The Dumbest Russian Voyage Nobody Talks About - Blue Jay Reaction
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
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My favorite quote about the Second Pacific Squadron was a Russian officer's initial assessment of their combat readiness and said "half these men know nothing, and the other half have forgotten everything".
And in the event they remembered anything, it was usually the wrong thing.
If I had to sum them up, I'd probably go with "Half of them don't speak Russian very well. The other half are minorities."
My favourite part was when a crewman got drunk and went Davey Jones going around asking people
"Do you fear death" 0.o
@@Autechltd It was a fair question for that voyage, even if that crewman's reasoning wasn't sound.
*Looks at USSR navy*
*Looks at Russian navy*
Ya that aged like frozen water
Stuck in time
one story about Admiral Rozhestvensky (who supposedly was a fairly competent naval officer) was that he kept certain of his battleships the closest to him in formation, not only to keep an eye on them, but also to hurl abuse at their commanders. he also supposedly gave several of the ships in the fleet less than savory nicknames
That ship would be the Kamchatka!
@@Isolder74 the Kamchatka herself wasn't mentioned in the comment directly.
She was just one of the ships that got a name.
But is by far the most infamous one.
@@nukclear2741 The Kamchatka got the special case of spending most of the voyage in that position. It just never showed any sign of improvement.
The Kamchatka also wasn't a battleship, or any kind of combat vessel really. She was a repair ship, armed only with a few small guns for defense against...torpedo boats.
@@GaldirEonai I genuinely wish she was sunk by torpedo boats.
But no, the Japanese cruisers had to ruin it.
I’ve often struggled with feelings of ineptitude and inadequacy in my young adult life. I often wonder how I’ve gotten as far as I have and maybe suffered from imposter syndrome for what little I’ve accomplished , no matter the significance.
Then this video happened. And I feel a little bit less like an imposter or inadequate.
The "battle" of Dogger Bank is actually not the only time in history when false alarms and friendly fire have resulted in major pandemonium and significant casualties without the enemy ever being present. Another notable case is the "battle" of Karansebes 1788, in an Austro-Ottoman war, when an entire Austrian army routed due to such an incident, believing itself under surprise attack. One case of misidentifying friendly troops as enemies led to friendly fire, whereby those on the receiving end of it thought they were under enemy attack, and then it snowballed from there.
I'm very glad to see that you are covering this topic, it's one of my favorite parts of history.
I see that some others already mentioned Drachinifel's channel and I couldn't agree more. When it comes to naval history I believe his channel is the best one out there.
As potential review's I would recommend either ''Battle of Lissa'' (who can forget the ''bezeuge mich!'' part) or his ''War of 1812 - Fresh Water edition''
Drachinifel's 2 parter on this history is absolutely hilarious.
@@Corsair37 Three parter if you include his 5 minute guide, more or less, on the Kamchatka!
If you want to get more info Drachinifel has two videos on the Russian Baltic Fleet, the first covering context of the voyage in detail, the vassals involved and what happened in detail in the first video and the second covering the battle of Tsushima, its a really good long watch and really sets in how bad things were. It also gives a lot of credit to Admiral Rozhestvensky, a competent commander who had to deal with trying to lead the dregs of crew and ships (including pre-dreadnaughts and a few examples of even more outdated ships) and eventually despite the poor performance in the battle showing a level of valour that I just want other people to see it to give that admiral credit.
Well they were all Pre-Dreadnoughts, seeing Dreadnought hadn’t been built yet. The problem for the Russians was that a good portion of their fleet was made up up designs that were outdated even by the standards of Pre-Dreadnoughts. A good portion of the cruisers were not really warships but civilian ships that had been militarized and then commissioned as warships.
PS if you look over French ship designs from the period you’ll get a headache and seeing several of the newest Russian designs in this fleet were based on those you can understand why they did so horribly in combat.
I second everyone, Drachinifels TWO videos, part one _The Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron - Voyage of the Damned_ and part 2 _Battle of Tsushima - When the 2nd Pacific Squadron thought it couldn't get any worse..._ are in dept, and in this case there is a lot of dept! When you thought it couldn't get any worse ...
