The Russo-Japanese War in World History

The Russo-Japanese War was the first war between the Great Powers that the world witnessed as the curtain rose on the twentieth century. In addition, French diplomatic historian René Girault regarded the war as “the start of the most important transformation in modern international relations.” By which he meant that it was a model for the twentieth century wars that followed, and “above all, the war [was] useful for detecting many important phenomena, to better understand the accelerating developments leading to World War I” (Girault 1998).

Understanding the Russo-Japanese War’s significance in world history relates to understanding the wars of the twentieth century as well as the larger flow of history that came afterwards. To say it another way, it is vital to understand the Russo-Japanese War as the most important nodal point both for Japanese history and world history in the early twentieth century. Here I would like to discuss how the Russo-Japanese War sits within international relations history and give a general outline of how the war came about, instead of going into the details of the Japanese domestic political process surrounding the war, of which many reliable studies already exist.

Twentieth-Century Geopolitical Framework

The war, which broke out on February 8, 1904, was an event with considerable implications for subsequent developments in world history. To understand this point, we must have an understanding of European international politics that lay behind the Russo-Japanese War. Erupting at the far eastern edge of the Eurasian continent, the Russo-Japanese War was intimately linked with “The Great Game”, the globe-spanning geopolitical rivalry between the British Empire, a leading sea power, and the Russian Empire, a continental one. It means that the interests of the British Empire were threatened by Russia’s expansionism and its construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, even as Japanese security was threatened by the spread of Russian influence on the Korean Peninsula.

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, signed two years before the outbreak of the war, joined the fates of two maritime nations, Britain and Japan, hemming the Russian Empire in between them. If we place the Russo-Japanese War like so in the framework of global geopolitical rivalry on the Eurasian continent between a sea power and a land power, we can see how it is tied to the later framework of rivals: Britain versus Germany in two world wars as well as the United States plus Britain against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Were we to do a geopolitical overview, within twentieth century world history, the war is characterized as a rivalry between a continental empire and maritime empire over a periphery of the Eurasian continent. We can understand Japan’s actions in the Russo-Japanese War that blocked the continental power’s hegemonic expansion in Eurasia as providing a model for international politics later in the twentieth century.

The outcome of the war exerted a decisive influence on international relations between major European countries thereafter. One consequence of the war, the threat posed by the Russian navy to the British Empire, vanished with the Russian Empire’s defeat. That fact prepared the environment for a rapprochement between the two in 1907. To restate the point, it was the annihilation and defeat of the Russian navy, a product of the Russo-Japanese War, that became the basis for the later Anglo-Russian Entente, which in turn became the Triple Entente with France.

After that, the continental power that would square off against the British Empire in the twentieth century would shift from the Russian Empire to Germany, and even later, to the Soviet Union in the Cold War era. Thus, Japanese military activities unintentionally had an enormous impact on European international relations, spawning a new framework for rivalry. This was not something Japanese leaders were cognizant of during the war.

Japan’s Victory as a Racial Menace

That Japan, a rising power in the Far East, was victorious in a war against the Russian Empire, Europe’s greatest land army superpower, forced a fundamental transformation, in terms of the discussion of civilization, in international politics that had been dominated by large European countries until that point. The Russian Empire, “a white nation”, was supposed to be superior to Japan intrinsically, both in terms of race and civilization. It was supposed to be impossible for the Japanese, a colored race, to beat Russia, a European power ruled by the proud Romanov family.

Japan overcame and defeated that distorted racist view, however, through a well-trained and disciplined military organization, effective government structure, and the existence of political-military relations that had gradually become integrated organically. The effect was to spread “Yellow Peril” ideology—the rise of the colored races and the ruin of the white race—among the major states of Europe, and a sense of crisis growing within the Russian and German empires. Which meant, as Girault argues, it was because “a victory of an Asian country was seen within Asia as something shockingly revolutionary.” To restate it, it was because “a Yellow victory struck unease in Europeans and Americans and fanned great hopes in the peoples of Asia” (Girault 1998).

