Season 13, Episode 16: The Russo-Japanese War, Part 1
In its continued refusal to cease its ongoing occupation of Manchuria in the early 1900s, the Russian Empire alienated many would-be allies across Europe at a critical time. The question naturally arises, why would they risk the enmity of Britain and Japan? While certainly some of the answer lies in the extreme naivete of Tsar Nicholas II, a significant portion lies in a larger cultural trend among certain influential sects of European literati.
As conditions in China continued to deteriorate, more and more of its people emigrated to various foreign locales. In the United States, they assisted in the construction of the trans-continental railroad, among a multitude of other grand construction projects. However, while the moneyed interests of these nations were only too happy to have a ready supply of cheap labor, the presence of east Asian workers was an easy trigger for racists of every social class. The fears of Chinese and other east Asians was justified by pseudo-academic racism which went by the label “The Yellow Peril.”
Essentially, The Yellow Peril was the result of math and racism. East Asian people groups were, on the whole, much more populous than white Europeans, which led to some pseudo-academics theorizing about a future in which people with white skin were dominated by the rising powers of the far east. It was a reprehensible pseudo-science which captured the imaginations of Americans and Europeans, who then felt justified when passing laws restricting the movement and civil liberties of the Chinese immigrants within their domains, regardless of which impressive construction project they were making possible. In 1882, U.S. President Chester A. Arthur signed a bill into law which is commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion Act. This law was intended to halt all labor immigration from China to the U.S. for an initial period of ten years, but it was renewed in 1892 and then permanently enshrined in 1902. The act excluded diplomats, merchants, students, teachers, and tourists, but the vast majority of Chinese seeking entry were common laborers, who were now legally barred from the U.S. While the act was difficult to enforce and routinely circumvented, the fact that it was popular enough to be enshrined into law was a troubling development.
Anti-Chinese racism was hardly limited to the United States and Europe proper. While the desire to restore allegedly glorious former imperial days explains part of the Russian Empire’s expansion into Manchuria and east Asia in general, Tsar Nicholas II also had one very influential enabler: Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire. Wilhelm was an enthusiastic adherent of Yellow Peril beliefs and in his letters to his cousin Nicky, he declared that the Tsar was a champion of white Christian civilization and that his occupation of Manchuria was commendable.
While being a racist trash-basket was part of the Kaiser’s motivations here, he also had a geopolitical goal in mind. France enjoyed managing a global empire and was still bitter over their loss in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. The Kaiser believed that a future war between Germany and France was inevitable. The triple intervention which succeeded in convincing the Japanese government to return Liaodong Province to the Qing Dynasty was composed of Russia, France, and Germany. France disapproved of Russia’s Manchurian land-grab and Kaiser Wilhelm hoped that by supporting Russian adventurism in the far east, he might persuade cousin Nicky to side with him when the inevitable war with France began.
There was, of course, a good deal more diplomatic posturing between Russia and various European nations over their choice to ignore the Boxer Protocol, but none of it was successful in removing the Russians from Manchuria. After diplomatic efforts by Japan’s own Ito Hirobumi failed to convince them to withdraw, war was seen as the logical next step.
On February 9th, 1904, the Japanese Imperial Navy launched a surprise attack against the Russian fleet anchored at Port Arthur. Such pre-emptive strikes were in keeping with Japanese tradition, both premodern and concurrent. The initial battles of the First Sino-Japanese War were launched by the Japanese without warning and the premodern code of Bushido held that every warrior should be ready at all times to be attacked. If you were caught unawares by an enemy, dishonor was not ascribed to the enemy for being sneaky - it was ascribed to you for not being ready.
The attack on Port Arthur was planned with the usual level of caution from the Japanese top brass. Engaging Russia in a war was not undertaken lightly - this was an unprecedented maneuver in world history. The Imperial armed forces had successfully suppressed samurai rebellions, engaged in punitive expeditions in Taiwan, and won a war against China but it had never actually gone toe-to-toe with an imperial European power.
Port Arthur was a critical target for Japan because of a number of factors. It was Russia’s only warm-water Pacific port which was available year-round, it possessed modern drydock facilities capable of repairing top-of-the-line battleships, and it hosted a vast array of artillery capable of assisting in the port’s defense. There was real concern and fear among the Imperial Navy’s leadership that if they launched their attack while Russian forces at Port Arthur were on high alert, the result would be a decisive defeat. The war would end, for Japan, just as it had begun.
The objective, therefore, in the initial strike on the Russian fleet anchored at Port Arthur was to wreak havoc and destroy as much as possible. The Japanese Naval commanders hoped to inflict sufficient damage in their initial battle to essentially disable the Russian Pacific fleet and force the Russian Empire to quickly acknowledge defeat. However, the caution with which they proceeded in their attack plans virtually blunted any hope of a swift victory.