It is just like seeing photo with a Civil War veteran standing next to a fighter jet, mind blown.
(15:23) the admiral is holding a newspaper for the 1904 Olympic Maraton which was another failure in organisation leading to many of those involved falling ill and nearly dying BlueJay made a video similar to this one on it you should check that one out
Jon Bois also has a Pretty Good video about it.
Just want you to know that i love you and your channel. I appreciate the historical information you add. Hugs from Brazil 🇧🇷
I prefer Drachinifel's coverage of this subject. He went into a lot more detail on everything. The voyage of the damned was way worse/sillier than Blue Jay made it sound, and he didn't even mention the Kamchatka.
Oh he did, just didn’t call it out but for the funeral salute.
I remember my first time researching this unbelievable voyage. I couldn't believe it either. I was looking for articles debunking these ridiculous events but just realized that they were very, very real.
Dem Russkies be crazy.
12:44
I'm 90% sure the Germans just wanted this fleet to get as far away from German holdings as possible as quickly as possible before they ruined something by being themselves.
I'd say Oversimplified, Sam O'nella, Blue Jay, and Extra History(credits) are the top tier in animated history content.
Very true I believe he is splintering off a bit to do topics that are more science based as well though unless I'm mixing him up with someone.
I've seen a video by MrBallen about this and I can only just sit there and shook my head at these incident while laughing out loud
As someone who knows, there is nothing quite so difficult as hitting a moving target at sea. They didn't even have a fire control system to help them.
Loving the bluejay reactions, i had never heard of his channel but i always check his videos out after yours cuz they are so fun, he is so creative and its such a blast to watch you react to
TBH Rozhestvensky deserves some credit for even getting the fleet to Japan with how incompetent everyone was.
You should check out Drachinfifel's video on the same topic, specifically the misadventures of the good ship Kamachakta.
It should be noted that there are some stories where the Russian Admiral simply didn't take the Suez canal because it would be slow and was the first place the Japanese could've realistically been at.
Add to that, the 3rd pacific squadron (yes there was a third that was sent to reinforce the second, to which Rozhestvensky took the action of refusing to tell them where he was because his reinforcements were beyond outdated even for the time period) was sent through the canal, and was let through.
Also about the Battle of Tsushima, the Japanese ships did not get off lightly. Rozhestvensky's ship stubbornly kept shooting at the Japanese for a long while before finally going down.
Not to mention the Japanese battleships that took very heavy damage.
Realistically, what screwed the Russians over the most in regards to the battle was the fact that the entire fleet was given enough ammunition for *one* firing drill, and a major battle.
Also, two russian cruisers managed to flee the battle.
One of them, the Aurora, fled to the Philippines.
If that sounds familiar, that's because the ship is still around to this day.
(Mainly because it's been immortalized for revolution based reasons even though what it did for the revolution was more or less sit there and fire some shells)
Another amusing video is Drachinifel’s one on Operation Cerberus, aka The Channel Dash.
If Mr Bean was a Navy:
That bird yelling in Russian kills me every time
It’s lucky for Russia that the British didn’t go to war over the Dogger Bank incident.
The Royal Navy then was approaching its peak and was the best in the world.
If the British fleet had met the Russian fleet in the N Sea or Channel they would have been annihilated.
Their losses would have been worse than they were against the Japanese navy.
Drachinifel covers the full history for those who are interested in the naval warfare.
Drachinifel has a video on this event. It is hilariously presented in his very dry, very British, very restrained sence of humor.
Oh, and if you don't know Drachinifel, he is a proper expert in naval history.
“I’m surrounded by idiots!” - Admiral Rozhestvensky, probably
There’s an empty(most likely) case of binoculars to attest to that.
Don’t forget that the dial didn’t just kill Russian sailors with respiratory issues, but also coated all of their ships in coal dust, accidentally turning the entire fleet into fuel-air bombs.
