Russo-Japanese War

[Rameses the Great]

I won't say anything on the background of this war, but how in the living... did an Asian nation defeat a European power in the 1900s.

[Gaius Octavius]

The Japanes got hold of British plans for battleships and the Russian ships and admirals weren't up to snuff.

[Marcus Caelius]

The Japanes got hold of British plans for battleships and the Russian ships and admirals weren't up to snuff.

 

True, but it's a little more involved than that.

 

First, at sea, the Japanese made a sneak attack (sound familiar?) on the Russian base at Port Arthur, wiping out the Russian Pacific fleet. The Russians then sent their Atlantic (can't remember whether it was Baltic or Black Sea) fleet around Africa to Korea. This took the equivalent of forever, because the Russian ships were older, coal-fueled and comparatively short-range; they left their home ports literally stuffed and covered with coal (imagine life aboard!), and had to make frequent stops at foreign coaling stations to replentish. Several vessels were lost to breakdowns, and he survivors just sort of straggled to Tsushima looking as if they'd already been defeated. Meanwhile, the Japanese had received frequent reports of the Russians' progress (try keeping a voyage like that secret!) and were waiting for them, with brand-new ships manned by well-trained and well-rested crews, in nice, orderly formations.

 

On land, the Japanese took advantage of their complete mastery of the sea lanes and the fact that Russian communications consisted of a single rail and telegraph line that reached all the way back to Moscow, by laying siege to Port Arthur and finally taking it. With these two victories under their belts, and with the Russians finally in the process of sending a massive army across Siberia via that single rail line, the Japanese were only too glad to agree to peace in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Edited March 20, 2007 by Marcus Caelius

[Northern Neil]

The Japanese had been pushing a programme of modernisation and industrialisation since the middle of the nineteenth century in an attempt to become, in effect, a western - style industrialised nation. With input from the US and European powers, they succeeded. Russia, onthe other hand, was probably the least developed of the European powers. I think this also explains a lot.

[Pantagathus]

how in the living... did an Asian nation defeat a European power in the 1900s.

Cunning & Resolve

[Gaius Octavius]

"First, at sea, the Japanese made a sneak attack (sound familiar?) on the Russian base at Port Arthur, wiping out the Russian Pacific fleet. The Russians then sent their Atlantic (can't remember whether it was Baltic or Black Sea) fleet around Africa to Korea. This took the equivalent of forever, because the Russian ships...."

 

It was the Black Sea Fleet. Why didn't the Russians attempt the Suez? What was the direct cause of the war? I don't think that the Japanese can be blamed for a 'sneak' attack.

[DecimusCaesar]

Wasn't the Russo-Japanese war the first to make mass use of machine guns on the battlefield? I have an intrest in Japanese Feudal history, but I know very little about events after the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.

 

On another note, I'v read several books on the transition from the Shogunate to the Meiji period in Japan. it was amazing how the Japanese had locked themselves off from the Western world in 17th Century, only to open it's doors to modernity- after much persuasion and bombardment from the US and European powers.

 

Sakamoto Ryoma played a major part in convincing the feudal, ultra-conservative samurai to give up their privelaged position and stipends to embrace western technology and manpower. After the end of the Boshin war in 1867 the samurai class was officialy abolished, along with the Shogunate bakufu (military government).

 

Unfortunately for the Europeans and the US, the new Imperial army did not renounce bushido, the samurai code of honour. This allowed it to be perverted in future generations, resulting in the worst degredations of the Japanese in World War 2. Bushido itself had played no part in the wars of Medieval Japan. It was the product of the Tokugawa Shogunate - a way of making the warrior class have a sense of purpose in an age without war.

[Rameses the Great]

The Japanese had been pushing a programme of modernisation and industrialisation since the middle of the nineteenth century in an attempt to become, in effect, a western - style industrialised nation. With input from the US and European powers, they succeeded. Russia, onthe other hand, was probably the least developed of the European powers. I think this also explains a lot.

 

I wouldn't say they were the least developed, that would probably be Italy.