You do see such Yellow Peril commentary quite often in Western countries at the time. For instance, after the Triple Intervention following the First Sino-Japanese War, German Emperor Wilhelm II made the following argument in a letter addressed to Russian Tsar Nicholas II, his third cousin: “I thank you sincerely for the excellent way in which you initiated the combined action of Europe for the sake of its interests against Japan. … For that is clearly the great task of the future for Russia to cultivate the Asian Continent and to defend Europe from the inroads of the Great Yellow race” (Hirobe 2017).

Also, Frederick Cunliffe-Owen, the former British diplomat who moved to the United States, sounded the alarm in a piece in The Washington Post on March 31, 1904: Japanese successes over Russia have “terribly impaired the prestige… of the white races as a whole, throughout Asia.” The rise of Japan as a modern nation as well as its victory over Russia whipped up a group of pundits to issue warnings of that kind of racial menace, an attitude often evident up through the mid-twentieth century.

Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War was an event that, above all, foretold the rise of Japan in international politics of the twentieth century as well as the rise of the sphere of non-Western civilization. It simultaneously reorganized European international relations and influenced enormously the very nature of international society. The international order, under European dominance until that point, inevitably underwent a significant transformation as the twentieth century dawned on the rise of America, a non-European power, as well as of Japan, a non-white power. This is where the significance of the Russo-Japanese War in world history lays.

World War Zero

The Russo-Japanese War is dubbed “World War Zero” in some recent studies, highlighting the important change of era it marks at the start of the twentieth century. One of the reasons is the recognition that the Russo-Japanese War is the origin of total war that came to symbolize the two world wars that followed. In addition, it was the first war in the twentieth century fought on a global scale between two major powers. The fact that the impact of the war was not limited to just Russia and Japan is perhaps the primary reason for this designation.

Yokote Shinji, professor emeritus of Keio University who wrote one of the finest works on the Russo-Japanese War, stated the following in one of his books:

The Russo-Japanese War, compared to the colonial wars that took place frequently at the time, was of a completely different kind, whether in terms of its scale, its tactical level, the level of weaponry used, or from the intimate relationship between the frontline and the home front that supported a long-term war. There had not been a war between Great Powers since the Franco-Prussian War, over 30 years earlier. Here we can see, plainly or in nascent form, the combination of trench warfare and machine guns, the capability to employ intelligence and propaganda, the coordination of land and sea forces to secure command of the sea, and almost all of the other warfare techniques that European countries will learn in the World War I (Yokote 2005).

In fact, many military observers accompanied the two countries’ military forces to monitor and analyze the war, and their reports had a great influence on later programs to strengthen military armaments. It was shocking how the battle sites at land and sea that they saw with their own eyes were so vastly different from those in nineteeth century Europe in general. Decisive fleet battles employing gigantic, armored vessels and ferocious land battles using machine guns on vast plains—the firepower and destructive power exceeded anything they could imagine. Their shock led to the subsequent augmentation of military capabilities by the Great Powers, which in turn resulted in World War I’s violent battlefields.

Even so, the Russo-Japan War was not a real world war and there were just two belligerents: Russia and Japan. Moreover, the war’s primary battle sites were limited to the Sea of Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and the neighboring Manchurian hinterland, so to the European powers this was nothing more than a conflict in distant lands the back side of the globe. Even calling it a total war, the modes of transportation and communication were the same as before, and so the Russian Empire severely lacked the resources for general mobilization of troops. The roles of Japan’s ally Britain and Russia’s ally France were completely indirect, meaning they had no direct impact on the war at all.

The important point is, the Russo-Japanese War set off a significant transformation of the structure of international relations among the major powers, which became evident in the several new diplomatic shifts that later link to World War I. With the Russian navy bearing fatal losses in its defeat in the Naval Battle of the Sea of Japan (Battle of Tsushima Strait), Russia’s navy was no longer a threat to the British Empire. This fact, as I mentioned above, foreshadowed the movement toward the Anglo-Russia Entente (1907). Japan’s victory is also tied to its advantageous position in Manchuria and on the Korean Peninsula, and Japan’s advances on the continent gave rise to frictions with the United States and other major powers.

