1 Russo-Japanese War. Russo-Japanese War briefly

The Russo-Japanese War briefly.

The reasons for the outbreak of the war with Japan.

In the period of 1904, Russia was actively developing the lands of the Far East, developing trade and industry. The Land of the Rising Sun blocked access to these lands, at that time it occupied China and Korea. But the fact is that under the authority of Russia was one of the territories of China - Manchuria. This is one of the main reasons for the outbreak of war. In addition to this, Russia, by decision of the Triple Alliance, was given the Liaodong Peninsula, which once belonged to Japan. Thus, Russia and Japan had disagreements, and a struggle arose for dominance in the Far East.

The course of events of the Russo-Japanese War.

Taking advantage of the surprise effect, Japan attacked Russia at the site of Port Arthur. After the landing of the Japanese landing troops on the Kwantung Peninsula, Port Atrut remained cut off from the outside world, and, accordingly, helpless. Within two months he was forced to resort to surrender. Further, the Russian army loses the Battle of Liaoyang and the Battle of Mukden. Before the outbreak of the First World War, these battles were considered the largest in the history of the Russian state.

After the Battle of Tsushima, almost the entire Soviet flotilla was defeated. Events unfolded on the Yellow Sea. After another battle, Russia loses the Sakhalin Peninsula in an unequal battle. General Kuropatkin, the leader of the Soviet army, for some reason used passive tactics of struggle. In his opinion, it was necessary to wait until the enemy's forces and reserves were running out. And the tsar at that time did not attach much importance to this, since a revolution began on the territory of Russia at that time.

When both sides of the hostilities were morally and financially exhausted, they agreed to the signing of a peace treaty in American Portsmouth in 1905.

Results of the Russo-Japanese War.

Russia lost the southern part of its Sakhalin peninsula. Manchuria has now become a neutral territory, and all troops have been withdrawn from there. Oddly enough, but the agreement was conducted on an equal footing, and not as a winner with a loser.

Russian-Swedish War 1808-1809
	Manchuria, Yellow Sea, Sea of ​​Japan, Sakhalin
	Clash of zones of influence of the Japanese and Russian empires in Korea and Manchuria
	Japanese Empire victory
Territorial changes:	Japan's annexation of the Lushun Peninsula and South Sakhalin
Opponents
Commanders
	Emperor Nicholas II
Oyama Iwao	Alexey Nikolaevich Kuropatkin
Maresuke's legs	Anatoly Mikhailovich Stessel
Tamemoto Kuroki	Roman Isidorovich Kondratenko
Togo Heihachiro	General-Admiral Grand Duke Alexey Alexandrovich
Forces of the parties
300,000 soldiers	500,000 soldiers
War losses
killed: 47,387 wounded, shell-shocked: 173,425; died of wounds: 11 425; died of disease: 27 192; total deadweight loss: 86,004	killed: 32,904 wounded, shell-shocked: 146,032; died of wounds: 6 614; died of disease: 11,170; captured: 74,369; total deadweight loss: 50,688

(Nichi-Ro senso:; February 8, 1904 - August 27, 1905) - a war between Russia and Japan for control of Manchuria and Korea. Became - after a break of several decades - the first big war with the use of the latest weapons: long-range artillery, battleships, destroyers.

In the first place in the entire Russian policy of the first half of the reign of Emperor Nicholas II were the issues of the Far East - the "big Asian program": during his meeting in Reval with Emperor Wilhelm II, the Russian emperor said bluntly that he was considering strengthening and strengthening Russia's influence in East Asia as the task of precisely His reign... The main obstacle to Russian domination in the Far East was Japan, the inevitable confrontation with which Nicholas II foresaw and prepared for it both diplomatically and militarily (a lot was done: an agreement with Austria and improved relations with Germany ensured the Russian rear; the construction of the Siberian roads and the reinforcement of the fleet provided a material opportunity for the struggle), but in Russian government circles there was also a strong hope that fear of the power of Russia would deter Japan from a direct attack.

