Dogger Bank Incident

(1904)

   An Anglo-Russian crisis occurring during the Russo-Japanese War. On October 21, 1904, the Russian battle fleet, proceeding from their Baltic Sea ports via the North Sea to the Far East for service in the Russo-Japanese War, mistook a British fishing fleet on the Dogger Bank for Japanese torpedo boats and opened fire, killing two men, wounding half a dozen, and sinking a trawler. The incident briefly brought Britain and Russia to the edge of war, but a rapid apology from the tsar and the appointment of an international investigative commission defused the situation. The commission placed blame on the Russian commander, Admiral Rozhdestventski, who went on to be defeated by the Japanese navy at the battle of the Straits of Tsushima on May 27, 1905.

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   FURTHER READING:

    Hough, Richard Alexander. The Fleet That Had to Die. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1958;

    Warner, Denis Ashston. The Tide at Sunrise. London: Frank Cass, 2002;

    Westwood, J. N. Russia Against Japan, 1904-05: A New Look at Russo-Japanese War. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986.

   MARK F. PROUDMAN