@03:04 Funny you should mention that transatlantic cable.
Unfortunately time marches on and now this is only the second most embarrassing Russian naval voyage.
What? He missed out the bit about loads of Russian officers bringing aboard "cigarettes" filled with opium during an African shoreleave. And then becoming blissfully unaware of their crews shenanniagans for a couple of weeks. Crews who then promptly picked up more transmissable "gifts" from the local women...
Honestly if i were the admiral leading the fleet i would seriously consider defecting and becoming the biggest pirate fleet in history. At least that would give them better chances then fighting Japanese navy
How has this lunacy not become a movie
When the parrot just started spouting Russian, I lost it. Just could not keep it together.
I've been WAITING for this video!!!
To be fair, russia also had massive bad luck. Losing their flagship Petropavlovsk with Admiral Makarov, who was one of the most competent naval commanders in the world at that time, pretty much decapitated the russian pacific fleet.
Also, Japan had a lot of ships built in Britain. So some... hangig around at Doggerbank would not be the most outlandish thing in the world.
The entire Ruso-Japanese War can be summed up as "Ladies and Gentlemen, Russia!"
14:12 is my favorite part of the video 🤣
This a very interesting parallel to the events of the current day in that, and please correct me if I am wrong, very little has changed in terms of the quality and capability of the troops.
16:55 1 to 40 deaths. 1 to 10 casualties and 1 to 7 sunk ships. And heavy ships as well.
You just can't imagine those numbers. Just try to imagine the reaction of the commanders.
Drachinifel did a good 2 part video on this. The 2nd Pacific Squadron was a massive clusterf*ck
If I remember correctly the Baltic fleet was incredibly obsolete at this point too, just to make the story even more ridiculous
- Obsolete fleet
- Hopelessly incompetent crew
Gonna put a quote from Boney M: Oh, those Russians
This whole video was hilarious. Both videos were great
there's a part of me that wonders if there wasn't an element of racism at play in the Baltic fleet's wild attacks on things like fishing boats (there certainly was that element in play in the larger Russo-Japanese war; Russia did NOT expect Japan to be a major threat at all). They fired at tiny unarmed vessels but when they came across a proper battleship they determined it to be friendly?
Yes because most of them had no idea what they were doing.
The video a good one for the channel but far from the whole story. It leaves out swaths of stupidity that occurred on the voyage. If interested check out Drachinifel's videos on the voyage where spends and hour and fifteen minutes detailing all that went so wrong. Not that good for reaction content, but certainly an entertaining and informative video.
Oversimplification is a given with a video so short, but the reason that the admiral didn't train his soldiers on gunnery is that he didn't have any ammo. He was given enough ammo for one major engagement and a small amount of practice, which was then subsequently wasted on imaginary torpedo boats. Further exasperated by the shipment of ammo turning out to be winter clothing, while in the tropics. Russia wasn't in the greatest of positions at this time in history and you can tell.
Almost forcing Japan to open up? If sailing up with a flotilla of ships and threatening to burn down an entire city with their superior firepower is only "almost forcing", I'd like to know where you draw the line to actual forcing. :P
If you want a more serious and detailed take on the Second Pacific Squadron's journey and the Kamchatka in particular, I can recommend Drachinifel's videos.
Well... 2022 Russia proved their military is still inept.
Let's hope we get a movie made about this voyage in the same style as "Death of Stalin"
🤦♂️ Y’know when I heard about this the first time it was incredibly hard to believe. Knowing more now about the Russian fleet and it’s sailors at the time . . . . It makes a lot more sense.
With how absolutely ridiculous this was, it makes me impressed how they lasted as long as they did in WWI. Granted it was more land than water for them but this stuff is so nuts that it sounds made up.
There is a lot more to this story, and virtually none of it good for the Russians. Between trying (and failing) to dodge their own reinforcements, the admiral's... creative nicknames for other officers, the trials and tribulations of the fleet's repair engineer, and the other things the men picked up in Madagascar, it's like the Great White Fleet was run by National Lampoon's.