Rather than a considerable victory similar to which the Japanese navy achieved at the Battle of Pungdo, the attack on Port Arthur was more like an unpleasant surprise. Certainly in the heat of the moment the Russian sailors and artillerymen did not know who was attacking them or their relative strength, only that things started exploding. To their credit, the crews and platoons stationed at Port Arthur responded to this sudden attack quickly, manning artillery guns and even launching a few cruisers to respond to the threat. Artillery in Port Arthur began firing upon the attacking ships soon after the attack began. The Japanese navy retreated soon afterward, having managed to inflict a hundred fifty casualties and do significant damage to a number of ships, but the Pacific Fleet was hardly incapacitated.
In addition to the relative caution they exercised in striking the Russian fleet, another factor which blunted their attack was the fact that several Japanese torpedos failed to explode upon impact. This seems to have been a common problem among their early navy, and you may recall that there had been a dud torpedo during the Kowshing incident at the start of the First Sino-Japanese War. Although none of the Russian ships were sunk outright by the sudden onslaught, a few were later scuttled as a result of the significant damage they endured.
On February 10, just a short time after the attack on Port Arthur, Japan officially declared war on the Russian Empire, who returned the favor. The Russo-Japanese War had begun.
Because the Tsar and, to be fair, many of his military advisors refused to entertain the notion that the Japanese might initiate a war in the east, the Russian army was not well-prepared for the war which now ensued. The actual numbers are disputed but I think it’s likely that they possessed around a hundred thousand total infantry in the far east with perhaps several thousand cavalry. This represented a fraction of their entire army, which numbered around one point two million, but the majority of Russian troops would not be capable of reinforcing their fellows in Manchuria and Liaodong. There was only one railway which was capable of rapidly transporting large troop numbers to the far east, the Trans-Siberian Railway, but it was not yet completed. Traveling to Liaodong Province from Moscow took roughly one month.
Part of how the Russian government justified their relatively sparse troop numbers in the far east was their belief in Japan’s relative inability to mobilize sufficient numbers to dislodge them. However, Japan’s troop transport capabilities had vastly improved and they were quickly mastering the all-important logistical side of mobilization. The Russian beliefs that the Japanese would only be able to field, at most, two hundred fifty thousand infantry and that such mobilization on their part would take longer than Russia’s own was based on faulty, outdated intelligence and no doubt informed by bog-standard racism.
In fact, Japan’s standing at the war’s outset was extremely strong. Their present army numbered around 250,000 and they possessed over 800,000 in reserve. Numbers are disputed on their side as well, however, and it is possible that their total potential armed strength, in terms of pure numbers, was roughly equal that of Russia’s entire army. There were also several traditional factors that would come into play throughout the war. In the Russian army, cavalry were drawn from the most elite troops and were considered critical to the army’s success. The Japanese army, by stark contrast, used cavalry mostly for scouting and those riders practically never fought mounted, preferring instead to dismount and fight as infantry during a battle.
During the early 1900s there were a number of military theorists who were certain that cavalry was due for a comeback. While mounted troops had, for many years, enjoyed primacy on the battlefield, their use and application in warfare had been waning as firearms became the staple of soldiers worldwide. With fearsome weapons like the maxim gun, the advantages of being mounted in battle seemed to be shrinking by the year and the relative importance of cavalry was at a low ebb. With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that fighting on horseback would soon come to an end altogether, but traditionalists in many European militaries in the early 1900s still held out hope that mounted troops would one day again reign supreme on the battlefield.
Many such theorists served as commanders for the Russian army. In addition to their outdated belief in the primacy of cavalry, the Russian military also relied heavily on tactics and strategies handed down from Alexander Suvorov, a famous Russian general who died in 1800. Warfare had changed considerably in the one hundred years since Suvorov’s death. The Russian Empire’s arrogance, combined with their general unreadiness and reliance on antiquated strategies, was about to lead to one of the most surprising defeats of the twentieth century.
An observer could be forgiven for assuming, after the initial surprise attack on Port Arthur, that Japan had just bitten off more than it could chew. That attack, after all, had been extremely underwhelming and had failed in its objective to quickly gain an advantage over the Russian Empire and encourage a swift and victorious outcome to the war. It was one thing, after all, to win a war against China-- quite another thing to defeat a European colonial power.
However, while the assault on Port Arthur had not been quite as dramatic as Japanese high command had hoped, it did give the Imperial navy the advantage of initiative throughout the remainder of the conflict. Russian ships did not dare to stray too far from Port Arthur or Vladivostok for fear of a naval barrage and possible troop landing in their absence. Thus the imperial fleet acted with a relatively free hand, harassing the ports with sporadic, swift attacks while the transports on Japan prepared to land troops in one place where they could be certain they would meet no Russian resistance: the Korean peninsula.
