After being acquitted by a court of inquiry, the Admiral proceeded, his objective point now being changed from Port Arthur to Vladivostock, the next most critical point.
On May 27-28th there occurred one of the most disastrous naval engagements in the annals of war, in the Korean Straits, near Tsushima, where Admiral Togo with sure instinct of the course which would be taken, was lying in wait under the cover of darkness and fog.
Nineteen Russian vessels were destroyed, the Japanese ships sustaining almost no injury.

All that remained of the Russian fleet was surrendered to Admiral Togo, and Rojestvenski, desperately wounded, and all of his surviving officers, were prisoners of war in Tokio.
With this climax of Russian disaster the end had come.

Although Russia still doggedly refused to acknowledge defeat, and made feint of preparation for reenforcements and future triumphs, the world saw that there must be peace; and that the only existing obstacle was the determination of a proud nation not to be placed in a humiliating position.
The absolute neutrality of the United States enabled President Roosevelt to intervene at this critical moment as no European sovereign could have done.

His proposal that there should be a meeting of envoys for the discussion of some peaceable adjustment of their differences was promptly accepted by both nations, and with the hostile armies still facing each other in Manchuria, arrangements were made for the Peace Conference to be held in the United States in August.
The envoys selected for this mission were M.de Witte and Baron Rosen, Ambassador to the United States from Russia, on the one hand, and Baron Komura, Minister of Foreign Affairs in Japan, and Kogaro Takahira, Minister at Washington from that country, on the other.

If the appointment of M.de Witte had awakened expectation of a presentation of the Russian cause from the view-point of a progressive leader, the mistake was quickly discovered.