I consider myself somewhat familiar with Russia/USSR military failures. But somehow Russia always shocks me at how ridiculously incompetent they can be.
Two words "Kamtschatka" and "Torpedoboats" 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Another man with a parrot who could swear was Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan
4:49 Metal Gear Solid for life!
such a long ridiculous journey for nothing but a catastrophic defeat.......
Between the Russian Baltic Fleet and the Willy D. Porter, which is more likely to shoot their own side?
If you enjoyed this video, you have GOT to watch his video on the worst Olympic race in history. It might be even more ridiculous and disastrous than this event if you can imagine it.
The Battle of Tsushima was a disaster and also pretty tragic, even as the ships were burning infernos full of holes those Russian sailors kept firing the guns till they were underwater. Pop history takes kind of make them sound like push overs, but I think people forget that there was a land war that was going at the same time. The Russian marines and soldiers who defended Port Author from the Imperial Japanese Army put up a very desperate last stand despite no supplies and bad leadership. They made the Japanese bleed for every single inch of that rock. I guess thats just characteristic of Russian military history during bad times even as they lose; like the Battle of Sevastopol, Afghanistan, Chechnya; and even in Ukraine now. They're losing, but they're killing a lot of Ukrainians in the process.
Me, present day: "Wow! This is ridiculous! But surely training and preparation has greatly evolved in the past century with Russian soldiers."
*reads any news about the Ukrainian invasion*
"Nope. Nothing has changed, except that the weapons and tactics inflict so much more damage."
Well, at least when WW1 rolled around a decade later, Tsar Nicholas II had learned his lessons, appointed competent military leadership, and successfully held back the Germans.
Just kidding!
afaik simplifies is older than blue jay. but his style is entertaining.
you see if people trying to make dark comedy film based on 100% of reality they just make this voyage a film, it is that ridiculous.
Oh no, all this and more happened.
And the Admiral was actually a lot more competent and qualified than the video makes him out to be. Probably the best choice of available command staff.
The rest of the fleet was incompetent. When you have someone competent surrounded by incompetence you get the behavior of the Admiral.
@@maximaldinotrap binocular throwing and public shaming via megaphone intensify
@@bthsr7113 To be fair the ship publicly shamed the most deserved it. Probably the finest Japanese ship to never serve in the Japanese Navy.
This would make a fun movie Hollywood needs to read more history
*sigh*
I guess some things cannot change over here.
It is an injustice that this story never got a dark comedy movie made out of it.
Yeah I got very heavy Death of Stalin vibes from hearing this story
The problem with that idea is that movies have to be plausible. Real life does not.
@@StevelyBruckShut that or the Monty Python crew.
@@Yuzral
I remember watching a heist movie based on an incredibly stupid real event. Half way through the movie they had to throw up a title card that said "Yes, this is still a true story."
Can't remember what the movie was though. Pretty sure it had the Rock in it.
@@prestonjones1653 Pain & Gain.
What Blue Jay forgets to mention is that somehow most of the animals from Madagascar survived the battle with Japan. Some were taken as war trophies and some were actually sent back to Russia. The cursing parrot actually died it first year in Russia and it’s body is still in the Japan Ruso war museum in Moscow.
The parrot was taken from us to soon!
So, the vodka drinking snake survived! What is it with drinking Vodka making you immune to death?
@@TheShadowwarrior80 The Snake went from drinking Vodka to Sake. The snake was never sent back to Russia but stayed in Japan. It lived in Japan for another 12 years before dying from old age. It was actually listed as one of the many captured soldiers during the war. It’s body is in the Tokyo Japan-Russo war museum. It lived in the capital as one of the emperor’s many pets.
@@joshportal2808 So it wasn't picky about getting plastered.
@@joshportal2808
Much like the snake, I too went from vodka to sake
Two massive historical achievements were made at the Battle of Tsushima: The Japanese won possibly the greatest naval victory in-between Trafalgar and Midway, and the Russian Baltic Fleet actually managed to make it all the way to Tsushima.