Above all, Russia’s defeat in the war greatly damaged the authority of Tsar Nicholas II, which in combination with his imperial government’s corrupt foundations, paved the way toward the Russian Revolution. The Russo-Japanese War is regarded as an influential war in world history when judged from it impacts—sparking transformations in the power balance and reorganization of treaties and alliances leading to World War I or kindling the disturbance of internal order that led to revolution. This is perhaps why some call it World War Zero. An examination of the history of the Russo-Japanese War from a global perspective offers us an understanding of the dynamism of international society that was embarking on a new era in the twentieth century.

Next, I would like to turn our attention to the Russian Empire’s growing interest in its far eastern regions at the end of the nineteenth century.

The Tsesarevich’s Visit to the Far East

Tsesarevich Nicholas II departed the Gatchina Grand Palace and set out on his long Eastern journey in October 1890. Joined by his cousin, Prince George of Greece and Denmark, he visited Egypt, India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Siam (Thailand), China, and Japan on his way to Vladivostok, a newly developing city on Russia’s Sea of Japan coast, to attend the ceremony unveiling the Trans-Siberian Railway.

He was the first Russian heir-apparent to visit the Far East. Vladivostok was undeveloped land, far from the elegant imperial capital Saint Petersburg. Some in the imperial government came to believe that the Far East was important for Russia’s future development, a position that Nicholas II also understood keenly. In that sense, the tsesarevich’s visit to Vladivostok for the groundbreaking ceremony of the railway’s operations symbolized this posture of growing interest in the Russian Far East at the time. Russo-Japanese ties during this period were quite cordial, as they had been for some time. The march toward war had yet to be heard.

Nicholas II, 22 years old, was hoping to experience all that Japan had to offer during his visit; “I want to marry a Japanese woman,” he had written in his journals.

His cruiser anchored in the port of Nagasaki on April 27, 1891; Nicholas spent a relaxing evening with some of his crew at Volga, a Russian restaurant, on May 3. There the young tsesarevich met Michinaga Ei, a light-complexioned local woman in Western attire. It is said that, after enjoying a dance, the couple spent the night together. It was a fleeting romance (Morgun 2016).

The next morning, Nicholas returned to his cruiser with his memories of Japanese encounters of a non-official nature, where his ship weighed anchor for its next port, Kagoshima, on route to its final destination, Kobe. From there, he was scheduled to travel to Tokyo by land. However, on the way, he met with a failed assassination attempt in Ōtsu city in Shiga Prefecture (Ōtsu incident). Because of that, Nicholas II quickly changed his plans, returning to Kobe, canceling his Tokyo visit, and intending to go directly to Vladivostok. Even so, the incident did not ruin Nicholas’ impressions of Japan. Later, he often would speak with fondness of his youthful adventure in Japan.

His Eastern journey experiences had a great influence on Nicholas, who became Tsar Nicholas II. According to historian Dominic Lieven who wrote a critical biography of the tsar, “…above all, Nicholas was intent on developing Russia’s position in Siberia and the Far East. Particularly after 1900, his personal imprint on Russia’s Far Eastern policy became very important” (Lieven 1994, p. 94). Many of the tsar’s advisors at the time held a Eurocentric world view and downplayed the importance of developing the Far East; drawing from the experience of his journey, the tsar believed that Russia’s future lay in the development of vast Siberia. His experiences are tied to the Russian Empire’s expansion in Asia.

Expansion in Asia was also in vogue among the European powers then. In the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, they had largely completed their division and colonization of Africa and had turned their gaze on the next frontier, Asia. Especially when the Qing lost the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), exposing the dynasty’s fragilities, Britain, Russia, France, and Germany all scrambled to aggrandize their own interests in China.

For instance, now-Tsar Nicholas II told Prince Henry of Prussia in October 1901, “I do not want to seize Korea—but under no circumstances can I allow the Japanese to become firmly established there. That would be a casus belli” (ibid, p. 98). Blocking the spread of Japanese influence in the power vacuum on the Korean Peninsula had become a key objective of the Russian government. Conversely, the apparent spread of Russian influence in the Joseon royal court exacerbated the Japanese government’s fears.

Thus, the Far East after the Russo-Japanese War became the main stage on which European powers maneuvered diplomatically, a beguiling space to enlarge their influence. The Russo-Japanese rivalry over the Korean Peninsula was related to the trend in international politics. Thus, the framework for rivalry led both countries to war. But, at this stage, both countries still struggled to find the means to strengthen their friendly relations; war was by no means inevitable. Nevertheless, the important geopolitical setting existed, the context in which Russia and Japan operated, and is one reason that both countries were dragged into war.

