Talk:Russo-Japanese War

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[edit] Foot Notes

Add some foot notes and more references and I think this article could be an FA. Coffeeboy 14:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC) 03:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)Cowboy357==Casualties == Fixed casualties numbers. Used http://www.soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter1_5.html , Tables 17 and 26
Urlanis, Boris, Wars and Population, 1960
Козловский Н. Статистические данные о потерях русской армии от болезней и ранений в войну с Японией. 1904-1905 гг. - СПб., 1911, с. 15. --DonaldDuck 13:23, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Those casualties don't make sense. According to those numbers, the Japanese had less numbers, and lost more troops. The Japanese WON the war.

True Oyo321 23:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Casualties of war are in contradiction of casualties of battles. For example Russian casualties in battle of Mukden = 26,500 killed, russian casualties in Russo-Japanese war = 25,331 killed. That is simply ridiculous. Also Japanese won the war. So i took new figures from http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/romeo/russojapanese1904.htm Staberinde 11:41, 21 July 2006

I have recently seen an article in an extremely prestigious russian journal (Nauka i Zhizn') that supports the intitial psoters data - that Russia had less deaths than Japan in the war. The reason could be that Russia had less people killed but way more wounded, or perhaps one of the sides is severely mistaken/counting casualties differently. In any case I will try to find an authoritative source on the issue. BTW, casualties have no correspondence to victory. The Germans lost WWII and the Soviets won, but the casualties of the latter dwarf those of the former. Until later --Yarilo2 19:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The difference is, the Soviets had a larger force than the Germans. If you have a larger force, you can endure larger casualties. In this war, Japan had a smaller force. It wouldn't make sense for a smaller force to win if it had higher casualties. Malamockq 05:26, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Japanese Casualties would have been higher than Russian due to the fact that the Japanese were on the offensive throughout the entire war. The historical rule of thumb is that with 2 similar armies and 1 is fortified, the attacker will lose approximately 2 men for every 1 of the defender. This is why most early strategists attempted to have a 3 to 1 numerical superiority when on the offensive. I can't comment on the factual nature of the casualty numbers quoted... just that when viewed from a tactical and strategic perspective, it makes perfect sense that the Japanese suffered heavier casulties Cowboy357 03:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Above comment is correct. The higher casualty figure for the Japanese makes perfect sense. Broadly speaking, you lose a war because your resources or men, material or will power are exhausted, not because you are behind 108-97 at the pinger in the death basket count. Japan was fighting a war on its doorstep. Russia was fighting a war in an far eastern arena in which the Japanese had effectively destroyed its marine power and in which it was extremely difficult to resupply over huge distances across the Russian interior. Of course, there are many other factors, but this is just to make the point that simplistic equation of death count with victory is facile.

Buyo 21 October 2006

I'd agree with the above comments. The Japanese pushed forward recklessly at times to gain their objectives, and many of the battles were marked by tactical Russian retreats fought with rearguard actions, which naturally involved less Russians in the first instance. Furthermore, one of Kuropatkin's chief failures was his refusal to commit his full body of men to the action. Thus at Yalu and Liaoyang the sheer size of the Russian army was never fully brought to bear. Gunstar hero 14:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

UYOKU POV MANIFEST

Quotes:

The Japanese WON the war.
Also Japanese won the war.

OK. Now I see the problem here. Japan won zip. In fact at best it was a draw. The quotes culled above are evidence that the uyoku influence is evident here. The Japanese military won battles at sea (which the government ultimately lost at home—review the response they got over the peace treaty) and the Russians held them on land while punishing them with severe casualties. This is crucial for two reasons. One, since this was a war for territory on land, this basically meant that the Japanese were inflicting damage but not winning the war. Two, the Japanese had technical superiority at sea but that was the only ace in their hand. Those strategic naval wins were in fact what galvanised the western powers.

