The Russo Japanese War 1904-05

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THE RUSSO JAPANESE WAR 1904-05

The Russo Japanese war was a conflict between Russia and Japan in 1904-1905. The cause of the war was because Russia wanted to expand into Asia and ran into Japanese plans for gaining a foothold on Asia main land. In 1898 Russia leased Port Arthur from china, with the intention of making it into a great Asiatic port and the headquarters of Russian naval power in the pacific. Russia already had troops in Manchuria during the boxer rebellion in 1900, but Russia had to face the anglo-japanese alliance of 1902, which promised to leave Chinese territory. The promise was not kept and in June 1903 Japan proposed a mutual agreement recognising japans interest in Korea and Russia’s in Manchuria and ensuring the integrity of china and Korea. Russia refused the proposal and caused the Japanese navy to launch a surprise attack to port Arthur and then blockaded the damaged Russian fleet on February 8 1904. The declaration of war followed on February 10.

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Japans naval power was well over double the power than Russia, which gave Japan an advantage.

Also when Japan was under the power of Emperor Meiji it had embarked upon a series of sweeping reforms aimed at rapid modernisation along western line. And the Japanese army and navy were far better prepared and equipped than the Russian forces and won a series of major victories.

The reason why the Russian forces were not successful against Japanese was not because their troops fought badly, but their military commanders had not prepared effectively and this allowed the Japanese to out manoeuvre the ...

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