After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, having carried out a large-scale modernization of the country's economy, by the mid-1890s, Japan switched to a policy of foreign expansion, primarily in geographically close Korea. Faced with resistance from China, Japan inflicted a crushing defeat on China during the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). The Shimonoseki Treaty, signed at the end of the war, fixed China's renunciation of all rights to Korea and the transfer of a number of territories to Japan, including the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria. These achievements of Japan sharply increased its power and influence, which did not meet the interests of the European powers, therefore Germany, Russia and France achieved a change in these conditions: the Triple Intervention undertaken with the participation of Russia led to Japan's abandonment of the Liaodong Peninsula, and then to its transfer in 1898 year of Russia for lease use. The realization that Russia actually took the Liaodong Peninsula, which had been captured during the war, from Japan, led to a new wave of militarization of Japan, this time directed against Russia.

In 1903, a dispute over Russian forest concessions in Korea and the continuing Russian occupation of Manchuria led to a sharp aggravation of Russian-Japanese relations. Despite the weakness of the Russian military presence in the Far East, Nicholas II did not make concessions, since for Russia, in his opinion, the situation was of fundamental importance - the issue of access to ice-free seas, the Russian dominance over a huge territory, and almost unpopulated land was being decided. Manchuria. Japan strove for its complete domination in Korea and demanded that Russia cleanse Manchuria, which Russia could not agree to for any reason. According to the researcher of the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, Professor S. S. Oldenburg, Russia could avoid the struggle with Japan only at the price of surrender and its self-removal from the Far East, and no partial concessions, which were made a lot (including the delay in the dispatch of reinforcements to Manchuria), they could not not only prevent, but even postpone Japan's decision to start a war with Russia, in which Japan, both in essence and in form, became an attacking party.

A sudden, without an official declaration of war, the attack of the Japanese fleet on the Russian squadron on the outer roadstead of Port Arthur on the night of January 27 (February 9) 1904 led to the incapacitation of several of the strongest ships of the Russian squadron and ensured the unhindered landing of Japanese troops in Korea in February 1904 of the year. In May 1904, using the inaction of the Russian command, the Japanese landed their troops on the Kwantung Peninsula and cut off Port Arthur's railway communication with Russia. The siege of Port Arthur was launched by Japanese troops by the beginning of August 1904, and on January 2, 1905, the garrison of the fortress was forced to surrender. The remnants of the Russian squadron in Port Arthur were sunk by Japanese siege artillery or blown up by their own crew.

In February 1905, the Japanese forced the Russian army to retreat in the general battle at Mukden, and on May 14 (27) - May 15 (28), 1905, in the Tsushima battle, they defeated the Russian squadron, which had been transferred to the Far East from the Baltic. The reasons for the failures of the Russian armies and navy and their specific defeats were due to many factors, but the main ones were the incompleteness of military-strategic training, the colossal remoteness of the theater of operations from the main centers of the country and the army, and the extreme limitedness of communication networks. In addition, starting from January 1905, a revolutionary situation arose and developed in Russia.

The war ended with the Peace of Portsmouth, signed on August 23 (September 5), 1905, and fixing the concession by Russia to Japan of the southern part of Sakhalin and its lease rights to the Liaodong Peninsula and the South Manchurian Railway.

Background

Expansion of the Russian Empire in the Far East

In the mid-1850s, the Crimean War marked the limits of the territorial expansion of the Russian Empire in Europe. By 1890, after reaching the borders of Afghanistan and Persia, the potential for expansion in Central Asia was exhausted - further advancement was fraught with direct conflict with the British Empire. Russia's attention shifted further to the East, where Qing China, weakened in 1840-1860. crushing defeats in the opium wars and the Taiping uprising, he could no longer hold the northeastern lands, in the 17th century, until the Treaty of Nerchinsk, which already belonged to Russia (see also the Far East of Russia). The Aigun Treaty, signed with China in 1858, recorded the transfer of the modern Primorsky Territory to Russia, on the territory of which Vladivostok was founded in 1860.

