The Russo - Japanese War : The Turning Point of the Russian Empire

Abstract

This article studies the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 caused by rival attempts for dominance in Manchuria and Korea. In 1897 Russia pressured China into granting it a lease for the strategically important port of Arthur at the tip of Liaodong, and she later occupied Chinese-held Manchuria with the rights to extend the Trans-Siberian Railway across Manchuria to the Russian seaport of Vladivostok. The Russian presence, therefore, threatened the Japanese's policy of making “sphere of influences” in the Far East. Moreover, Russia refused the Japanese fum occupuing Korea. Their relationship deteriorated, and on February 8, 1904, the Japanese attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. They proceeded to inflict a series of defeats on the Russian armies along the Yalu River and in Manchuria itself. Russia attempted to recover the lost sea power by sending her fleet from the Baltic to the Pacific via the Good Hope, but it ended in the disastrous defeat of Tsushima in May 1905. The two Powers accepted the mediahon a American president Theodore Roosevelt, and peace was signed in September 1905. The loss of prestige by the Russians and the Tsar Nicholas II contributed to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1905 which was a turning point in modern Russian history.