The Russo-Japanese War resulted from the clashing imperial ambitions of Russia and Japan.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the imperial ambitions of Russia and Japan focused on the same regions of the Far East: Korea, Manchuria, and the northeastern part of China. Japan was a relative newcomer as an imperialistic power, only emerging from its self-imposed isolation in the middle of the century. Although Japan modernized, its leaders still felt they lacked respect from the Western powers, and they were concerned with their nation’s security. For Japanese leaders, Korea became a key to the national expansion. To expand its influence over that neighbor, Japan engaged Korea’s more powerful neighbor, China, in war from 1894 to 1895.
Among the concessions Japan wrested from China with its victory was control over the Chinese area of Manchuria contiguous to Korea. This acquisition alarmed the Western imperialists; France, Russia, and Germany—in what is known as the Triple Intervention
One outcome of China’s humiliation was the growth of antiforeign feeling, marked by the appearance of the secret society popularly called the Boxers. Their attacks on foreigners in the Boxer Rebellion
In 1898, a Russian company secured from Korea the right to harvest timber along the Yalu River; the Russian royal family became financially involved in its operations, which a small Russian military force protected. These expansionist moves on the part of Russia alarmed Japan. Tensions reached such a peak that a series of negotiations between the two countries began in 1903. The negotiations were hampered by the activities of Admiral Evgeny Ivanovich Alexieff, Russia’s Far Eastern viceroy, who, because of racial prejudice, consistently underestimated the pride and strength of the Japanese.
When no progress was made after several months, the Japanese recalled their ambassador on February 6, 1904. Two days later, Admiral Heihachirō Togō attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in Manchuria. Suffering some damage, the Russian fleet remained in or close to that port until late in the war. At the same time Togō struck at Port Arthur, Japanese troops landed in Korea and quickly marched to the Yalu River against token Russian opposition. With the neutralization of the Russian Far Eastern fleet, Japan moved troops into Manchuria both to invest Port Arthur and to defeat the main Russian forces near Liaoyang under General Aleksei Kuropatkin. Because of the Japanese willingness to take casualties in attack and the weakness of the Russians in numbers and resolve, Japan won an unbroken series of victories. The major battles included those fought at Liaoyang and Mukden under General Tamemoto Kuroki, and the successful siege of Port Arthur. Sent to change the balance of naval power in Asia, the Russian Baltic fleet, under Admiral Zinovy Petrovich Rozhdestvensky, was totally destroyed by Admiral Togō in the Battle of Tsushima,
The unbroken series of Russian defeats contributed to growing unrest at home and led Czar Nicholas II to seek an end to the war. Although victorious at sea and on land, Japan was militarily and economically exhausted by the struggle. When President Theodore Roosevelt offered to help bring the war to an end, negotiators of the two belligerents met at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where a peace treaty was signed on September 5, 1905. Under its terms, Japan took possession of the Russian concessions in southern Manchuria and the railroad leading north to Mukden, gained official recognition of their predominance over Korea, and were given the southern half of Sakhalin Island. The lack of a sizable indemnity led to some rioting in Japan.
The Russo-Japanese War has been overshadowed by World War I, which followed closely on its heels. In actuality, the struggle of 1904-1905 may have been one of the most significant conflicts of the twentieth century. With the exception of the defeat of the Italian army in Ethiopia at the battle of Adowa in 1896, the Russo-Japanese War marked the first time in modern history that a major European power was decisively and completely defeated by a non-European nation. This event raised the hopes of nationalists in Asia and Africa that the days of European colonialism were numbered.
Defeat for Russia also played a major role in bringing on an incomplete reformist revolution in that nation in 1905. That revolution so eroded feelings for the czar that it was a factor leading to the revolutions of 1917 and the emergence of the Bolshevik state.
In addition, Japan’s failure to achieve all of its aims in the peace treaty fed a growing militarism among Japanese and the conviction that their legitimate goals were thwarted by the Americans. Japanese military planners became convinced that they could defeat a stronger power by destroying that power’s main naval forces at the very outbreak of war.
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Borton, Hugh. Japan’s Modern Century. New York: Ronald Press, 1955. Includes a brief account of the war from the Japanese perspective. -
British General Staff. The Russo-Japanese War. 2 vols. London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1906-1908. History and analysis of the war by British observers, many of whom were sent to the scene because of Great Britain’s status as an unofficial ally of Japan. -
Hare, James H., ed. A Photographic Record of the Russo-Japanese War. New York: Collier & Son, 1905. Probably the best of the many contemporary accounts of the war in presenting a photographic account of the conflict. -
Jukes, Geoffrey. The Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905. Oxford, England: Osprey, 2002. Concise history of the war includes background regarding its beginnings and discussion of its eventual consequences. Features chronology and index. -
Malozemoff, Andrew. Russian Far Eastern Policy, 1881-1904: With Special Emphasis on the Causes of the Russo-Japanese War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958. Attempts a revision of traditional interpretations of the war and its results, but displays a definite anti-Japanese bias. -
Martin, Christopher. The Russo-Japanese War. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1967. Recounts the events of the time in almost reportorial style. Unlike many earlier accounts, places the war in its historical setting, giving proper emphasis to its Asian causes rather than treating it as a minor episode of intrigue in Russian internal politics. A good starting place for interested readers. -
Steinberg, John W., et al., eds. The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005. Collection of essays explores the military, diplomatic, social, economic, and political contexts in which the war occurred. Draws on previously unavailable Russian sources as well as Japanese records. Includes illustrations, maps, and index. -
White, John A. The Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964. Careful scholarly account of the war places the blame for the conflict on the Far Eastern aims of the two protagonists, each of which was threatened by the actions and desires of the other.
Theodore Roosevelt Becomes U.S. President
Pogroms in Imperial Russia
Entente Cordiale
Bloody Sunday
October Manifesto
Famine Strikes Russia
Japanese Annexation of Korea
China Declares War on Japan