In 1855, the Shimoda Treaty was concluded with Japan, according to which the Kuril Islands north of Iturup Island were declared the possessions of Russia, and Sakhalin was declared joint possession of the two countries. In 1875, the St. Petersburg Treaty recorded the transfer of Sakhalin to Russia in exchange for the transfer of all 18 Kuril Islands to Japan.

Further strengthening of Russian positions in the Far East was limited by the small number of the Russian population and remoteness from the inhabited parts of the empire - for example, in 1885 Russia had only 18 thousand troops behind Baikal, and, according to the calculations of the Amur Military District, the first battalion sent to Transbaikalia from European Russia marching order, could come to the rescue only after 18 months. In order to reduce the travel time to 2-3 weeks, in May 1891 the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway began - a railway line between Chelyabinsk and Vladivostok about 7 thousand kilometers long, designed to connect the European part of Russia and the Far East by rail. The Russian government was keenly interested in the agricultural colonization of Primorye and, as a consequence, in ensuring unimpeded trade through the ice-free ports of the Yellow Sea, such as Port Arthur.

Japan's struggle to dominate Korea

After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the new Japanese government ended its policy of self-isolation and embarked on a course of modernizing the country. Large-scale economic reforms made it possible by the early 1890s to modernize the economy, creating such modern industries as the production of machine tools and electrical equipment, and start exporting coal and copper. The army and navy, created and trained according to Western standards, gained strength and allowed Japan to think about external expansion, primarily to Korea and China.

Korea, due to its geographic proximity to Japan, was viewed by the latter as "a knife aimed at the heart of Japan." Preventing foreign, especially European, control over Korea, and preferably taking it under control, was the main goal of Japanese foreign policy. Already in 1876, Korea, under Japanese military pressure, signed an agreement with Japan, which ended Korea's self-isolation and opened its ports to Japanese trade. The ensuing struggle with China for control of Korea led to the Sino-Japanese War of 1895.

On March 30, 1895, at a Special Meeting on the Sino-Japanese War, the Chief of the General Staff, Adjutant General N.N. Obruchev said:

The Chinese fleet was defeated in the battle on the Yalu River, and its remnants, hiding in the well-fortified Weihai, were destroyed (partially captured) by the Japanese in February 1895, after a 23-day combined land and sea attack. On land, the Japanese army defeated the Chinese in Korea and Manchuria in a series of battles and occupied Taiwan in March 1895.

On April 17, 1895, China was forced to sign the Shimonoseki Treaty, according to which China renounced all rights to Korea, transferred the island of Taiwan, the Pescadores and the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan, and also paid an indemnity of 200 million liang (about 7.4 thousand tons of silver) , which was equivalent to a third of Japan's GDP, or 3 of the annual budgets of the Japanese government.

Immediate causes of war

Triple Intervention

On April 23, 1895, Russia, France and Germany, worried about the strengthening of Japan, undertook the Triple Intervention - in an ultimatum form, they demanded Japan's refusal to annex the Liaodong Peninsula. Japan, unable to withstand the combined pressure of the three European powers, yielded.

Russia took advantage of the return of Liaodong to China. On March 15 (27), 1898, a convention was signed between Russia and China, according to which the ice-free ports of the Liaodong Peninsula, Port Arthur and Dalny, were leased to Russia and a railway was allowed to be laid to these ports from one of the points of the Chinese Eastern Railway.

The realization that Russia had actually taken the Liaodong Peninsula, which had been captured during the war, from Japan, led to a new wave of militarization of Japan, this time directed against Russia, under the slogan "Gashin-shotan" ("sleep on a board with nails"), calling on the nation to steadfastly postpone the rise in taxation for the sake of military revenge in the future.

Russia's occupation of Manchuria and the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese alliance

In October 1900, Russian troops occupied Manchuria as part of the suppression of the Ichetuan uprising in China by the troops of the Coalition of Eight Countries.

