Greeks to continue fighting while expecting the Ottomans to observe the ceasefire.

By October 13, Codrington’s fleet was joined by the French fleet under Henri de Rigny and the Russian fleet under Lodewijk van Heiden. At 2 p.m. on October 20, the combined Allied fleet entered Navarino Bay in order to force the Ottomans to accept an armistice. The Allies were heavily outnumbered, with 22 ships against 78 ships on the Ottoman side, but were better equipped.

When Ibrahim Pasha ordered the Allies to leave the bay, Codrington refused. Amid the tense situation, a shot was fired from an Ottoman ship—possibly by mistake—and a chaotic battle ensued for the next four hours. The Allies lost no ships, though several were heavily damaged, while only eight Ottoman ships remained seaworthy. In 1829, the Ottomans were forced to abandon Greece and recognized full independence in 1832.

As the Ottoman Empire continued to decline throughout the 19th century, Tsar Nicholas I sought to take advantage of the “Sick Man of Europe.” During the 1850s, a conflict began as a result of disagreements about the protection of Christians in the Ottoman Empire. While France, under Napoleon III, considered itself a protector of Catholic Christians, Russia was on the side of Orthodox Christians. Between them, there had been an argument over the possession of holy sites in Palestine for several years, and Sultan Abdulmejid I was in favor of the French.

Moreover, Russia demanded that the Ottoman Empire recognize Nicholas I as the protector of Orthodox Christians in Ottoman territories. When the sultan refused, Russian troops marched into the Danubian provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia in July 1853, where Russia had been recognized as the guardian of the Orthodox Church. On October 4, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia after negotiations failed.

Despite the hostilities in the Danube region and the Caucasus, the naval action did not begin until well into November. Due to poor weather, a squadron of 12 Turkish ships en route to support the Ottoman Army in Georgia, commanded by Osman Pasha, a veteran of the Battle of Navarino, was anchored in Sinope Bay, on the southern coast of the Black Sea in northern Turkey. Meanwhile, Admiral Pavel Nakhimov, also a veteran of Navarino, led his Black Sea fleet to meet the Ottoman fleet.

On November 30, Nakhimov’s squadron of 11 ships entered Sinope Bay and demanded surrender from Osman Pasha’s Ottoman squadron. The Ottomans refused as they were confident in their preparations for battle, and the Russians duly opened fire. While the Ottoman fleet was faring well at the beginning of the Battle of Sinope, the 700 Russian naval guns were equipped with a new type of explosive shells, which proved superior and devastating against the wooden hulls of the Ottoman ships.

Nakhimov kept firing even after the Ottoman ships were set on fire in order to destroy the coastal fortifications, killing 3,000 civilians in the port of Sinope. Out of the entire Ottoman squadron, only the steamer Taif escaped the battle to deliver news of Nakhimov’s victory to Istanbul on December 2. Meanwhile, Osman Pasha was wounded in the foot and was captured by the Russians, remaining a prisoner of war until 1855.

The crushing Russian victory at Sinope led to fears that the Russians would overrun the Balkans, prompting Franco-British intervention. On January 3, 1854, French and British ships entered the Black Sea. When Russia refused to withdraw from the Danube region, France and Great Britain declared war, marking the beginning of the Crimean War. Nakhimov led the valiant defense of Sevastopol but was killed in July 1855, and the port fell in September. The Russians sued for peace, and the war ended in March 1856, stalling Russian ambitions in the Balkans for two decades.

As Russia’s expansion in Europe was thwarted by its rivals, the empire turned towards the east during the second half of the 19th century. By the 1890s, the Russian Empire extended to Central Asia as far as Afghanistan and to Kamchatka in the Far East. In 1891, Russia began the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, linking Moscow and St. Petersburg to the port of Vladivostok on the Pacific coast.

As the sea around Vladivostok was frozen for half the year, Russia looked for a warm water port in the Pacific to further its eastern ambitions. The Russians set their sights on Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou District in Dalian City) in Liaoning province in China, built in the 1880s for the Chinese Beiyang Fleet, which was conquered by Japan during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). The European powers were alarmed by Japan’s success, and Russia, Germany, and France staged the Triple Intervention to force Japan to give up Port Arthur.

In 1897, Russia occupied Port Arthur and established its Pacific Fleet there, building a branch line from the Trans-Siberian Railway to the port, later known as the South Manchuria Railway. The Japanese saw the intervention as humiliating and continued to strengthen its heavy industry and military.

During the Boxer Rebellion (1900–01), Russia was part of the Eight-Nation Alliance, which intervened to defeat the uprising. Russian troops continued to occupy Manchuria in the aftermath. The Japanese proposed talks, which continued from 1902 to 1904 with no result.

On February 8-9, 1904, Japanese ships launched a surprise night attack on the Russian ships at Port Arthur, and the formal declaration of war only arrived in the Russian capital on February 10. Although several Russian ships were damaged, Russian shore batteries prevented the Japanese from capturing the port.

Over the following months, Russian armies suffered several major defeats on land, and by August, the Japanese blockaded Port Arthur. In an attempt to relieve the beleaguered Pacific Fleet, the Russian Baltic Fleet under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky was redesignated the 2nd Pacific Squadron and set sail from Reval on October 15, 1904, while a 3rd Pacific Squadron consisting of smaller and older ships was led by Rear Admiral Nikolai Nebogatov.

On October 21, 1904, the Russian fleet was involved in the Dogger Bank Incident, in which Russian ships fired on British fishing boats in the North Sea after mistaking them for Japanese torpedo boats. The incident caused an outcry in Britain, already an ally of Japan, but the British government remained neutral.

The Russian ships faced an immense logistical challenge as neutral countries were reluctant to allow them to take on supplies in port. The 2nd Squadron divided into two groups—the smaller cruisers went through the Suez Canal while the larger battleships sailed around the Cape of Africa and rejoined the cruisers in Madagascar, where Rozhestvensky learned that Port Arthur had fallen in January 1905. The 3rd Squadron also sailed via Suez and combined with the 2nd Squadron at Camranh Bay in Vietnam.

After receiving new orders to head for Vladivostok, Rozhestvensky aimed to sail through the Straits of Tsushima between Korea and Japan. Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō had already anticipated the Russian movement towards Vladivostok and awaited Rozhestvensky near the port of Busan in the southeast of Korea.

The Russian fleet arrived on the late night of May 26, intending to use darkness as a cover, but were spotted by the Japanese in the early morning of May 27. The Russian ships, laden with coal, struggled to maneuver and fell prey to Japanese attacks. The Russian fleet was decimated at the Battle of Tsushima, with 21 ships sunk, six ships captured, and only three small ships making it to Vladivostok. Admiral Rozhestvensky and surviving members of the fleet command were taken prisoner.

Russia’s defeats during the Russo-Japanese War, culminating in the Battle of Tsushima, undermined Tsar Nicholas II’s government, which only survived the Revolution of 1905 by offering major political concessions in the October Manifesto. Russia returned Port Arthur and adjacent territories to Japan under the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth brokered by US President Theodore Roosevelt in September.

Ironically, the demonstration of Russian weakness during the Russo-Japanese War ended its diplomatic isolation. In 1907, Great Britain and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian Entente to settle colonial disputes in Central Asia. Combined with the Franco-Russian alliance of 1894 and the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale of 1904, the agreement created the Triple Entente, one of the major factors leading to the First World War.