Russo-Japanese War facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Russo-Japanese War
Date 8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905 Location Manchuria, Yellow Sea Result Japanese victory; Treaty of Portsmouth
Belligerents
Russian Empire	Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
Tsar Nicholas II Aleksey Kuropatkin Stepan Makarov  † Zinovy Rozhestvensky	Emperor Meiji Ōyama Iwao Nogi Maresuke Tōgō Heihachirō
Strength
500,000	300,000
Casualties and losses
34,000 – 52,623 killed and died of wounds 9,300 – 18,830 died of disease overall 43,300 – 71,453	47,400 – 47,152 killed 11,424 – 11,500 died of wounds 21,802 – 27,200 died of disease overall 80,378 – 86,100

The Russo-Japanese War was a war between the Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire. It started in 1904 and ended in 1905. The Japanese won the war, and the Russians lost.

The war happened because the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire disagreed over who should get parts of Manchuria and Korea. It was fought mostly on the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden, the seas around Korea, Japan, and the Yellow Sea. The politics of the two countries in the war were very complicated, but both wanted to gain land and economic benefits.

The Chinese Empire of the Qing Dynasty was large but weak, and it was Qing land and possessions they fought over. For example Korea was under Qing rule, but was seized by Japan. The Russians wanted a 'warm-water port' on the Pacific Ocean for their navy and trade. The harbour at Vladivostok freezes over in the winter, but Port Arthur (now called the Liaodong Peninsula in China) can be used all the time. Russia had already rented the port from the Qing and had got their permission to build a Trans-Siberian railway from St Petersburg to Port Arthur.

Reasons for war

Russia wanted a warm-water Pacific Ocean port for trade and her navy. Japan wanted to expand her empire into Korea and China. Japan thought that when Russia completed her railway in 1906 she would be able to beat Japan in a war because she could supply large numbers of troops there. To avoid war, Japan would have to compromise with Russia, and Russia would get the better deal. Japan wanted a bigger share of Korea and China than she thought Russia would offer and decided to attack before the railway was complete and she still had a chance of doing well in a war with Russia.

The war started with a Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur. It continued with Japanese victories in Manchuria and elsewhere. The last major battle at Tsushima Strait destroyed the Russian navy.

Peace treaty and aftermath

United States President Theodore Roosevelt helped Russia and Japan make peace after the war. He won a Nobel Prize for this. Russia had to give up all influence in the Far East. The Russian people were very angry at the government and at czar Nicholas II for not continuing the war because everyone was sure that Russia could have won. This is true because Japan was completely broke and she would have suffered an economic crisis after just a few more months of fighting. Russia's army was also much stronger than Japan's and had very large reserves to replace the soldiers she lost, but Japan had no more men with military training to replace her losses and no money to give new men training.

The Japanese got Port Arthur and the Russian railway in Manchuria. Five years later in 1910, Japan took over Korea. Japan would continue to grow its empire in Asia until World War II. The Russians defeat was one of the reasons for the Russian army's great improvement after 1904 and this improvement helped start the European arms-race that was a cause of World War I. The war also contributed to the Russian Revolution and Civil War in 1917.

• Asakawa, Kanichi. (1905). The Russo-Japanese Conflict: Its Causes and Issues. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. OCLC 2418247; reprinted by Kennikat Press, Port Washington, New York, 1970.
• Koda, Yoji. "The Russo-Japanese War: Primary Causes of Japanese Success," Naval War College Review (Spring 2005)
• Mutsu, Munemitsu. (1982). Kenkenroku (trans. Gordon Mark Berger). Tokyo: University of Toyko Press. ISBN: 9780860083061; OCLC 252084846
• Nish, Ian, ed. The Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5 Folkestone, Kent : Global Oriental. ISBN: 978-1-901-90306-5; OCLC 56955351

Images for kids

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  An anti-Russian satirical map produced by a Japanese student at Keio University during the Russo-Japanese War. It follows the design used for a similar map first published in 1877.

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  Chinese generals in Pyongyang surrender to the Japanese, October 1894.

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  Troops of the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900. Left to right: Britain, United States, Australia, India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan.

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  Kurino Shin'ichirō

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  Japanese infantry during the occupation of Seoul, Korea, in 1904

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  Battlefields in the Russo-Japanese War

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  Bombardment during the siege of Port Arthur

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  Japanese assault on the entrenched Russian forces, 1904

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  Route of Baltic Fleet, to and back

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  Retreat of Russian soldiers after the Battle of Mukden

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  An illustration of a Japanese assault during the Battle of Mukden

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  Japanese battleship Mikasa, the flagship of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō at the Battle of Tsushima

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  Negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905). From left to right: the Russians at far side of table are Korostovetz, Nabokov, Witte, Rosen, Plancon; and the Japanese at near side of table are Adachi, Ochiai, Komura, Takahira, Satō. The large conference table is today preserved at the Museum Meiji-mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

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  Japan-Russia Treaty of Peace, 5 September 1905

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  Japanese propaganda woodcut print showing Tsar Nicholas II waking from a nightmare of the battered and wounded Russian forces returning from battle. Artist Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1904 or 1905.

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  After the Battle of Liaoyang: Transport of wounded Russians by the Red Cross (Angelo Agostini)

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  Japanese general, Kuroki, and his staff, including foreign officers and war correspondents after the Battle of Shaho (1904)

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  Getsuzō's woodblock print of "The Battle of Liaoyang", 1904

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  Painting of Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō on the bridge of the Japanese battleship Mikasa, before the Battle of Tsushima in 1905

See also

In Spanish: Guerra ruso-japonesa para niños