In May 1901, the relatively moderate cabinet of ministers Hirobumi Ito fell in Japan and the Taro Katsura cabinet came to power, which was more confrontational towards Russia. In September, Ito, on his own initiative, but with Katsura's consent, went to Russia to discuss an agreement on the division of spheres of influence in Korea and Manchuria. Ito's minimum program (Korea - entirely Japan, Manchuria - Russia), however, did not find understanding in St. Petersburg, as a result of which the Japanese government made a choice in favor of concluding an alternative agreement with Great Britain.

On January 17 (30), 1902, the Anglo-Japanese treaty was signed, article 3 of which, in the event of a war of one of the allies with two or more powers, obliged the other side to provide military assistance. The treaty gave Japan the opportunity to start a fight with Russia, having the confidence that not a single power (for example, France, with which Russia was in an alliance since 1891) would provide Russia with armed support for fear of war not only with Japan, but also with England. The Japanese ambassador, answering a question from the British about a possible reason for a war with Russia, explained that "if the security of Korea is guaranteed, Japan will probably not go to war over Manchuria or Mongolia or other remote parts of China."

On March 3 (16), 1902, the Franco-Russian declaration was published, which was a diplomatic response to the Anglo-Japanese alliance: in the event of "hostile actions of third powers" or "unrest in China", Russia and France reserved the right to "take appropriate measures ". This declaration was of a low-binding nature - France did not provide significant assistance in the Far East to its ally Russia.

Growth of Russian-Japanese confrontation

On March 26 (April 8), 1902, a Russian-Chinese agreement was signed, according to which Russia was obliged to withdraw its troops from Manchuria within 18 months (that is, by October 1903). The withdrawal of troops was to be carried out in 3 stages of 6 months each.

In April 1903, the Russian government did not complete the second phase of the withdrawal of its troops from Manchuria. On April 5 (18), a note was sent to the Chinese government stating the condition for the further withdrawal of troops to close Manchuria to foreign trade. In response, Britain, the United States and Japan protested to Russia against the violation of the deadlines for the withdrawal of Russian troops, and China was advised not to accept any conditions at all - which the Chinese government did, declaring that it would discuss "any questions about Manchuria" - only "on the evacuation ".

In May 1903, about a hundred Russian soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes, were brought into the Yongampo village in Korea, located in the concession zone on the Yalu River. Under the pretext of building timber warehouses, the construction of military facilities began in the village, which was perceived in Great Britain and Japan as preparation for Russia to create a permanent military base in northern Korea. The Japanese government was particularly alarmed by the possibility of the situation in Korea developing according to the Port Arthur scenario, when the fortification of Port Arthur was followed by the occupation of all of Manchuria.

On July 1 (14), 1903, traffic on the Transsib was opened along its entire length. The movement went through Manchuria (along the CER). Under the pretext of checking the capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the transfer of Russian troops to the Far East began immediately. The section around Baikal was not completed (goods were transported through Baikal by ferries), which reduced the capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railway to 3-4 pairs of trains per day.

On July 30, the governorship of the Far East was formed, which united the Amur General Governorship and the Kwantung Region. The purpose of the formation of the governorship was to unite all the organs of Russian power in the Far East to counter the expected Japanese attack. Admiral E.I. Alekseev was appointed viceroy, to whom the troops, the fleet and the administration (including the strip of the Chinese Eastern Road) were placed under the command.

On August 12, the Japanese government presented to the Russian a draft bilateral agreement, which provided for the recognition of "the prevailing interests of Japan in Korea and the special interests of Russia in railway (only railway!) Enterprises in Manchuria."

On October 5, a reciprocal project was sent to Japan, which provided, with reservations, for Russia to recognize Japan's predominant interests in Korea, in exchange for Japan's recognition of Manchuria as lying outside its sphere of interests.