 

On land, the Japanese took advantage of their complete mastery of the sea lanes and the fact that Russian communications consisted of a single rail and telegraph line that reached all the way back to Moscow, by laying siege to Port Arthur and finally taking it. With these two victories under their belts, and with the Russians finally in the process of sending a massive army across Siberia via that single rail line, the Japanese were only too glad to agree to peace in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

 

Better now!?

Edited March 20, 2007 by Rameses the Great

[Pantagathus]

RTG:

 

I'll give you a chance to edit your post in an effort to scrub out the junk that makes you sound like a racist lout.

[Marcus Caelius]

It was the Black Sea Fleet. Why didn't the Russians attempt the Suez? What was the direct cause of the war? I don't think that the Japanese can be blamed for a 'sneak' attack.

 

Thanks, it's been many years since I studied the war. As for the Suez, we're getting into pre-WW1 European politics, and you know how convoluted that was. Besides, I have this vision of the entire Russian fleet piling up at the northern entrance to the Canal as the British let them through one at a time.

[Gaius Octavius]

M.C., I am sure that they had to coal at British ports and had to go through the Straits of Gibraltar.

 

Do you think that the 'family' would have allowed Cousin Nicky's toys to pile up? The Japanese were a threat to the Brits in East Asia.

Edited March 20, 2007 by Gaius Octavius

[Marcus Caelius]

Do you think that the 'family' would have allowed Cousin Nicky's toys to pile up? The Japanese were a threat to the Brits in East Asia.

 

The precise ins and outs of that family have always escaped me.

 

However, I believe the Russian threat in the Indian subcontinent (ie "the Great Game") was more of a British consideration than any ephemeral Japanese threat to China. With the Russians pushing by land from the northwest, the English wouldn't have been too happy about the possibility of a victorious post-Tsushima Russian fleet, with no Japanese counterbalance, cutting India off from the sea lanes and effectively isolating the British garrison. Also, rather than pushing at India directly, the Russian army could have turned to the right and made for the Persian Gulf, there to join with the Navy and make a flank attack on either India or, even easier, Suez.

 

Regarding coaling stations, I'm at work right now and don't have any references with me, but I believe there were several coaling stations available other than British. Bearing in mind the colonial geography of the time, Spanish, Dutch and German spring to mind, especially German.

Edited March 21, 2007 by Marcus Caelius

[Julius Ratus]

I won't say anything on the background of this war, but how in the living... did an Asian nation defeat a European power in the 1900s.

 

That's what everyone was asking a century ago! It really was a suprise to Europe. The main thing that the Japanese did was they attacked fast and fought hard. The Russian Army of the era was reknowned for it's ability to march like at galacial speed . If the mass of the Russian Army had made it to Manchuria before peace broke out...I'm sure the Cossacks would have made life miserable for the IJA.

[Gaius Octavius]

M.C., don't you think that the Brits knew the condition of the Black Sea Fleet and the condition of the Japanese Navy and its abilities? Would the Russians leave the Black Sea without a fleet for any long period of time?

Edited March 21, 2007 by Gaius Octavius

[Marcus Caelius]

M.C., don't you think that the Brits knew the condition of the Black Sea Fleet and the condition of the Japanese Navy and its abilities? Would the Russians leave the Black Sea without a fleet for any long period of time?

 

Meh. The Russians had lost the Black Sea 50 years before, and it hadn't proved fatal. The British could have retaken it any time since; problem was, once taken it would have had to have been kept. Not hard to do, but it would have tied up at least a squadron that could have been better put to use elsewhere.

 

The British, especially at that period, were not known for their interracial egalitarianism; in fact, IIRC, the word "n*****r" applied to virtually anyone who wasn't white. It was absolutely inconceivable that any "slanty-eyed little brown monkey" (the racism isn't mine, I'm just illustrating) would be able to operate modern weaponry well-enough to defeat one of the premier White naval forces of the day (Port Arthur, remember, was a cheap little trick that no decent white man and Christian would have pulled). I believe the British were far more afraid of the possibility that the Russians, now that they had the measure of their racially-inferior enemy, would quickly mop the floor with Togo, then do a quick about-face and head for India and/or Suez.