The Era of the Great Game

We can highlight the geopolitical rivalry between the maritime British Empire and continental Russian Empire over the periphery of the Eurasian continent as being one of the most defining characteristics of international politics of this era. The framework for rivalry was called the Great Game. It was a rivalry on a global scale between the Russian Empire, with its Southern policy, and the British Empire, aiming to gain control over sea lanes of communication; they contended throughout the periphery of Eurasia, stretching from Europe through the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, British India, Southeast Asia, China, and on to the Korean Peninsula.

This meant that Japan became entangled in this framework for global geopolitical rivalry between the British and Russian empires with the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in January 1902. Japan was expected to use the modern military power it had employed to achieve its victory over Qing China to restrain Russia’s southward expansion of its sphere of influence.

In Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger wrote that “Characteristically, Russia’s appetite for Asian territory seemed to grow with each new acquisition.” According to Kissinger, “… Russia’s leaders took the position that the Far East was Russia’s own business and that the rest of the world had no right to intervene” (Kissinger 1996). Russia’s firm position on enlarging its territory inevitably aggravated its relations with Japan and its relations with Britain, which retained the largest interests in the Far East.

Meanwhile, Britain was actually undermining its national power as it built up its military forces in the Boer War in South Africa; ever greater military power was required to maintain the security and stability in the growing territory of the British Empire. To preserve Britain’s global interests, the Fifth Marquess of Lansdowne, who was foreign secretary in the government of Lord Salisbury, felt it was necessary for Britain to abandon its policy of “splendid isolation” and actively build treaties and alliances. This led to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902) and Anglo-French Entente (1904).

We can identify several factors that led to heightened tensions between Japan and Russia around the turn of the century. The first is the Triple Intervention following the First Sino-Japanese War, where Russia took the lead in cooperating with France, its treaty ally, and Germany to block Japan from keeping its Liaodong Peninsula territorial possessions. The intervention was linked to the Franco-Russian Entente while simultaneously being an expression of Russian fears about the expansion of Japanese influence in the Far East.

The fact that Japan had to return the Liaodong Peninsula to the Qing government under pressure by the three European powers orchestrated by Russia is remembered in Japan as a major disappointment and humiliation. On the other hand, it was also a significant motivation for Japan to draw closer to Britain, which had not been a party to the intervention. Secondly, Russia, which had dispatched its forces to protect its own interests in joining the multinational forces in the Boxer Rebellion (1900), continued to station the troops it had sent to Manchuria even after peace and security had been restored. The action resulted in protests by Japan and several other countries, and it was taken as an expression of Russia’s territorial ambitions.

Russia at the time loathed the fact that Japanese control of the Korean Peninsula prevented its Southern policy of aggrandizing its own influence. It had started constructing the Trans-Siberian Railway to extend its power to its Far East. By securing a port that remained free of ice year-round (unlike Vladivostok), it wanted to gain command of the seas in the region. It probably saw the spread of Japanese influence on the Korean Peninsula as an obstacle to its goals.

The British Empire’s efforts to enlarge its own sphere of influence in both the Mediterranean and the Far East, Russia considered an impediment. Russia sought to use military pressure to restrain Japan’s behavior. Nicholas II met with Itō Hirobumi at a royal palace in the outskirts of Saint Petersburg in November 1901. Itō had resigned as prime minister earlier that May and thereafter had poured his energies into bringing Japan and Russia closer together. The tsar said the following, which Itō understood: “I firmly believe that an agreement between Russia and Japan is entirely possible, that such an entente would be valuable to us as well as to the peace in the Far East, and moreover, that putting this relationship to good use would serve to achieve even greater purposes” (Asada 2018).

So, we see that Russia did not desire a war with Japan. It found it inadvisable to remain a spectator as its own regional interests were threatened by Japan, a newly developed country that had rapidly bolstered its military power and achieved victory over Qing China. Thus, Tsar Nicholas II said, “I, myself, do not want Korea. However, I cannot allow the Japanese to set foot there. For Russia, this would be an act of war. Japanese in Korea would be like a new Bosporus in East Asia. Russia can never approve” (ibid).