DISREGARD THAT 'TECHNICAL SUPERIORITY' STATEMENT. THAT IS A CATCH ALL PHRASE WHICH IS USED TOO OFTEN BY WRITER's THAT ARE NOT TAKING THE TIME TO WRITE IN DETAIL. ADM TOGO DID NOT HAVE TECHNICAL SUPERIORITY. HE HAD CLEAN AND WELL MAINTAINED BATTLESHIPS, DUE TO THE CLOSENESS OF HIS HOME BASE. THIS ALLOWED FOR SPEED DURING THE FIGHT. ADM ROZHESTVENSKI HAD SEA GROWTH ON HIS BATTLESHIPS DUE TO THE LONG VOYAGE, WHICH COST HIM SPEED DURING THE FIGHT. ADM TOGO NEARLY WORE OUT HIS 12 INCH GUNS TRAINING HIS MEN; THEY MADE A GOOD ACCOUNT OF THEMSELVES DURING THE FIGHT. ADM ROZHESTVENSKI COULD ONLY TRAIN HIS MEN WHILE ENROUTE TO THE FIGHT, AND THEN HE HAD TO PRESERVE WHAT 12 INCH AMMUNITION REMAINED FOR THE SEA BATTLE.

THE BORODINO BATTLESHIPS MAY HAVE BEEN TOP HEAVY, DUE TO THE FRENCH TUMBLE-HOME DESIGN, AND COMBAT OVER LOADING OF COAL, ETC. BUT THEY WERE NEW (NOT WORN OUT) AND CARRIED 12 INCH GUNS JUST AS TOGO'S BATTLESHIP DID. AGAIN, TECHNICAL SUPERIORTY IS A "CATCH ALL" PHRASE THAT HAS NO BEARING ON THE SUBJECT.

CONSIDERING THAT ADM ROZHESTVENSKI HAD TAKEN FOUR BRAND NEW BATTLESHIPS, ALONG WITH BRAND NEW CREWMEN, ON AN UNPRECEDENTED SEA VOYAGE, AND COULD ONLY RE-COAL AT SEA OR HIDDEN FROM VIEW, DUE TO NEUTRALITY LAWS, AND THEN FIGHT A MASSIVE SEA BATTLE WITH NO TRAINING......AND STILL MANAGE TO HIT ADM TOGO'S BATTLESHIPS, AND STILL ADVANCE INTO TOGO'S LINE.....SAY'S ONLY ONE THING. THAT ADM ROZHESTVENSKI AND HIS MEN HAD COURAGEOUSLY AND WITH DETERMINATION, ENGAGED THE ENEMY AT TSUSHIMA IN MAY 1905.

But go back and read the article. Japan was bankrupt. (They did the same thing in WWII. After Midway it became patently obvious their ability to rebuild was seriously crippled.) What the Japanese school books do not tell and the uyoku do not want to admit is that Russia was fighting the Japanese with one hand behind its back and then there were massive strikes and then a full blown revolution—all the while dealing with a new colonial power at the far end of their empire.

Had the war continued and the US not brokered a deal there is no telling what would have happened to Japan. If they continued to send troops to fight during the civil disturbances, the Russians could have dragged the war out for quite a while before being totally exhausted. This was not the case with Japan who had very limited resources and manufacturing capabilities. The pertinent question you need to deal with here is this, How long did it take Japan to build their new navy? You answer that and you will see why Japan had a year, maybe 18 months of fight in them and then they were through. (The same thing that happened in WWII.)