Once again, all roads in the far east lead to Korea. While Russia had enjoyed a certain level of outsized influence on the Korean Peninsula after the establishment of the Empire of Korea in 1897, subsequent diplomatic negotiations throughout the early 1900s had altered the regional balance of power. Ito Hirobumi, you may recall, had attempted to negotiate a deal with the Russian Empire wherein Japan would recognize their claims to Manchuria in exchange for Russia acknowledging Japan’s rightful place as Korea’s patron. Although he was ultimately unsuccessful in his actual objective, he did manage to convince the Empire of Korea that the safest path forward was neutrality. Any future war between Russia and Japan would inevitably draw Britain into the conflict if Russia was joined by an allied nation like Korea. Korea’s armed forces were largely busy trying to hold onto Jiandao in the northeast, and they were really in no position to join anyone in any war anywhere, much less resist the Japanese army.
Shortly after the assault on Port Arthur, a squadron of Japanese ships encountered two Russian vessels at Chemulpo Bay, which lies on the central western coast of Korea due west of Pyeongyang. After a brief exchange, both Russian ships endured heavy damage and would later be scuttled as a result. The way was thus clear for Japan to start transporting troops onto the peninsula in preparation for a landborne assault on Russian positions in Manchuria.
By late April, less than two months after the initial battle at Port Arthur, the Japanese Imperial Army’s presence in northern Korea was around 43,000 strong and preparing to launch a major assault across the Yalu River. This river, a traditional boundary between Manchuria and the Korean peninsula, was being defended on the Manchuria side by 25,000 Russian troops led by Generals Kashtalinsky and Zasulich. You may recall that the Japanese imperial army had previously expected to fight China in this area during the First Sino-Japanese War but the Qing troops had largely withdrawn when they arrived. This time, however, the Russian Empire’s soldiers were dug in and prepared for a hard assault in which they would be outnumbered and for which no reinforcements were forthcoming.
The Japanese troops began by constructing a bridge to Kintei Island, which sits midstream on a wide part of the Yalu River. Russian forces responded by bombarding the site with two of their artillery guns -- which was exactly what the Japanese wanted. The bridge attack was a feint which was meant to force the Russians to reveal their artillery placements, which could inform future decisions as the battle progressed. Plans had already been formed for the rapid deployment of ten bridges by which infantry could cross the Yalu River at various points and gain a foothold on the far side.
As the battle progressed, the divided leadership of the Russian forces proved a hindrance for their cause. After a series of feints and counter-feints from both forces, General Zasulich was convinced that the main Japanese attack would target the nearby town of Andong and so he dug his forces in there. Meanwhile, General Kashtalinsky sent repeated warnings to his colleague as he observed the Japanese troops preparing a flanking maneuver against his position but Zasulich was now convinced that such a maneuver was merely another feint.
Throughout the various engagements the Japanese army had, with the assistance of seasonal fog, managed to occupy Kintei Island and deployed several big guns which they kept concealed with local foliage. Several divisions of the Imperial Army had managed to cross at various locations far from the main battle and were closing with the main Russian defenses by the morning of April 30. Around five o’clock that morning, the fog lifted and the Japanese assault began in earnest. Japanese artillery on Kintei Island fired on Russian positions just as their infantry comrades were charging. About five hours later, the Russians were in full retreat, having taken significant casualties from both the Japanese artillery on Kintei Island and the overwhelming assault of the Imperial infantry.
Winning the Battle of Yalu River gave the Japanese army a critical foothold in southwestern Manchuria and they proceeded to make their way across Liaodong Province with the ultimate objective of seizing Port Arthur. Before accomplishing that grand objective, however, it was necessary to strike the Russian fortifications which protected the important pacific port, starting with Nanshan, a fortified town which lay just to the north of Port Arthur.
Outnumbered by about ten to one, the four thousand Russian soldiers who occupied Nanshan enjoyed many strategic advantages over the Japanese attackers. They were well-supplied with maxim guns, wielded decent field artillery, and placed mines which would make any assault extremely costly. Unfortunately for the Russian soldiers involved, the imperial army was willing to pay those extremely high costs.
In late May, Japanese troops were unable to take the walled city of Chinchou during their first two attempts at assault and suffered heavy casualties from the artillery defending the town. However, their third attempt successfully breached the gates and they soon took the city and secured their army’s northern flank. They proceeded toward Nanshan and, after two days of hard fighting, drove the remaining Russian defenders away. Although they managed to inflict around 1,400 casualties upon the Russian troops, the Japanese army endured around six and a half thousand casualties of their own. Granted, they had started with over thirty-five thousand but this was still a very costly victory. Nevertheless, it was a victory, and it allowed them to cut off Port Arthur from potential reinforcements from the north.
Incidentally, this war was already dwarfing the First Sino-Japanese War in terms of material expenditure. At the Battle of Nanshan, for example, the Japanese Imperial Army had expended over 34,000 artillery shells - more than they had used during the entire First Sino-Japanese War.