From the phrase “like a new Bosporus in East Asia,” we can understand that Russia viewed Eurasia as a whole, considering the matter of its western border, the Bosporus Strait, as being linked to the matter of its eastern border with the Korean Peninsula. In the end, Itō was unable to make the progress toward signing an agreement with Russia that he had hoped to achieve. The Japanese government preferred to ally with Britain instead of Russia. Japan’s entry into alliance with Britain in 1902 was, to Russia, a considerable obstacle. The Anglo-Russian Great Game over Eurasia had evolved into a confrontation between the Russia Empire and the Anglo-Japanese alliance.

The Beginning of the Russo-Japanese War

Opinions within the Japanese government were divided between the anti-Russia hardliners (Komura Jutarō, Katsura Tarō, Yamagata Aritomo), who thought that a war with Russia was unavoidable in order to ensure Japan’s national security and the independence of the Korean Peninsula, and those seeking to avoid war (Itō Hirobumi, Inoue Kaoru). Japanese public opinion, too, was split into pro-war and anti-war groupings. Yet, according to recent studies, it did not mean the two paths were always at odds, and many on both sides felt the necessity of reaching a mutual understanding with Russia through diplomatic negotiations as well as the necessity of strengthening cooperation with Britain (Chiba 2008).

For Itō, who had continued his efforts to establish a Russo-Japanese entente, it seemed hard to believe that Japan could win a war against the vast might of the Russian armed forces. Meanwhile, Russia was reinforcing the troops it had left in Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion step by step. Furthermore, Russia’s growing influence through Korean Emperor Gojong of the Great Han Empire was a source of deeper concern for Japan. Aleksey Kuropatkin, Russian imperial minister of war, visited Japan for negotiations on June 12, 1903, but since the Russian government held a low assessment of Japanese military power at the time, he did not appear to be serious in his discussion of the issue of Russian troop withdrawals from Manchuria.

As a compromise, the Japanese government put forward a proposal: Japan would recognize Russian influence in Manchuria in exchange for Russian recognition of its sphere of influence in Korea (Man-Kan kōkan ron). This stance acknowledged Russia’s special position in Manchuria in order to avoid going to war. Russian hardliners, who held a poor opinion of Japan’s national power on racial grounds, optimistically held that Russia would easily win a war if it were come down to it. It seems that the Japanese government thought that they could not reach a resolution of their problems through diplomatic negotiations as Tsar Nicholas II, too, did not feel a need to make any concessions to Japan.

The cabinet of Katsura Tarō believed that any further expansion of Russian influence on the Korean Peninsula threatened Japan’s “lifeline.” On February 6, 1904, Foreign Minister Komura Jutarō conveyed to Minister Roman Rosen of the Russian Embassy in Tokyo that Japan was severing diplomatic relations with Russia. Soon after, the Imperial Japanese Army advanced into the Korean Peninsula and eliminated the Russian army; the Imperial Japanese Navy wiped out the Russian Pacific Fleet anchored in Lüshun. Russian forces, insufficiently prepared for Japan’s surprise attack, were unable to take appropriate action and fell into disarray for some time. The Russian government criticized Japan, saying that its surprise attack came before it formally declared war, and thus was illegal under international law. This charge was levied even though Russia had been inserting and stationing troops in Korea before the fact. Russia was ultimately unable to conclude that Japan’s attack was illegal under the rules of war existing at the time.

On February 9, the Imperial Japanese Navy shelled Russia’s protected cruiser Varyag and gunboat Korietz just outside the port of Inchon, and they were forced to scuttle themselves. This event worked to Japan’s advantage in terms of gaining command of the seas around the Korean Peninsula. The Japanese government formally sent its declaration of war to the Russian government on February 10, after which the war commenced in earnest. Both parties entered a state of war at long last. Japan prosecuted the war to its advantage, having completed meticulous military preparations for war and shown firm unity among its political leadership. Divided between Lüshun and Vladivostok, the Russian fleet was handed a catastrophic defeat, unable to display its anticipated military capabilities when confronted with the ingenious tactics of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

The Portsmouth Peace Treaty

The Russian people were upset over the series of lost battles and the added miseries in their lives imposed by the war their tsar had started. Their discontent boiled over on Bloody Sunday, January 9, 1905. The losses among the people caused by the drawn-out war are connected to the increasing instability of Russian society in which the Russian Revolution later happened. With its Baltic Fleet essentially destroyed in the Naval Battle of the Sea of Japan on May 27–28, Russia completely lost control over the sea. When the fleet arrived in the Sea of Japan after a long seven-month passage from the Baltic Sea in Europe, a journey spanning half the globe, it had already lost the will to fight.

