The year 2025 marked a series of anniversaries. Chief among them are the end of World War II and the subsequent establishment of the UN. Eighty years ago, the foundation of the world order was laid, a legacy that endures to this day. One of the most important results of World War II for Russia was the “nullification” of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The repeal of the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1945, viewed today, lingers against the backdrop of the fateful events of that victorious year. Meanwhile, a decisive end was being put to the forty-year legacy of the Russo-Japanese War, a defeat which had left a stain on Russia’s identity. Some lessons of defeat and subsequent revenge are still relevant today.
The events of 1904-1905 in the Far East are commonly considered among the darkest chapters of our history. Many who lived at the time and observed those events perceived the defeat as a symbol of Russia’s weakness and backwardness. Setbacks at the front were fuelled by the revolutionary events engulfing the country. Soviet historiography of the Russo-Japanese War was merciless: the defeat was the result of the short-sighted policies of a corrupt tsarist regime and a harbinger of its catastrophic performance in World War I. Isolated heroic events were singled out from the war. The battle between the cruiser Varyag and the gunboat Koreets against a superior Japanese squadron under Admiral Uryu during an attempt to break out of the Korean port of Chemulpo became legendary. The Varyag’s heroic deed received widespread attention during the war itself and was later celebrated in the Soviet period – the Varyag’s crew was awarded Soviet decorations. However, overall, the war was largely forgotten. The defence of Port Arthur, the actions of the Vladivostok cruiser detachment, and other events remained largely a niche topic, only occasionally reflected in popular culture and the politics of memory. The naval battle of the Tsushima Strait in 1905 has become a black page in Russian history, for obvious reasons.
The picture may be somewhat different if we look at the war of 1904-1905 from a broader perspective. It became a crucial stage in Russia’s turn to the East. Although the stage itself can be considered unsuccessful in many ways, it hardly halted the movement toward the Pacific, which continues today. Beginning with the “private-public” campaigns of the 17th century, Russia’s exploratory and military activities in the Far East acquired a systemic character during the imperial period. Despite the small size of the Russian presence, the geographic remoteness, the harsh climate, and the contradictory economic returns from its Far Eastern possessions, St. Petersburg persistently maintained an interest in the region. Until a certain point, this was made easier by the fact that other contenders were hardly eager to invest their efforts and resources in the struggle for Russian possessions. To many, they were seen as a useless burden. The Crimean War, when a British squadron attacked Petropavlovsk, became a turning point. The small Russian garrison put up stubborn resistance against significantly superior forces. Despite tactical successes, Russia was unable to be driven out of the Far East. Moreover, Russia’s presence there significantly increased after the Crimean War. It became clear that in the new era of coal and steel which had brought with it a revolution in military affairs, preserving the Russian Far East without a radical strengthening of its presence there and the simultaneous modernisation of the country would be increasingly difficult. This assumption was well illustrated by the decline of China, which clashed with technologically more advanced European powers and then with Japan. The latter developed rapidly, making significant strides in modernising its economy, military organisation, and political system in the final decades of the 19th century.
During the second half of the 19th century, Russia took three crucial steps to strengthen its position in the Far East. First, it significantly expanded its naval presence in the region. Russia imported and built ocean-going ships, and conducted regular rotational voyages from the Baltic to the Far East. In the event of a conflict with England or another European power, these ships could serve as cruisers, threatening the enemy’s maritime trade. Russia would have been unlikely to outmanoeuvre England in a naval war, but raiders in remote corners could easily inflict considerable damage, remaining an instrument of Russian foreign policy.
Second, Russia conducted active exploration in the Amur basin, and diplomatic efforts resulted in the consolidation of more advantageous geographic positions. Vladivostok was founded, which would later become Russia’s key port in the region. Due to the technical restraints of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, building the naval base in Vladivostok was made complicated by the harsh climate. The port was subject to freezing temperatures. The search for an ice-free port was a key objective of Far Eastern policy at the time and contributed to the clash with Japan.