The Japanese government categorically did not agree with the provision on the exclusion of Manchuria from the zone of its interests, but further negotiations did not make significant changes in the positions of the parties.

On October 8, 1903, the deadline established by the agreement of April 8, 1902, for the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Manchuria, expired. Despite this, the troops were not withdrawn; In response to Japan's demands for compliance with the terms of the agreement, the Russian government pointed to China's failure to comply with the terms of the evacuation. At the same time, Japan began to protest against Russian events in Korea. According to the researcher of the reign of Emperor Nicholas II SS Oldenburg, Japan was only looking for an excuse to start hostilities at a convenient moment for itself.

On February 5, 1904, Japanese Foreign Minister Jiutaro Komura telegraphed the Ambassador in St. Petersburg to "end the real empty negotiations", "in view of delays that remain largely unexplained," and to cut off diplomatic relations with Russia.

The decision to start a war against Russia was made in Japan at a joint meeting of the members of the Privy Council and all ministers on January 22 (February 4), 1904, and on the night of January 23 (February 5), an order was given to land in Korea and to attack the Russian squadron in Port Arthur. Following this, on January 24 (February 6), 1904, Japan officially announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Russia.

The most advantageous moment for itself was chosen by Japan with high precision: the armored cruisers Nissin and Kasuga, which it bought from Argentina in Italy, had just passed Singapore and nowhere and no one could detain them on the way to Japan; the last Russian reinforcements (Oslyabya, cruisers and destroyers) were still in the Red Sea.

The balance of forces and communications before the war

Military establishment

The Russian empire, possessing an almost threefold advantage in population size, could deploy a proportionally larger army. At the same time, the number of Russian armed forces directly in the Far East (beyond Lake Baikal) was no more than 150 thousand people, and given that most of these troops were connected with the protection of the Trans-Siberian / state border / fortresses, it was directly available for active operations about 60 thousand people.

The distribution of Russian troops in the Far East is shown below:

• near Vladivostok - 45 thousand people;
• in Manchuria - 28.1 thousand people;
• the garrison of Port Arthur - 22.5 thousand people;
• railway troops (protection of the CER) - 35 thousand people;
• serf troops (artillery, engineering units and telegraph) - 7.8 thousand people.

By the beginning of the war, the Transsib was already operating, but its capacity was only 3-4 pairs of trains per day. The bottlenecks were the ferry crossing through Baikal and the Trans-Baikal section of the Transsib; the throughput of the remaining sections was 2-3 times higher. The low throughput of the Transsib meant a low speed of the transfer of troops to the Far East: the transfer of one army corps (about 30 thousand people) took about 1 month.

According to the calculations of military intelligence, Japan at the time of mobilization could put up an army of 375 thousand people. The Japanese army, after mobilization, numbered about 442 thousand people.

Japan's ability to land troops on the mainland depended on control of the Korea Strait and the southern Yellow Sea. Japan possessed a sufficient transport fleet to simultaneously transport two divisions with all the necessary equipment, and from the ports of Japan to Korea it was less than a day's journey. It should also be noted that the Japanese army, actively modernized by the British, had a certain technological advantage over the Russian, in particular, by the end of the war it had significantly more machine guns (at the beginning of the war, Japan did not have machine guns), and the artillery mastered firing from closed positions.

Fleet

The main theater of operations was the Yellow Sea, in which the Japanese Joint Fleet under the command of Admiral Heihachiro Togo blockaded the Russian squadron in Port Arthur. In the Sea of ​​Japan, the Vladivostok squadron of cruisers was opposed by the 3rd Japanese squadron, whose task was to counter raider attacks by Russian cruisers on Japanese communications.

