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In 1904-1905, Japan defeated Russia
in Russo-Japanese War, showing that the world that Japan was major world power and
that Czarist Russia was on its last legs. The Japanese attacked the Russians
in Korea and Manchuria and
won the war by unexpectedly crushing Russia's Baltic fleet at the
Battle Tsushima. The Japanese lost 60,000 men and the Russians, 30,000. One
general described the war as a “mountain of corpses.”
At the beginning of the war Russia
was considered one of the world's super powers and the Japanese army was
still regarded as second rate. Most people thought that Russia would
easily win. Some saw the conflict as the first modern war. It at least was
the first modern naval war in which ironclad navies with long-range guns
faced one another. But it was also a war of old-style military maneuvers such
as a Cossack charges, the scaling of ancient city walls and elaborate
courtesies between commanders.
Japanese propaganda poster from Russo-Japanese War
The origin of the war dated back to the end of the war against China in 1885 when Russia,
Germany and France asked Japan
to leave Port Arthur (Dalian)
and the Liaotung Peninsula in northeast China. Japan gave into the demands. In
1886, Russia seized the
territory for itself and then occupied Manchuria.
In 1875, Russia and Japan agreed on how to divide the islands east
of Russia.
Russia got Sakhalin Island
and the Japanese got the Kuril Islands.
Disagreement arose on "spheres of influence" in which Russia wanted Manchuria and Japan wanted Korea. Poor diplomacy was based
on starting the war.
Japan prepared for war by
strengthening its navy and forming an alliance with Britain, the
world' leading trade and naval power. In 1904, Japan
broke diplomatic relations with Russia.
Early Fighting in the Russo-Japanese War
After the Russians refused to leave Manchuria and a timber concession in Korea, the Japanese launched a Pearl
Harbor-like, pre-emptive surprise attack against the Russian Pacific Fleet in
Port Arthur, Russia's
only ice-free port on the Pacific, and then conducted a successful blockade
of the Russian fleet in Port Arthur.
Between August 1904 to January 1905, the Japanese proceed to lay waste to Russia’s Pacific fleet and captured Port Arthur on January
2, 1905. During the siege, 56,000 Japanese died.
With its fleet destroyed trapped in Port Arthur,
the Russians tried to win the war on land but were stopped by a highly
motivated Japanese troops, who poured onto the Liaotung Peninsula
in large numbers. The pivotal Battle of Sha Ho ended in a stalemate and both
sides dug into trenches World-War-I-style behind barbed wire lines and
remained in their positions for months.
Russia
had difficulty supplying it forces. The source of men and supplies were
thousands of miles away. With Port
Arthur cut off, the only way to bring supplies was
on the single-track Trans Siberian Railroad, which had not yet been
completed. In 1904, rails were laid down on the three foot ice of Lake Baikal
to bring goods east. The first train plunged through the ice and left behind
a 15-miles long hole. The Russian didn't give up. A new track was laid and
men and horses were used successfully to pull the rail cars across the ice
rather than heavy locomotives.
There was a great deal of fighting on land, One press release describing the
attack on “Hill of 203 meters” from 1904 went: The Japanese “made many
charges before four o’clock in the afternoon, but were driven back by the
desperate Russians. At five o’ clock the Japanese troops advanced against the
south-eastern portion of the hill, charged valiantly and reached within
thirty yards of the summit. At seven o’clock, reinforced, they charged again
and captured the hill. At eight o’clock the entire summit was in the
possession of the besieging army. The Russians left vast heaps of dead on the
fields.”
Most engagement resulted in
Japanese victories that drove the Russians back. The most crushing Russian
defeats occurred at Liaoyang in 1904 and Mukden in 1905. Making matters worse for Russia
were revolts at home.
Japanese Soldiers in the Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War also saw the rise of samurai virtues on the
international scene. Japanese soldiers were taught that to die in battle was
noble and anything less was a humiliation. Many of these soldiers, who
referred to themselves as the Emperor's human bullets, formed human waves
that were mowed down by Russian machine guns during attacks on fortifications
that surrounded Port Arthur,
the main Japanese objective.
