Russo-Japanese War: A Visual History

The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) was fought over rival ambitions in Manchuria and Korea. Japan struck Port Arthur without declaring war on 8 February 1904, landed armies in Korea and Manchuria, won at the Yalu and Liaoyang, and besieged Port Arthur, which fell in January 1905 after 60,000 Japanese casualties. The largest land battle in history to that date at Mukden (February-March 1905) forced the Russians north; Admiral Togo destroyed the Baltic Fleet, which had sailed 18,000 miles, at Tsushima on 27-28 May 1905. Revolution in Russia and exhaustion in Japan led Theodore Roosevelt to broker the Treaty of Portsmouth (September 1905): Japan gained Port Arthur, southern Sakhalin and a free hand in Korea. About 150,000 died; the war shook European confidence and Russian autocracy.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Russo-Japanese War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Ships at Tsushima

Timeline of the Russo-Japanese War

1. 1904
   Japanese attack on Port Arthur8 February.
2. 1904
   Yalu; Yellow Sea; Liaoyang; Dogger Bank
3. 1904
   203 Metre Hill takenDecember.
4. 1905
   Port Arthur surrenders; Bloody Sunday in St PetersburgJanuary.
5. 1905
   MukdenFebruary to March.
6. 1905
   Tsushima27 to 28 May.
7. 1905
   Treaty of Portsmouth5 September.

Port Arthur

Russia had taken Port Arthur from a Japan forced to return it after 1895, built the Trans-Siberian and Chinese Eastern railways and occupied Manchuria after the Boxer Rising; its refusal to leave, and designs on Korea, drove Japan, allied to Britain since 1902, to war. Togo's destroyers torpedoed the Russian fleet at Port Arthur on the night of 8 February; Admiral Makarov died when his flagship struck a mine in April; the fleet's breakout was beaten at the Yellow Sea in August. Nogi's Third Army assaulted the fortress from August, taking 203 Metre Hill in December at terrible cost and shelling the ships in harbour; Stessel surrendered on 2 January 1905.

Manchuria

Kuroki crossed the Yalu on 1 May 1904, the first Asian defeat of European troops in a modern battle; Oyama's armies won at Liaoyang (August-September) and fought Kuropatkin to a draw at the Sha Ho and Sandepu. At Mukden in February-March 1905, 270,000 Japanese and 330,000 Russians fought for three weeks with 160,000 casualties, and Kuropatkin retreated north. Both armies were exhausted; Japan had 200,000 casualties and empty coffers, and Russia had a revolution at home after Bloody Sunday in January 1905.

Tsushima and Portsmouth

Rozhestvensky's Baltic Fleet, having fired on British trawlers on the Dogger Bank in October 1904, sailed round Africa and reached the Tsushima strait on 27 May 1905; Togo crossed its T and in 24 hours sank or captured 34 of 38 ships for the loss of three torpedo boats. Japan then took Sakhalin. Roosevelt's mediation produced the Treaty of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 5 September: Russia ceded Port Arthur, the South Manchurian Railway and southern Sakhalin and recognised Japan's interest in Korea; Japan got no indemnity, and Tokyo rioted at the terms. Korea was annexed in 1910; Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize; Russia's regime was fatally shaken.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Empire of Japan (1868 to 1947)
• Russian Empire (1721 to 1917)
• Qing dynasty (1636 to 1912)
• British Empire (1583 to 1997)
• German colonial empire (1884 to 1919)
• Third Portuguese Empire (1822 to 1999)

Wars of the same era and region

• World War I (1914 to 1918)
• Russian Civil War (1917 to 1922)
• Japanese invasions of Korea (Imjin War) (1592 to 1598)
• Korean War (1950 to 1953)
• Chinese Civil War (1927 to 1949)
• Panthay Rebellion (1856 to 1873)

8 surprising things about the Russo-Japanese War

1. Japan's victory was the first defeat of a European great power by an Asian state in modern times and inspired nationalists from Egypt to Vietnam.
2. The Baltic Fleet's 18,000-mile voyage included firing on British fishing boats it mistook for Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea.
3. Togo's flagship Mikasa is preserved at Yokosuka; his signal 'the fate of the empire rests on this battle' echoed Nelson.
4. General Nogi lost both his sons in the war and later committed ritual suicide on the death of the Meiji emperor.
5. The siege of Port Arthur was the first great trench and machine-gun siege, studied and misread by European staffs before 1914.
6. Roosevelt's mediation won him the first Nobel Peace Prize awarded to a statesman.
7. The Hibiya riots in Tokyo protesting the peace terms killed 17 and led to martial law.
8. The war's Russian defeat helped trigger the 1905 revolution and the Duma; Lenin called it the dress rehearsal for 1917.

Sources

• Russo-Japanese War Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Russo-Japanese War Wikipedia
• Battle of Tsushima Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Richard Connaughton, Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear (2003) Cassell

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