Third, the government made vigorous efforts to connect European Russia with the country’s Pacific coast by rail. The scale of the Trans-Siberian Railway is astounding even today. While its capacity at the beginning of the 20th century left much to be desired, even then, it allowed for the concentration of forces in the Far East that otherwise could not have been transported and supplied. The government proceeded from a plan, reasonable for the time, that envisioned connecting the Trans-Siberian Railway to both Vladivostok and a new ice-free port. The Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), moving through Manchuria and branching off to the Liaodong Peninsula on the Yellow Sea, became an integral part of the railway route. The peninsula itself was leased from China for 25 years. A Russian naval base was established there at Port Arthur and a commercial port was established at Dalian (Dalny). It was here that the clash between Russia and Japan emerged. Having defeated China in 1894, Japan was to receive the Liaodong Peninsula under the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Fearing Tokyo’s growing strength on the mainland, Russia, along with France and Germany, effectively forced Japan to renounce several of its gains from the war with China. The decisive argument was the Russian squadron, which the Japanese navy at that time did not dare to compete with. After the Boxer Rebellion, Russian troops appeared in Manchuria, which also irritated Japan. Russia came very close to realising all the key objectives of its Far Eastern policy at the time: a permanent naval base and trading port, a commercial presence in China, and transport links between the European and Asian parts of the country.
Having yielded to Saint Petersburg’s demands, Tokyo began actively preparing for a showdown with Russia. Preparations began on the Russian side as well. A localised but rapidly evolving arms race unfolded. Japan implemented an ambitious naval modernisation programme. Advanced battleships, armoured cruisers, armoured deck cruisers, and other types of ships were ordered from England, France, and the United States. Argentina’s Garibaldi-class armoured cruisers, ordered from Italy, were purchased in a timely manner. Russia started building or completing its own ships: the sister battleships Petropavlovsk, Poltava, and Sevastopol, the battleship-cruiser hybrids Oslyabya, Peresvet, and Pobeda, which boasted high seaworthiness but weaker armour and armament, the armoured cruisers Rossiya and Gromoboy (a development of the large, advanced for its time, merchant cruiser Rurik), the armoured cruisers Aurora, Diana, and Pallada, and others. But domestic industry proved unable to renew its fleet at a comparable pace. The Russian industrial base was weaker. Ships were built slowly. A number of their characteristics (speed, armour, quantity and quality of artillery) were inferior to the latest Japanese units. In an effort to catch up, St. Petersburg also ordered a number of ships abroad. The modern battleship Tsarevich was built in France, and its sister ships Borodino, Suvorov, Alexander III, Oryol, and Slava were built at Russian shipyards. The armoured cruiser Bayan, which later received Russian-built counterparts, was under construction at a French shipyard. The armoured cruisers Askold and Bogatyr (copies of which were also built in Russia), and the second-rank cruiser Novik were ordered from Germany, while the second-rank cruiser Boyarin was ordered from Denmark. The battleship Retvizan and the armoured cruiser Varyag (an unsuccessful design with engine defects and weak artillery protection) were ordered from the United States.
In the arms race, Japan gained an advantage faster than Russia. By the end of 1903, all the most important combat units were operational and concentrated in the proposed theatre of military operations. Furthermore, a dense network of ports and anchorages has been created, which can be used for repairs, bunkering, and other tasks. Russia had assembled a seemingly impressive force. However, most of its ships were inferior to those of the Japanese or were poorly suited for squadron combat. The two bases, Port Arthur and Vladivostok, were separated by more than a thousand nautical miles and the narrowness of the Korea Strait. Modern Borodino-class battleships were being completed in the Baltic. Port Arthur’s fortifications were unfinished, and Vladivostok’s fortifications were weak. The same could be said of the repair base: it existed, but was insufficient. The Trans-Siberian Railway had only just been commissioned, and its throughput capacity was low. The net result was that Tokyo had a short window for offensive escalation. Another year of peace would have shifted the advantage to Russia. The Japanese acted pre-emptively.
Historians will long debate whether Russia could have won the war even under those unfavourable conditions. Fortune favoured the Japanese at several points: they succeeded in a surprise attack on Port Arthur, seizing the initiative. The element of surprise allowed them to neutralise the Varyag. The flagship Petropavlovsk, with the talented Admiral Stepan Makarov at its helm, was destroyed by mines. The modern Bogatyr ran aground. However, misfortunes followed the Japanese as well. Modern battleships sank due to Russian mines (“a black day for the Japanese Navy”).
