Portland Public Library

Admiral Tōgō, Nelson of the East, Jonathan Clements

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 242-277) and index

individual biography

mapsillustrations

index present

non fiction

Admiral Tōgō

bibliography

456178491

Jonathan Clements

Nelson of the East

Tōgō Heihachiro (1848-1934) was born into a feudal Japan that had shut out foreign contact for 250 years. As a teenage samurai, he witnessed the destruction wrought upon his native land by British warships. As the legendary "Silent Admiral," he was at the forefront of innovations in warfare, pioneering the Japanese use of modern gunnery and wireless communication. Togo is best known as the "Nelson of the East" for his resounding victory over the Tsar's navy in the Russo-Japanese War, but he also lived a remarkable life, studying at a British maritime college and witnessing the Sino-French War, the Hawaiian Revolution, and the Boxer Uprising. After his retirement, he was appointed to oversee the education of Emperor Hirohito. This new biography spans Japan's sudden, violent leap out of its self-imposed isolation and into the twentieth century. Delving beyond Tōgō's finest hour at the Battle of Tsushima, it portrays the life of a shy Japanese sailor in Victorian England; his reluctant celebrity in America; his role in forgotten wars over the short-lived Republics of Ezo and Formosa; and the accumulation of peacetime experience that forged a wartime hero. -- from Back Cover

The last samurai -- The Republic of Ezo -- Johnny Chinaman -- Delicate diplomacies -- Princes and prisoners -- Sink the Kowshing -- The angry dragons -- Though your swords be broken -- Republicans and rebels -- Port Arthur -- The Battle of the Yellow Sea -- Tsushima -- Tōgō on tour -- The treasure of Japan