Had Russia resolved its own domestic problems, the Japanese archipelago would have easily fallen under the boot of the Tsar (or whomever won the domestic dispute) if they had decided to continue hostilities. Russia signed a peace treaty to forestall the domestic issues, which was fortunate for Japan since they were literally at the end of their tether. If anyone defeated Russia, they were Russians, not Japanese. The real winners were the western powers who had once again stymied the Russians advance into Asia just as the French and British and done over Russian’s designs on the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire.Malangthon 10:21, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a common line of argument, but it seems to be working against itself. For a start, Russians only really conceived of the war as a colonial one; there was no great national interest or ideological belief in it. It had been intended to help pacify domestic unrest but if anything the eventual news of defeats, and especially the (symbolic) loss of Port Arthur, created futher disaffection, as did the ongoing recruitment of soldiers for the front, many of whom were desperate to escape conscription (some contemporary sources list episodes of self-mutilation). The notion that 'if Russia had decided' to continue fighting, therefore, is somewhat fatuous. It assumes that a government - even if we take the counterhistorical line that the tsarist autocracy was overthrown and a popular government installed - would be able to mobilise its troops and instil a firm patriotic spirt into them. This in turn would demand the resolution of the greater social problems which had led to the 1905 situation, of which the war was only part catylst. I feel that this demands a rather tenuous string of causality and would have additionally taken a significant period of time in which Japan was strengthening its own position. Not only does almost every contemporary account note the dejection of the Russian forces in the field, and their chronic lack of morale following an endless string of defeats and tactical retreats, but the lack of sufficient numbers of trained troops and Cossacks to maintain domestic order became a serious problem. The Russian reservists were seriously unreliable and by the spring if 1905 recruitment had been abandoned in several provinces.

Russia itself was also in a perilous financial situation, along with Japan. Russia was not especially rich in the first place compared to its heavily industrialised neighbours, and had had to range several hundred-billion dollars' worth of loans beforehand, often with France as its backer. Seeing Russia's humiliation in battle, France was increasingly unwilling to sanction further loans and had its own fortunes to think about, especially in seeming to undermine the Anglo-French rapporachment by looking to further a bloody war, and also in draining its own resources in the face of Germany and its own fragile colonial presence. Before the Portsmouth treaty several Russian ministers - including the Minister of Finance - predicted that national bankruptcy was only months away. Again, it seems rather fatuous to suggest that Russia could have just 'sorted out' these problems had slightly different decisions been made.

This argument also depends on a rather rosy assessment of Russian military power, generally involving the totalling of respective armies and reservists to the point at which the Russian total exceeds the Japanese one, and thus - in what is actually an ironic nod to First world War thinking - victory is assured by strength of numbers. Assuming that the Trans-Siberian railway (the easiest target of all for the 1905 strikes) could maintain a military effort, and Russia's economy support it through resources and so on (the theatre of war could by 1905 provide very little sustenance), it does not take into account the massive losses Russia may have endured. Why would more men = victory? Had not Japan learnt costly lessons in the war itself? Japan may well have fought a tactical retreat if faced with swelling Russian forces. Who knows. What is known is that offensive actions in the war were tremendously bloody, and as combatants ( and machine guns/heavy artillery) grew in number toward the back end of the conflict, casualties increased in proportion. Japan had complete naval superiority after Tsushima. Russia had the ageing Black Sea fleet incarcerated by the British. Russia would take years to rebuild its navy. The idea that Russia could have taken Japan in any conceivable timescale can be roundly dismissed. This would have provoked international outrage in any case, and brought the British into the conflict via the terms of the Alliance. Indeed, there is no conceivable motive for Russia wishing to do this. For example, there would be very little point suffering mass casualties (and high they would be) to retake Port Arthur. There was no navy to station there, and the war had disproved the importance of strategic strongpoints.

A major factor - perhaps the most major of all - which is totally ignored by such historical and causal telescoping is the threat of Germany. Germany was more than willing to have Russia become absorbed in Japan. The Russo-Japanese war undoubtedly disturbed the balance of power in Europe. Japan's defeat of Russian armies, kicking Russia out of the Far East, and the resultant unwillingness or inability of Russia to seek recrudescence (and also the knowledge that Russia was no longer a naval power) dramatically increased Germany's relative power. The geopolitical imperatives resulting from this event contributed directly to the spectrum of factors leading Europe into the First World War. Europe did not 'win' at all by this turn of events, as many recognised. The stabilisation of East Asia was concomitant with a destabilisation in European politics and a focus upon serious international rivalries close to home, not the proxy game of colonisation. Russsia's military would not even be properly organised by 1914, and its rout by Germany would then led to the real revolution.