After some necessary resupplying and reinforcing, the imperial army began to march north to drive off Russian forces in the area and ensure that they would be able to take Port Arthur with secure flanks. The Russian forces in Liaodong had, by this point, begun preparing to take the fight to the Japanese.
Leading the Russian forces north of Port Arthur was Georg von Stackelberg, a German general in the service of the Russian Empire. Alexei Kuropatkin, Russia’s Imperial Minister of War, had ordered General von Stackelberg to use his army to retake Nanshan to his south, which he prepared to do.
Scouting units from both armies encountered each other as they approached and there were various rifle skirmishes and artillery exchanges throughout the first two weeks of June. General von Stackelberg ordered his troops to dig in near a village called Telisu, which was situated on a hill overlooking a valley to its south -- a perfect place to defend against an infantry advance with artillery.
General Oku Yasuta, who commanded Japanese forces, planned an assault on the Russian position on June 14, sending two of his army divisions across the valley where they endured artillery fire from the Russians, while sending a third division through the rough mountainous terrain nearby where they would eventually approach the Russian right wing and, if everything went to plan, flank the defenders and support a pincer maneuver.
Troops on the Russian right wing observed the Japanese troops sneaking around the perimeter for a flank and tried to communicate this to General von Stackelberg but the weather was uncooperative. The preferred method of battlefield communication among Russian forces in this engagement was signals from heliographs - devices which catch and magnify sunshine to send signals during the daytime. The air around Telisu was foggy, however, which prevented the Russian Army’s commanders from seeing the signals.
As a result, the Russian army, which was around equal numbers and overall capabilities with their Japanese counterparts, was successfully flanked and lost the vicious battle that ensued. Only a sudden rainstorm allowed the Russian troops to make their escape to Shenyang, slowing the Japanese advance which chased them off. Any hopes of removing pressure from Port Arthur were dashed as the Russians retreated through the torrential rain.
Casualties for the Battle of Telisu were considerably imbalanced. The Russians suffered between two and five thousand killed while the Japanese recorded around two hundred dead and a little over nine hundred wounded. However, it was around this time that a Japanese transport convoy bringing around two thousand troops and a significant number of artillery batteries to Nanshan for the coming siege of Port Arthur was sunk by a small detachment of Russian ships which had departed from Vladivostok. Further military action in Liaodong Province would be required before significant force could be brought to bear against Port Arthur.
On July 10, 1904, a little less than a month after the Battle of Telisu, Japanese forces encountered a much larger force of Russian defenders at Motien Pass, a strategically significant area whereby a Russian army could potentially march through to relieve Port Arthur in the case of a siege. Japanese forces were around 11,000 and the Russians numbered somewhere close to 25,000, but nevertheless the imperial army once again proved triumphant through the use of a frontal feint to distract from a flanking attack, this time on the Russian left.
Regardless of Japanese strategy, it remains something of a mystery to this day why exactly the Russians lost the Battle of Motien Pass. The Russian General, a man named Fyodor von Keller, was killed by artillery shrapnel during the fighting and left behind no notes, so we will never know why with certainty the Russian army was ordered to retreat when they very likely could have triumphed had they been ordered to stand and fight.
Whatever the case, Motien Pass was now controlled by the Japanese and the Russian army was in full flight. The stage was nearly set for Port Arthur to finally be taken by Japanese forces, but one particular stronghold remained due north of the all-important port. The city of Dashiqiao, which lay northwest of Port Arthur, was being held by a significant Russian army of around 60,000 infantry troops supported by artillery. In late July, a Japanese Imperial Army of about equal numbers approached Dashiqiao with caution -- the surrounding terrain and local conditions did not support the grand flanking maneuvers favored by General Oku.
Both sides, in fact, opted to err on the side of caution. Japanese assaults during the daylight hours failed to penetrate the Russian left flank and so they chose to engage instead in a night attack, through which they successfully occupied Russian positions on their enemy’s left. However, this Russian army, under orders from General von Stackelberg, was ordered to retreat as soon as the Japanese had met with some minor success.
There is some controversy among military historians regarding the Battle of Dashiqiao. Some argue that von Stackelberg may have triumphed if he had only stayed the course and resisted Japanese advances. Others believe that the Russian army in Dashiqiao was already strategically compromised and that his decision to withdraw and gather needed reinforcements was necessary to the overall war effort. Regardless, the Russians did indeed withdraw which is part of why the Battle of Dashiqiao tallies only around a thousand dead on each side. However, this decision to conserve strength would have dire consequences for some of von Stackelberg’s fellow soldiers of the Russian Empire in Port Arthur, who were now without hope of relief. Next time, we will continue discussing the Russo-Japanese War and its many battles, triumphs, and mistakes.