And Aurora somehow managed to survive til this day
@@xuanquang9815 Which is a small wonder seeing all the rest of the fleet kept shooting at it.
For what its worth the Vice admiral had realised just how poor this fleet was (before leaving Russia) and how poor the gunnery was.
By tsushima he had managed to improve their gunnery somewhat and a few Japanese ships were damaged to the point of complete combat ineffectiveness.
@@toawing Yes that was no small feat and he was the only one beside a handful that had any idea what they were doing.
It was a lot like herding cats.
@@toawing And all while they received so little ammo that were wasn't really much to spare for target practice.
I'm Russian, lived back home for quite a long time and nothing in here surprises me even a bit. This is exactly why everything is going the way it is since 2/24. I know this is not the place to comment on current events, just seems fitting.
P.S. The parrot screams "The enemies are approaching from the East!". Interesting choice there.
Nice thanks for the translation man! Nbd about the current events we know Russia is not with Putin.
I think it's just a voice line stolen from Call Of Duty
I just hope you don't get conscripted
@@biteme9486 no worries, left that blessed space some time ago :)
I know I’m late as fuck, but I hope you’re doing well. I know quite a few Russians (I live in Germany), and they all basically tell the same story. I hope though that things get better for you guys soon!
There’s one particular ship called the Kamchatka, that was a special hell for the admiral to deal with. It was the ship that was “attacked by eight torpedo boats,” which it also claimed happened several times later on in the journey and it also attacked a French, German, and Danish vessel, nearly starting a war with all three nations. It did not survive Tsushima.
I highly recommend the videos on this expedition and ship by the RUclips channel Drachinfel.
ah yes, Kamchatka, the most effective Japanese warship that never serve the Japanese
@@mr.jancok4413
Indeed.
In fact, the admiral's first response to hearing that the Kamchatka was sunken in the battle was, basically: "Oh, thank f*ing Christ."
The Kamchatka was pretty much the cause of almost every instance of trouble caused in the whole voyage. They even cut the telegraph cable.
I’ve watched Drachinfel’s video on the second pacific squadron atleast 3 times it’s hilarious
Haven't watched yet but this video rocks. Drachinifel has a longer video on this one that is a bit more in depth and longer (about 42 minutes long) that's well worth the watch as well. It's called "The Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron - The Voyage of the Damned". It's fantastic. He's also got some other great naval history videos as well
I second that :D "Do you see torpedo boats?"- Kamshatka
If his videos wouldn't be so long (and uninteresting for most), I would say they would be great reaction material
Watch out for torpedo boats!
Animarchy has one on the Aurora that covers this and is a little more interesting that Drachinifel
Edit:
Its on Aurora not Kamchatka oops
I second that. The story about the little ship that really, really couldn't.
There's a legend that when the Admiral was in hospital after his capture (he had been injured), he reportedly was told the list of ships sunk. When they came to the name of the Kamchatka... which had been a thorn in his side from the start, he reportedly breathed a sigh of relief and said "Thank God!"
A fleet so bad even the admiral is glad it's sunk.
I had the good fortune to spend significant time with my grandfather. Born in the 1880's on a subsistence homestead in the Ozarks (if you are familiar with the book Shepherd of the Hills, he grew up with those people - we have pictures of my mother as a baby sitting on the laps of some of the characters from the book) he saw us go from plowing with mules to landing men on the moon. He thought it was all just wonderful and amazing!
Damn that great
His reaction to the parrot saying the Russian “curse words” almost killed me 🤣🤣🤣
It's basically that guy who plays cs go
VTH: There is no way this is real
Bluejay: Proceedes to explain how everything happened
VTH:...*Facepalm* This explains so much about Tsushima
The only time I have ever seen Chris react like this was during the crusade
Even if it had been the Royal Navy at Tsushima, they'd have been in a bad position to fight.