The ratio of the forces of the Russian and Japanese fleets in the Yellow and Japanese Seas, by types of ships
War theaters	Yellow Sea		Japanese Sea
Ship types	Russian squadron in Port Arthur	Japanese Joint Fleet (1st and 2nd Squadrons)	Vladivostok cruiser squadron	Japanese 3rd Squadron
Squadron battleships
Armored cruisers
Large armored cruisers (over 4000 tons)
Small armored cruisers
Mine cruisers (advice notes and minelayers)
Seaworthy gunboats
Destroyers
Destroyers

The core of the Japanese Joint Fleet - including 6 squadron battleships and 6 armored cruisers - was built in Great Britain in 1896-1901. These ships were superior to their Russian counterparts in many respects, such as speed, cruising range, reservation coefficient, etc. In particular, the Japanese naval artillery exceeded the Russian one in projectile mass (of the same caliber) and technical rate of fire, as a result of which the side salvo (total weight fired shells) of the Japanese United Fleet during the battle in the Yellow Sea was about 12 418 kg against 9111 kg from the Russian squadron in Port Arthur, that is, it was 1.36 times more.

It is also worth noting the qualitative difference in the shells used by the Russian and Japanese navies - the content of explosives in Russian shells of the main calibers (12 ", 8", 6 ") was 4-6 times lower. the power of the explosion was about 1.2 times higher than the pyroxylin used in the Russian ones.

In the very first battle on January 27, 1904, Port Arthur clearly showed the powerful destructive effect of Japanese heavy high-explosive shells on unarmored or weakly armored structures, which did not depend on the firing range, as well as the significant armor-piercing ability of Russian light armor-piercing shells at short distances (up to 20 cables) ... The Japanese made the necessary conclusions and in subsequent battles, possessing superiority in speed, they tried to hold a firing position of 35-45 cables from the Russian squadron.

However, the powerful, but unstable shimoza collected its "tribute" - the destruction from the explosions of its own shells in the barrels of the guns when fired caused the Japanese almost more damage than the hits of Russian armor-piercing shells. It is worth mentioning the appearance in Vladivostok by April 1905 of the first 7 submarines, which, although they did not achieve significant military success, were still an important deterrent that significantly limited the actions of the Japanese fleet in the region of Vladivostok and the Amur estuary during the war.

At the end of 1903, Russia sent to the Far East the battleship Tsesarevich and the armored cruiser Bayan, which had just been built in Toulon; after them came the battleship "Oslyabya" and several cruisers and destroyers. A strong trump card of Russia was the ability to equip and transfer from Europe another squadron, approximately equal in number to that located in the Pacific at the beginning of the war. It should be noted that the beginning of the war found a fairly large detachment of Admiral A.A.Virenius halfway to the Far East, moving to reinforce the Russian squadron in Port Arthur. This set a tough time frame for the Japanese, both at the beginning of the war (before the arrival of the Virenius detachment) and for the destruction of the Russian squadron in Port Arthur (before the arrival of help from Europe). The ideal option for the Japanese was the blockade of the Russian squadron in Port Arthur, followed by its death after the capture of Port Arthur by the besieging Japanese troops.

The Suez Canal was too shallow for the newest Russian battleships of the Borodino class; the Bosphorus and Dardanelles were closed to the passage of Russian warships from a fairly powerful Black Sea squadron. The only way to meaningfully support the Pacific fleet was from the Baltic around Europe and Africa.

The course of the war

Campaign of 1904

The beginning of the war

The severance of diplomatic relations made war more than likely. The command of the fleet, one way or another, was preparing for a possible war. The landing of a large assault force and active combat operations of the latter on land, requiring constant supplies, are not possible without the domination of the navy. It was logical to assume that without this superiority, Japan would not begin land operations. The Pacific squadron, according to pre-war estimates, contrary to popular belief, if inferior to the Japanese fleet, it was not significantly. It was logical to assume that Japan would not start a war before the arrival of Kasuga and Nishina. There remained only the possibility of paralyzing the squadron, before their arrival, by blocking it in the harbor of Port Arthur, with block ships. To prevent these actions, warships were on duty in the outer roadstead. Moreover, to repel a possible attack by the forces of the entire fleet, and not just block ships, not destroyers, but the most modern battleships and cruisers were stationed in the roadstead. S.O. Makarov warned about the danger of such tactics on the eve of the war, but at least his words did not reach the addressees.

