Postcard 1905 View of Returning of Admiral Togo on Triumph

With the conflict's end, Togo's career began to slow and he moved through various appointments such as commandant of the Naval War College and commander of the Sasebo Naval College. In 1903, Navy Minister Yamamoto Gonnohyoe stunned the Imperial Navy by appointing Togo to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, making him the nation's preeminent naval leader. This decision caught the attention of Emperor Meiji who questioned the minister's judgment. With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, Togo took the fleet to sea and defeated a Russian force off Port Arthur on February 8. As Japanese ground forces laid siege to Port Arthur, Togo maintained a tight blockade offshore. With the city's fall in January 1905, Togo's fleet conducted routine operations while awaiting the arrival of the Russian Baltic Fleet which was steaming to the war zone. Led by Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky, the Russians encountered Togo's fleet near the Straits of Tsushima on May 27, 1905. In the resulting Battle of Tsushima, Togo utterly destroyed the Russian fleet and earned the nickname the "Nelson of the East" from the Western media.