Wielding deft command of its modern naval vessels, Japan’s combined fleet lost only three torpedo boats, resulting in an overwhelming victory that sent shockwaves throughout the world. Within Russia, anger at the pitiful results of the war (such as the disgrace that the Russian Imperial Navy’s commander-in-chief had become a prisoner of war) precipitated widespread riots nationwide as they directed their anger against the tsar. Russia had lost both the popular support needed to continue fighting and the number of naval vessels sufficient to regain command of the sea.

Japan saw its military expenditures hit 1.8 billion yen owing to the necessity of assembling a sizable force to continue fighting with the enormous Russian military. The Japanese government found it impossible to continue bearing such costs. The mood for seeking peace was brewing on both sides.

Peace treaty negotiations began on August 9, 1905 just outside of Portsmouth, New Hampshire through the good offices of US President Theodore Roosevelt. The plenipotentiaries representing each side at the peace talks were Komura Jutarō, Japan’s foreign minister, and Sergei Witte, Russia’s former finance minister. Japan was unable to obtain the financial reparations or all the territorial concessions it had initially hoped for. Back in Tokyo, Itō Hirobumi thought that Japan could not continue fighting the war as it was eroding the nation’s strength. So, through his strong appeals, the peace Treaty of Portsmouth was signed on September 5, 1905, putting an end to the Russo-Japanese War that had stretched on for 18 months.

What Was the Russo-Japanese War?

In his book, Yokote Shinji succinctly argues the significance of the Russo-Japanese War: “The Russo-Japanese War was a major event in which an Asian country that had set up the new Meiji system fewer than 40 years before beat Russia, a European power. It was a clear demonstration of the fact that a non-European power could challenge a European great power in a war and win, provided it could deftly implement reforms learned from the Europeans. This, you might say, was the ideology that the Russo-Japanese War begat” (Yokote 2005).

In twentieth century history, this “ideology that the Russo-Japanese War begat” spread throughout the world in the blink of an eye. Motivated by this ideology, though heedless of the intentions of Japanese leaders or the later path Japan had travelled, many non-European countries began the fight to escape from colonial rule. Indeed, this ideology and their passion, by altering world history, created the history of the twentieth century. The irony is that, even as Japan encouraged the non-Europeans’ efforts to decolonize, it later took a path that resulted in the expansion of its sphere of influence, seeking natural resources and national security, and justifying its conduct with the same principles used by the European colonial powers.

The total number of military and civilian personnel that took part in fighting the Russo-Japanese War on the Japanese side topped 1.08 million; the number of Russian troops transported by Trans-Siberian rail was on the order of 1.29 million. The number of war dead is put at 84,000 for Japan and over 45,000 for Russia (ibid). Indeed, such statistics clearly show that it was a large-scale war calling for all the nation’s energies, appropriately called a “total war.” The rise of nationalism to mobilize the citizens in this way was indispensable.

The Japanese people, having paid an enormous sacrifice, had anticipated that the country would get territory and reparations, more than it had from the First Sino-Japanese War. But Russia held to a hardline posture at the peace talks, appearing ready to resume hostilities. Japan was in no position to fight Russia again given its lack of reserve troops, equipment, and logistics. Inferior in terms of national power, Japan felt it had to accept a peace treaty with only limited gains: the Southern Karafuto (southern part of Sakhalin Island), the Liaodong Peninsula leaseholds, and reimbursement for expenses used to care for Russian prisoners of war. Discontent with such a peace treaty, citizens gathered in Hibiya Park on September 5 and proceeded to protest violently, setting the home minister’s residence ablaze. Nationalism is both the vitality that is critical to wage war as well as the pressure complicating diplomatic compromise.