Finally, the notion of 'victory' needs to be placed in a broader context. Read any source of the time - the conviction that Japan had beaten Russia was universal. Russia thought it would triumph (well, some didn't) but it had been tactically and strategically beaten. Psychologically, of course, there is no question that this was a Japanese - even an Asian or 'Yellow' victory. The Russians did not 'hold the Japanese on land'. They simply fought a tactical retreat, and the combat of the time entailed that this would be more costly to an offensive force. Ergo, any Russian counterattack would be met with stiff resistance - as was the case at Sandepu. In that case the russians tried to mount a counteroffensive partly to instill morale. The battle lasted four days, or thereabouts, and the most recent scholarship shows that a 3:4 ratio of Japanese to Russian casualties, with a notably higher proportion of Russian dead (Kowner, 2005, p. 342). Japan never achieved the crushing land defeat, but they knew they could never defeat "Russsia" in a holistic sense (vica-versa with Japan). But this was a fact of modern warfare - only a selection of 20th century victories would result in the "total" defeat of a nation, and even then the nation itself survives in some form. Gunstar hero 17:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

JAPAN'S INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY

Spurious claims of Japan’s defeat of Russia

I was going to sort this out from my resources at hand and then I realised that the Wikipedia already has it. Japan did not come even close to getting the upper hand on the Russian Empire. Check out the wikipedia article on the Imperial Japanese Navy and go to the Russo-Japanese War. Japan did not build its navy nor did they develop its strategy. The strategy was French from the 19th century and the navy was predominantly European:

6 battleships (all British-made)
8 armored cruisers (4 British, 2 Italian, 1 German, and 1 French-made)
9 cruisers (5 Japanese, 2 British and 2 US-made)
24 destroyers (16 British and 8 Japanese-made)
63 torpedo boats (26 German, 10 British, 17 French, and 10 Japanese-made).

The culminating event for this navy was the Battle of Tsushima fought on European decks with European guns in a European war against a European power all made possible by European—not Japanese—industry and wherewithal. Malangthon 11:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the Japanese purchased most of their vessels from Western nations. But the Russians did not build all of their vessels either. The point at issue is the fact that Japan had modernised sufficiently to be able to finance the huge 10-year naval rearmament programme that began after the Triple Intervention, and evidently with incredible success. Producing your own ships is not a measure of your industrial power, but rather your national investment in shipbuilding facilities. Japan would not fully develop such facilities until after the First World war. It would be illogical, for example, to suggest that America lacks industrial power because it imports a huge amount of manufactured goods from China, where they can be produced en masse at a feasible unit cost.

In any case, even if we recognise Japan's industrial immaturity, it doesn't make thsi a 'European' victory. That is an arrogant Euro-centric argument that again looks to protect the mythical history of white supremacy from Asian encroachment. Japan helped European industry in the first place by purchasing ships, and thereafter had to train their crews to a high standard - something that Russia was categorically unable to do - over a short period of time. The war illustrated that technology did not belong to a 'race' and dismantled the notion that any particular nation was superior. With enough money and resolve, anybody could become a world power.

Of course, you could take the line that all global development after the Renaissance and Industrial Revolution is somehow a product of the dissemination of Western individuals, products, knowledge and techniques (by which the North Korean nuclear threat, for example, would be something produced by American); this does not seem like a sensible way to study history. Gunstar hero 20:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Imperialism?

While this was the period of imperialism, Japanese interests in Korea were not specifically imperial until 1910. Remember that the policy of SeiKanRon was rejected by Iwakura and instead the area was treated as Gustav Meckel said: the dagger pointed at thea heart of Japan. I don't believe there was an intent to annex so early. They'd been burned on Liaodong and didn't want to get burned again. Their means of dealing with the geopolitical problem of Korea was to maintain their own influence as the strongest in Seoul. This meant signing the treaty of Kianghwa, fighting the Chinese, and then firghting the Russians. When the Koreans didn't play the way the Japanese wanted to, they decided the only way to control the geopolitical threat was to own it. I feel the article ought to be pushed a little away from the broad brush of "imperialism" and more towards the specific facts in the history.