Russo-Japanese War: trench warafre
The Japanese generally fought the war in a humane way. Captured Russian
soldiers were treated well and let go after they had been neutralized
militarily. POWs were taken to a camp in Masuyama in first-class train
coaches, allowed to learn to read and write Japanese and could walk freely
around the city. But there were ugly signs of things to come: at Mukden
Japanese came upon thousands of drunk Russian soldiers and instead of
capturing them they were bludgeoned and disemboweled with bayonets. There was
also the execution of 130 captures Russian soldiers on Sakhalin
island.
The Japanese forces were led by General Maresukae Nogi and Admiral Togo. Nogi
perhaps is best known for marking the death of Emperor Meiji by committing
suicide with his wife in 1912. Gen. Nogi committed ritual suicide (seppaku).
His wife, apparently willingly, plunged a dagger into her heart. In 1877 Nogi
had asked the Emperor for permission to commit seppaku following his
regiment’s defeat in the Satsuma Rebellion and the loss of the Emperor’s
banner to the enemy. He was crushed when his request was turned down,
expressing his feelings a poem that went: “My self is nothing but a person
scared of death.” He made the request for seppaku again in 1905 after losing
two sons in the war and again was turned down. The state propaganda machine
seized up his successful suicide as the ultimate act of self-sacrifice for
the emperor and was used for propaganda purposes to aid the rise of the
military. A number of writers wrote about the event.
Russia's
Baltic Fleet Sails to the Pacific
The war was popular and widely supported in Japan
but unpopular and seen as remote in Russia. The Russian forces were
largely illiterate and often drunk. They lacked motivation and a desire to
fight.
Many of the Russians actions and inactions proved to disastrous on a grand
scale. On October 9, 1904, Czar Nicholas II ordered his
"invincible" 42-ship Baltic fleet to sail 18,000 miles around the
world to waters off of China.
In the North Sea, the Russians sunk one
Japanese "torpedo boat" and damaged several others. These boats
ended up being British trawlers.
The Russian fleet sailed around Africa to the Indian Ocean and picked up 10
more ships, mostly antiques, in Vietnam. As the fleet entered
waters off China, Russian
admiral Zinovi Rozhdestvenski decided to head straight to Vladivostok,
the only Russian port left in Asia, through the narrow Tsushima
Strait, which separates Japan and Korea.
Battle of Tsushima
Admiral Heihachiro Togo
guessed of the Russian plan and waited with the entire Japanese fleet in the Tsushima Strait. The Russians sailed into the
trap on May 27, 1905.
Togo
was able to maneuver the faster, better-built Japanese ships on the sides of
the advancing Russian ships and blast away at them. The Russian flag ship was
one of eh first to go down. It was followed by three more battleships. The
pride of the Russian navy, the Borodino,
sank in seconds after a single Japanese shell land in its ammunition
magazine.
The 12 surviving Russian ships were pursued and encircled by Japanese torpedo
ships. The Russian ships surrendered. Of the 52 ships in the Russian fleet
only three made it to Vladivostok.
More than 10,000 Russians were injured or captured and 4,830 were killed. By
contrast the Japanese only lost three small torpedo ships, and 1,000 Japanese
sailors were wounded and 117 were killed.
Togo
was heralded as the great hero of the Russo-Japanese war. He was honored not
only in Japan
but around the globe. In the Netherlands
and Finland
there are beers named after him. In Istanbul
you can find Togo Avenue.
One of his greatest admirers was Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander of the U.S.
Pacific fleet in World War II. Nimitz attended Togo's
funeral, donated royalties from a book to a Togo shrine.
End of the Russo-Japanese War
Russia
surrendered and signed a peace treaty on September 5, 1905 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
in the United States.
The Japanese asked U.S.
president Teddy Roosevelt to mediate the settlement. Roosevelt
won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to get the two nations to sign the
treaty. This was the first Nobel prize to go to an American.