The Russo-Japanese War originated in the rivalry between Japan and Russia over the spreading of influence on the Korean Peninsula. So, Japan’s victory resulted in Japan occupying the superior position on the peninsula. The First Japan-Korea Agreement signed August 22, 1904 was an important step toward Japanese colonization of Korea. After the war, with Korea now placed within its sphere of influence, Japan began to feel the need to spread its influence in Manchuria, Korea’s hinterland, in order to protect its interests on the peninsula.

The rampant nationalism and enormous toll in citizen’s lives in the Russo-Japanese War, the first war between two major countries in the twentieth century and the first total war in history, foretold the tragedies humanity would encounter later that century. For Japan, which successfully underwent rapid modernization in the latter half of the nineteenth century, it was also an opportunity to affirm that the path that Meiji leaders had chosen was not a mistake. The Russo-Japanese War, associated as it is with the origin of total war and to Japan’s construction of a modern nation, also occupies a special place in world history in the sense that it is a union of the histories of Asia and Europe. Modern international society reached a new stage of development with the Russo-Japanese War.

Bibliography: For Further Reading

Asada, Masafumi. 2018. Nichiro kindaishi: sensō to heiwa no hyakunen (The Modern History of Japan and Russia: A Hundred Years of War and Peace). Tokyo: Kōdansha gendai shinsho.

An outline of the history of the Russo-Japanese War focused on diplomacy that grants a deep understanding of the background of the process leading to war. A valuable book depicting the historical overview of Japan-Russian relations.

Chiba, Isao. 2008. Kyūgaikō no keisei: nihon gaikō 1900–1919 (The Formation of Old Diplomacy: Japanese Diplomacy 1900–1919). Tokyo: Keisō Shobō.

Girault, René. Watanabe, Hirotaka et al (trans/eds). 1998. Kokusai kankeishi 1871–1914nen: yoroppa gaiko minzoku to teikoku shugi (Diplomatie européenne, nations et impérialisme: histoire des relations internationales contemporaines. T. 1, 1871–1914). Tokyo: Miraisha.

The French authority on diplomatic history lays out European international relations of the time from the comprehensive perspective of “international relations history,” synthesizing developments in military diplomatic history and socio-economic history. We can understand the moves of the European Great Powers that took place in the run up to the Russo-Japanese War.

Hirobe, Izumi. 2017. Jinshu sensō to iu gūwa: kōkaron to Ajia shugi (Race War Myth—Yellow Peril and Asianism). Nagoya: The University of Nagoya Press. [English version from Kaltenbronn Schwarzwald 16/IV 95 found at http://www.gwpda.org/wwi-www/willnick/wilnicka.htm]

Kissinger, Henry. Okazaki, Hisahiko (trans). 1996. (Diplomacy). Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha. [English publication from Simon & Schuster.]

Lieven, Dominic C. B. 1994. Nicholas II: Twilight of the Empire. New York: St. Martin's Griffin.

Morgun, Zoya. Fujimoto, Wakio (trans). 2016. Urajiosutoku: nihonjin kyoryūmin no rekishi 1860–1937nen (The Japanese Mosaic of Vladivostok, 1860–1937). Tokyo: Tōkyōdō shuppan.

Yokote, Shinji. 2005. Nichiro sensōshi: 20seiki saisho no taikokukan sensō (The Russo-Japanese War: the 20th Century’s First Major War). Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Shinsha.

The highest standard of historical research that you can read in the Japanese language on the Russo-Japanese War, replete with international research findings. As the author is a giant in the field of Russian political history, it is especially detailed on developments on the Russian side.

Additional Bibliography

Minamizuka, Shingo. 2018. Rendōsuru sekaishi: jūkyūseiki sekai no naka no nihon (Linked to World History: Japan in the World of the Nineteenth Century). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2018.

A study by an eminent historian laying out the linkages between European international relations and East Asian trends from an innovative viewpoint. One can understand that developments in Japan are deeply embedded in world history.

Steinberg, John W.; Menning, Bruce W.; Shimmelpennick van der Oye, David; Wolff, David; and Yokote, Shinji (eds). 2005. The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective. World War Zero. Leiden: Brill.