That's true, but Imperial interests doesn't necessarily mean colonisation. Don't forget indirect colonisation was equally a form of Imperialism. Imperial powers did only wish to directly colonise countries where they felt doing so was either imperative to ensure control or to keep our rivals. Japan still wished to dominate Korea politically and commercially. Annexation in 1910 was virtually a formality, or the logical extension of earlier policies. Japan had had a rough time of it during the original attempts to govern Korea during the sino-Japanese war and was unwilling to opt for full control unless it became absolutely necessary. In 1894 the rhetoric was also of the 'civilising mission'; by 1910 Japan was not as concerned about intervention from foreign rivals, and thus was not necessarily required to justify her activities so assiduously.

[edit] Polish-Japanese cooperation

I added short sentence on cooperation between representants of Poland and Japan in regards to Russian Empire. While it mainly focused on intelligence gathering and diversion, but as tens of thousands of Poles were forced to serve in the army of Russian Empire that occupied Poland this is recalled sometimes in studies of the conflict. --Molobo 00:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Thats not a new story. Many civilzations have forced people of other ethinc groups to serve in their military (ex. Rome) Oyo321 23:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just a quick...

...Japan strove to transform herself... What is with the herself? Should it be itself? I'm pretty sure it's a mistake but just to make sure if it's intended -- Henk65 00:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It's probably intentional- countries are often referred to as 'she' in a variety of- particularly older- texts. --KatzMotel 01:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable description of the cause of the war, consider the following

The reign of Nicholas II was a colossal failure, the empire's entire population was alienated and disatisfied. The Czarist regime needed a diversion, it sought its diversion in a foreign adventure, hoping to unite the nation and restore the prestige of its rulers. The Czar had no respect for the Japanese; even in official documents he called them "monkeys." St. Petersburg turned aside every effort by the Japanese to work out some sort of accommodation. Count Witte had sought to head off conflict; his removal from the Finance Ministry in 1903 convinced the Japanese that the war was inevitable. That suited the Czar and his circle. "Russia's internal situation" required something drastic, said the Minister of Interior. "We need a little victorious war to stem the tide of revolution."

Excerpted from pages 129-130 of The Prize, The Epic Quest for Oil Money and Power by Daniel Yergin

/*### (Questionable quotation, consider other sources) ###*/

[edit] Montenegro

A little known fact is that the small kingdom of Montenegro declared war on Japan alongside Russia out of gratefullness for Russia`s support in it`s struggles against the Ottoman Empire. It was only a moral support gesture since Montenegro had neither a navy nor logistic capabilities to send troops to the front, but there were some Montenegrians in Russian army including some officers. Since the country itself neither saw action with Japan nor had any interest in having relations with Japan at the time it never signed peace since it was technically on the losing side. In 1918 it became a part of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, so that ended the story until when Montenegro declared independence. In 2006 the two countries finally siged peace according to these links. [1] [2] It might be an interesting thing to mention in the article.

Veljko Stevanovich 30. 12. 2006. 20:00 UTC+1

[edit] Casualties

The page gives 24 844 killed, 146 519 wounded, 59 218 POW for Russia and 47 387 killed, 173 425 wounded, and no POW for Japan. According to http://www.soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter1_5.html (based on Urlanis), the casualties are: 25 331 killed, 146 032 wounded, 6127 dead of wounds (including 613 in captivity), 11 170 dead of disease for the Russian army and 6299 casualties for the Russian Navy. For Japan: same number of killed and wounded as in the article, plus 11 425 dead of wounds, 27 192 dead of disease and 2000 Navy casualties. Thus, the overall amount of people who died in this war is not 70 thousand, but about 130 thousand for the land campaign alone. With respect, Ko Soi IX 02:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

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Talk:Russo-Japanese War

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[edit] Foot Notes

[edit] Imperialism?

[edit] Polish-Japanese cooperation

[edit] Just a quick...

[edit] Questionable description of the cause of the war, consider the following

[edit] Montenegro

[edit] Casualties

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