The peace agreement was largely seen as a compromise and in the eyes of the
Japanese a capitalization. Even though Japan’s victory at sea was
decisive its army could not prevail over the Russian army on land. Even after
the war was over the armies of the two nations faced down each other in Manchuria and it often seemed there was a risk that a
new conflict would erupt any time.
Treaty
of Portsmouth
meeting
Russian war bonds sold well. Japanese ones did not. Among those who bought
large amounts of Japanese one was Lehman Brothers brokerage.
Results and Impact of the Wars with China
and Russia
As a result of the war Russia
was forced to cede Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula
and southern half of Sakhalin Island to Japan,
to evacuate Manchuria, to recognize Korea
as a Japanese protectorate and grant Japanese fishing rights north of Vladivostok. Russia obtained a lease for the southern tip
of the Liaotung peninsula, where Port
Arthur (present-day Lushan and Dalien) are located.
The Japanese kept troops on the Liaotung
Peninsula and used it as a foothold
into Manchuria. Germany,
France and Russia objected to Japan's
claims in China.
To many outsiders the outcome was seen more as a Russian defeat than a
Japanese victory. It was seen as sign of Russian weakness, which paved the
way for the Russian Revolution and events in World War I. The shortness and
the decisiveness of the war gave Japanese confidence and did not deplete its
resources to a degree that would have made the Japanese think twice about
entering conflicts in the future.
The Russo-Japanese War was the first major war of the 20th century. The use
of barbed wire, trenches and land mines gave a hint of things to come in World
War I. There were also major anti-war protests. The Bloody Sunday incident in
which Russian demonstrators were killed in January 1905 made it difficult for
Russia to continue the war
against Japan.
In Tokyo, people rioted to protest the signing
of the Treaty of Portsmouth and size of the compensation paid to Russia. Even
before the Russo-Japanese War, an astute Polish banker named Jan Block
predicted future wars would be long wars of attrition that would kill many
people and destroy economies. He warned Russia in particular to be
careful because such a war could lead to an overthrow of the government by
revolution.
The Russo-Japanese was perhaps the first war in which radio communications
played a major role in the outcome of the conflict, The Japanese received
radio reports of the state of the Russian Baltic fleet before it arrived in
Japanese waters. It also marked the beginning of the involvement of the United States
in international affair as it took a major role in the peace settlement.
Legacy of the Wars with China
and Russia
The Russo-Japanese war halted
European expansion into East Asia and provided an international structure for
East Asia that brought some degree of
stability to the region. It also changed the world from a European-centered
world to one in which a new pole was emerging in Asia.
After the defeat of Russia,
a Persian newspaper wrote: “Although the European politicians and
philosophers have said that Asia is not
qualified to reach the levels of Western civilization, this was proven to be
false.”
The Russo-Japanese War brought Japan
to the attention of the world as a power to be reckoned with and the
uncontested leader of Asia. The defeat of Russia was seen as a slap in the face for all
of Europe. It was the first defeat of a
major European power since the Mongols. But not everyone saw it such grim
terms. Many, especially the British, cheered Japan’s success. Some
conservatives in Britain
applauded “brave little Japan.”
from Britain's
Punch magazine
The victories over Russia
and China, established Japan as the first great, modern, non-Western
power in Asia. The Japanese leaders felt it
was their duty to avenge the humiliation inflicted on Asia
during the colonial period after the Opium War in 1842.
By defeating Russia, Japan knocked
out its only naval rival in the eastern Pacific. Japan
also took over Russia's
concessions in China and
annexed half of Sakhalin island, which later was used as a stepping stone to
Manchuria and Korea.
The failure to seize significant territory in Russia
and China was considered a
setback not because it was threat to Japan's
military an economic interests but because considered a sign of weakness that
ran contrary to the "stud duck in the pond" image that Japan
was trying to project.
ey Haysk, Bukharin and
Zinoharin and Zinoovyevvoldiern russia ic tribesave of Kaliningrad. y the
provinces of Moscow ()
© 2009 Jeffrey Hays
Originally
published at http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=512&catid=16&subcatid=108#09
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