@@Edax_Royeauxat least the Royal Navy would have given the Japanese a run for their money
@@ntfoperative9432 Maybe, maybe not, Jutland exposed the age old British problem of having a bunch of incompetent officers at the very top along with a endemic disregard for the safety features on their ships in order to fire their guns faster.
Imagine Zar Nicholas having to explain to the british that his ships shot at their fisherman, because they thought they were a japanese fleet.
Especially cause he was explaining it to his cousin
Fun fact. My great great grandma WAS born in 1874 and DIED in 1979 before she turned 105! She lived through EVERYTHING you mentioned. She lived a long life experiencing many horrible yet fascinating events.
She took "May you live in interesting times" to the extreme.
@@prestonjones1653 yeah she really did and holy shit she lived a full life
Born before telephone. Died after Men on Moon. Wow!
As a woman probably cared or involved in none
I despise this perspective. Everything in the past was always bad and horrible and everything sucked.
They'll be saying that about modern times in a hundred years and then again a hundred years after. We don't take note when people are happy and thriving, either today or back then. Your grandmother will have experienced overwhelming joy and happiness that hopefully we shall experience.
The voyage of the 2nd Pacific Squadron is one of those events where, if someone made even a semi-accurate movie or series or whatever about what happened, nobody would believe it. It literally was a slow motion disaster. That its commander actually got the fleet as far as he did makes him deserving of several medals.
Admiral consonant shit show was the best man for the job, and if he'd had better crews, fewer floating bullseyes, and no Kamchatka, he might have had a fair fight.
@@bthsr7113 Maybe, just maybe, if he had somehow got the Kamchatka and its crew to switch sides ....... :)
@@7thsealord888 Total victory for Russian fleet.
@@bthsr7113 sailors "We are sick of terrible treatment under Russia! We are defecting!"
Admiral: "Oh, thank God..."
Seriously, if they made it into a movie, we would all be saying they made it up. They were so out-classed that history collectively said "let's just forget this whole thing, deal?".
14:00 One of my favorite things I've learned from studying history is that reality is often stranger than fiction. Somehow the ridiculousness of some events does make it seem more real though. All of us have lived through something truly absurd and history seems to reflect that part of the human experience too.
I forget which author said this but his quote sums up this voyage, among several other events like the Taiping Rebellion or the Assassination of Franz Ferdinand, "The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction must be realistic."
@@prestonjones1653 Mark Twain.
The fact that they managed to inflict any casualties was already a miracle in enough itself
Simple, they believed they were firing on friendlies
There is a seriously possibility that this fleet never even in the battle scored a hit, remember, in the Battle of Tsushima there was two more Russian fleets partaking in the battle besides the Baltic one.
The Russians would've had better luck hauling their ships out of the water, putting them on wheels and rolling them across Siberia.
The Japanese Flagship Mikasa was hit more than 40 times during the battle, including 10 twelve-inch and 22 six-inch shells.
Love Bluejay. Absolutely the most unique educational animator to pop up after Sam Onella took his break. I get as excited for his stuff as I do about Sam's
If you like this and haven’t tried already, check out Oversimplified
@@ianison877 oh yeah I've seen them. Don't really like them. Can't seem to put my finger on why though.
@@imjustlookingformywatch Late reply, but they do make several reoccuring jokes which are funny the first time, but the fact that they are almost always included in every video it does get dull quickly.
@@kaijuroar8415 I haven't really even watched enough to know what those jokes would be.
I actually spoke about this exact voyage to my taxi driver while I visited hospital for a routine check. He was howling in laughter while I told about this and he ended up closing his tax meter around half a way back home.
So kids, spend attention in class and read history, it might pay out some day 😁
Based taxi driver
One thing he doesn't mention in this video is that the reason that Admiral Rozhestvensky didn't train his men is because he wasn't given any ammunition. They didn't want them wasting supplies so they didn't have enough to train or practice until they got to Japan.
And a shipment that was supposed to be ammunition ended up being winter boots and fur coats.
They didn’t even issue him half full magazines. It’s as if they wanted him to fail.