The unfinished Port Arthur proved a tough nut to crack, tying down the Japanese Army for almost a year. The Vladivostok cruiser detachment managed to damage Japanese sea lanes, and it took a long time to capture them, despite the superiority of the Japanese ships. The Battle of Tsushima also had its share of accidents: the overload of some Russian ships precipitated their rapid demise, some Japanese ships exploded, ammunition ignited due to Russian hits, and so on. However, in the balance of chance, luck favours the strongest. In the early 20th century, Japan proved stronger.
From a material standpoint, Russia was quite capable of continuing the war. On land, the army had recovered from its defeats and was not routed. A formidable force had been assembled, fully capable of counterattacking in Manchuria regardless of the situation at sea. Japan itself was experiencing difficulties, being more vulnerable economically. Over the long term, Russia had the ability to wear down its enemy. The key factor that hindered Russia was the revolution of 1905, accompanied by unrest in the army and navy. Prolonging the war amid internal disarray became truly dangerous. Russia found itself weaker in terms of its political system at the time. The Treaty of Portsmouth, under those circumstances, became the lesser of two evils.
The miscalculations of Russia’s industrial policy and approaches to organising the army and navy before the war with Japan remain a subject of criticism to this day. Such miscalculations did indeed occur. But it’s best to reflect on them in hindsight, from the comfort of one’s office. Strictly speaking, all powers made similar mistakes simply because the pace of technological change and innovation inevitably outpaced strategic thinking. Certain types of weapons or ship types became obsolete even at the ordering or keel-laying stage. The Russian cruiser Rurik was state-of-the-art in the early 1890s, both technically and conceptually. Just ten years later, she was the weak link in the Vladivostok detachment. The newest Japanese battleships and armoured cruisers became obsolete just a year after the war, following the construction of the new Dreadnought class in England. She embodied all the key innovations of the time—turbine propulsion, numerous main battery guns (All Big Guns), a centralized fire control system, increased survivability, and so on. Not only the Japanese but also the British battleships built alongside the Dreadnought, as well as all other ships of the older classes from other countries, became obsolete. The Dreadnought itself would become obsolete in just a few years—faster and more powerful battleships and battlecruisers would emerge, complemented by the development of fundamentally new weapons, such as submarines, aircraft, etc.
Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War thwarted Russia’s plans to dominate Manchuria and Korea and gain access to the “warm seas”. However, it did not drive it out of the region. Vladivostok was transformed into a powerful and advanced fortress, continually improved. Further modernisation of the Trans-Siberian Railway guaranteed the concentration of forces if necessary. Its capabilities were demonstrated, among other things, during the Khalkhin Gol conflict, when the Soviet Union was able to quickly assemble a formidable mechanised force, combining various modes of transport and supply lines. In 1941, its transport links allowed the rapid deployment of Far Eastern and Siberian divisions in the Battle of Moscow. In 1945, it was possible to once again concentrate large forces for the war against Japan at the end of World War II.
Forty years after the Treaty of Portsmouth, the Soviet Union was able to largely compensate for the defeat of the Russian Empire. Moscow exploited both its accumulated material resources and the prevailing military-political situation: its alliance with the United States, the weakening of Japan, the outbreak of the People’s Liberation War in China, and the successes of the Chinese Communist Party. Soviet troops routed the Japanese Kwantung Army, captured Port Arthur, landed in Korea, landed on the Kuril Islands, and occupied the southern part of Sakhalin.
The fates of the powers that looked down on Russia during the Russo-Japanese War, relishing its failures, are interesting and revealing. England’s position would be seriously undermined by its defeat at the hands of Japan in World War II, whose navy had been forged on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War. Germany would lose Qingdao and its other bases as a result of World War I. France would be driven out of Indochina after World War II. Not a single European power remained in the region. Japan itself will be crushed by the United States; today it remains Washington’s junior ally. Its current conflict is fuelled by two Colossae – the United States and China. Russia is hardly a contender in the race for regional dominance. But it is unlikely to yield its positions, relying on the legacy of its distant and recent past, including the experience of its own defeat and the experience of compensating for it.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.
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