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In the late Nineteenth Century, the expanding Russian and Japanese spheres of influence began to collide in Korea and Manchuria - the Russian occupation of Manchuria in 1900 led to war by February 1904. At the outset, the Russians were supremely confident, but it was the far better prepared Japanese who won victory after victory in a series of immense land and naval battles. Both nations were exhausted by the summer of 1905, and peace was concluded in September in a conference hosted by Theodore Roosevelt. The war was a disaster for Russia. The humiliating defeats weakened the Czar's authority and set off a revolution that contributed to the eventual triumph of the Bolsheviks a dozen years later. Indirectly, the war’s effects on Japan were equally unfortunate, as its ambitions - especially in China - began to grow uncontrollably. |
| (1):
The Background, from the 17th Century to January 1904
(2): The Outbreak of the War, February - April 1904 |
| Sources include: Noel F. Busch. The Emperor’s Sword: Japan vs. Russia in the Battle of Tsushima. 1969 Trevor N. Dupuy. Harper Encyclopedia of Military History, Fourth Edition. 1993 Ian V. Hogg. Battles: A Concise Dictionary. 1995 W. Bruce Lincoln. In War's Dark Shadow: The Russians Before the Great War. 1983 Colin MacKerras. Modern China: A Chronology from 1842 to the Present. 1982 Franklin D. Margiotta (ed). Brassey’s Encyclopedia of Military History and Biography. 1994 Michael Montgomery. Imperialist Japan: The Yen to Dominate. 1987 Ian Nish. Japanese Foreign Policy 1869-1942: Kasumigaseki to Miyakezaka. 1977 David Walder. The Short Victorious War: The Russo-Japanese Conflict, 1904-1905. 1973 Hugh Seton -Watson. The Russian Empire 1801-1917. 1967 Denis and Peggy Warner. The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905. 1974 |