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The Dogger Bank incident (also known as the North Sea Incident, the Russian Outrage or the Incident of Hull) occurred on the night of 21/22 October 1904, when the Russian Baltic Fleet mistook some British trawlers in the Dogger Bank area of the North Sea for an Imperial Japanese Navy force and fired on them. Russian warships also fired on each other in the chaos of the melée.〔 (The Russian Outrage (Chapter XXII) ) – Wood Walter, ''North Sea Fishers And Fighters'', K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, London, 1911〕 Three British fishermen died and a number were wounded. One sailor and a priest aboard a Russian cruiser caught in the crossfire were also killed. The incident almost led to war between Britain and Russia.〔 〕 ==Incident== The Russian warships involved in the incident were en route to the Far East, to reinforce the 1st Pacific Squadron stationed at Port Arthur, and later Vladivostok, during the Russo-Japanese War. Because of the fleet's alleged sightings of balloons and four enemy cruisers the day previously, coupled with "the possibility that the Japanese might surreptitiously have sent ships around the world to attack"〔Busch p. 90, 91〕 them, the Russian admiral, Zinovy Rozhestvensky, called for increased vigilance, issuing an order that "no vessel of any sort must be allowed to get in among the fleet",〔Busch p. 90, 91〕 and to prepare to open fire upon any vessels failing to identify themselves. With ample reports about the presence of Japanese torpedo boats, submarines and minefields in the North Sea, and the general nervousness of the Russian sailors, 48 harmless fishing vessels were attacked by the Russians, thousands of miles away from enemy waters. It was known that enemy intelligence had been heavily active in the region.〔Busch p. 121〕 Torpedo boats, a recent development of the major navies, had the potential to damage and sink large warships, and were very difficult to detect, causing psychological stress on sailors at war. In 1898, during the Spanish–American War, American warships had opened fire on ocean swells, trains on land, and rocks along the coastline, taking them for Spanish torpedo boats. Similar accidents and rumours affected the Russian fleet: there was a general fear of attack, with widespread rumours that a fleet of Japanese torpedo boats were stationed off the Danish coast, talk of the Japanese having mined the seas, and alleged sightings of Japanese submarines. Before the Dogger Bank incident, the nervous Russian fleet fired on fishermen carrying consular dispatches from Russia to them, near the Danish coast, without causing any damage due to their poor gunnery.〔 After negotiating a non-existent minefield, the Russian fleet sailed into the North Sea. The disaster of 21 October began in the evening, when the captain of the supply ship ''Kamchatka'' (Камчатка), which was last in the Russian line, took a passing Swedish ship for a Japanese torpedo boat and radioed that he was being attacked. Later that night, during fog, the officers on duty sighted the British trawlers, interpreted their signals incorrectly and classified them as Japanese torpedo boats, despite being more than 32,000 km from Japan. The Russian warships illuminated the trawlers with their searchlights and opened fire. The British trawler ''Crane'' was sunk, and its captain and first mate were killed. Four other trawlers were damaged, and six other fishermen were wounded, one of whom died a few months later. As the trawlers had their nets down, they were unable to flee and, in the general chaos, Russian ships shot at each other: the cruisers ''Aurora'' and ''Dmitrii Donskoi'' were taken for Japanese warships and bombarded by seven battleships sailing in formation, damaging both ships and killing a chaplain and at least one sailor and severely wounding another. During the pandemonium, several Russian ships signalled torpedoes had hit them, and on board the battleship ''Borodino'' rumours spread that the ship was being boarded by the Japanese, with some crews donning life vests and lying prone on the deck, and others drawing cutlasses. More serious losses to both sides were only avoided by the extremely low quality of Russian gunnery, with the battleship ''Oryol'' reportedly firing more than 500 shells without hitting anything.〔 After twenty minutes' firing the fishermen saw a blue light signal on one of the warships, the order to cease firing.〔(The dogger bank incident in 1904 – The Russian fleet attacks Hull trawlers ) – Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dogger Bank incident」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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