Drachinifel did a very good video on the second Pacific squadron titled 'The Voyage of the Damned'.
Now, does anyone see Torpedo boats, or more disturbingly, the Kamchatka?
yeah, it would be incredibly funny, if it wasn't for the horrible death and drowning in ice-cold water that became the fate for alot of those involved.
@@MrAagaard that would be the damned bit of the voyage of the damned
I do feel sorry for Admiral Rozzy and the Aurora for being stuck being a part of this mess.
I think the Kamchatka is signaling us... about... torpedo BOATS!
@@Isolder74 his chief of staff had a stroke trying to deal with all this shit
By the way, this war included the last time russian flagship being sunk in a war until Moskva that was sunk this year
To lose one flagship might be regarded as unfortunate, to lose two sounds like carelessness!
[with apologies to Oscar Wilde]
Specialy against the big Ukraine Baltic fleet?
I’m happy to see you branching off from the history of india, great video sam!
i laughed way harder than anyone should have regarding a war. like yu said many times, it was hard to believe this much absurdity could actually be real
8:05 This reminds me of a humorous dialogue exchange between two battle droids in The Clone Wars episode "Shadow of Malevolence":
Droid 1: "Boy, this is a lot more fun when they're not shooting back!"
Droid 2: "I still can't seem to hit anything."
This is one of those stories that should be made into a movie. The only issue I can see would be that it is so over-the-top that I imagine a lot of people will have trouble believing it.
It would probably be better as a tv mini series
Drachinifel has an excellent series on this voyage. Highly reccomended
Just here to mentioned that Drachinifel made a MUCH better video on this. One I suspect was used as a source for this video.
16:53 "It's a miracle that they killed any Japanese soldiers at all."
Actually, I'm pretty sure they died of laughter.
This is without a doubt the most hilarious event to ever take place
I'm just impressed that they thought the Japanese are attacking them, at DENMARK AND BRITISH COAST
I'm kind of surprised the Kamchatka didn't get more mentions in this video. You could make a whole video just based off their antics
I don't think there were any dreadnoughts in this war yet. HMS Dreadnought itself was launched in 1904. On the contrary, I've heard this war as being referred to as the only proper war between great powers using pre-dreadnought battleships. Even if "proper" might be stretching it, considering Russian performance.
Well it was proper in the sense the Russians were actually trying, just because they couldn't have fought their way out of a wet paper bag doesn't mean they didn't try (and fail). It's just the Russian leadership badly under estimated Japan as an opponent and thus went into the conflict comically under prepared.
And if that wasn't bad enough as it was this whole thing started because the Russian elite wanted to boost their ego and prestige instead of fixing the issues with the country that was causing the unrest why the elite wanted the prestige boost to begin with and it failed so badly it was one of the final straws that caused the 1905 revolution in Russia (it wasn't the only reason as there had plenty of unrest even before the war).
There were battleships before Dreadnought.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 sure, but they weren't dreadnoughts in the proper sense of the term. Dreadnoughts combined several new features that previous battleships did not have: Steam turbines, uniform calibre armament under centralized fire control, citadel armour schemes and anti-flooding compartmentalization.
I'll add to the Drach recommendation. His profile of the Kamchatka "The most effective Japanese warship to never serve the Japanese navy" is just under 10 minutes, so good to react to
Couple of points to ponder-
Japan was allied with Great Britain at the time. GB was very involved in training the Japanese Navy and English shipyards were building ships for Japan-: including torpedo boars. So not totally inconceivable to run into Japanese ships in the North Seas / Baltic
Not inconceivable but very fucking unlikely as it would require the Japanese to know what Russia was up to from the beginning.
I will echo others here. This video was great, but for a more in-depth, longer (and even funnier) depiction the video by the naval historian Drachinifel is a must see! It's called "The Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron - The Voyage of the Damned". There are a lot of events and context missed off this version (which is fine due to length).
If you want another good one from his list, the 1904 Olympic Marathon video is equally as funny :) So glad you finally did this one though, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.