On the night of January 27 (February 9), 1904, before the official declaration of war, 8 Japanese destroyers carried out a torpedo attack on the ships of the Russian fleet stationed in the outer roadstead of Port Arthur. As a result of the attack, two of the best Russian battleships ("Tsesarevich" and "Retvizan") and the armored cruiser "Pallada" were put out of action for several months.

On January 27 (February 9), 1904, a Japanese squadron of 6 cruisers and 8 destroyers forced the armored cruiser "Varyag" and the gunboat "Koreets" in the Korean port of Chemulpo into battle. After a 50-minute battle, the heavily damaged Varyag was flooded, and the Korean was blown up.

After the battle in Chemulpo, the landing of units of the 1st Japanese Army under the command of Baron Kuroki continued, with a total number of about 42.5 thousand people (it began on January 26 (February 8) 1904).

On February 21, 1904, Japanese troops occupied Pyongyang, by the end of April they reached the Yalu River, along which the Korean-Chinese border went.

The attitude of the Russian public to the beginning of the war with Japan

The news of the beginning of the war left few people in Russia indifferent: in the first period of the war, the mood prevailed among the people and the public that Russia was attacked and it was necessary to repulse the aggressor. In St. Petersburg, as well as in other large cities of the empire, unprecedented street patriotic demonstrations spontaneously arose. Even the students of the capital city, known for their revolutionary sentiments, finished their university gathering with a procession to the Winter Palace singing "God Save the Tsar!"

The circles in opposition to the government were caught by surprise by these sentiments. Thus, the Zemstvo constitutionalists, who gathered on February 23 (Old Style) 1904 for a meeting in Moscow, made a collective decision to stop any proclamation of constitutional requirements and statements in view of the outbreak of the war. This decision was motivated by the patriotic upsurge in the country caused by the war.

The reaction of the world community

The attitude of the leading world powers to the beginning of the war between Russia and Japan split them into two camps. England and the United States immediately and definitely took the side of Japan: the illustrated chronicle of the war, which began to appear in London, was even called "Japan's Struggle for Freedom"; and American President Roosevelt openly warned France against its possible action against Japan, stating that in this case he "will immediately take her side and go as far as is required." The tone of the American press was so hostile to Russia that it prompted M.O. Menshikov, one of the leading publicists of Russian nationalism, to exclaim in Novoye Vremya:

France, which even on the eve of the war considered it necessary to clarify that its alliance with Russia refers only to European affairs, nevertheless was dissatisfied with the actions of Japan, which started the war, because it was interested in Russia as its ally against Germany; with the exception of the extreme left, the rest of the French press maintained a strictly correct allied tone. Already on March 30 (April 12), a "cordial agreement" was signed between France, an ally of Russia, and Britain, an ally of Japan, which caused a certain bewilderment in Russia. This agreement marked the beginning of the Entente, but at that time there was almost no reaction in Russian society, although Novoye Vremya wrote about this: "Almost everyone felt the breath of cold in the atmosphere of Franco-Russian relations."

Germany on the eve of the events assured both sides of friendly neutrality. And now, after the outbreak of the war, the German press was divided into two opposite camps: the right-wing newspapers were on the side of Russia, the left-on the side of Japan. The personal reaction of the German emperor to the outbreak of the war was essential. Wilhelm II noted on the report of the German envoy to Japan:

Blockade of Port Arthur

On the morning of February 24, the Japanese tried to flood 5 old transports at the entrance to the harbor of Port Arthur, in order to lock the Russian squadron inside. The plan was thwarted by the Retvizan, who was still in the outer roadstead of the harbor.

On March 2, the Virenius detachment received an order to return to the Baltic, despite the protests of S.O. Makarov, who believed that he should follow further to the Far East.

On March 8, 1904, Admiral Makarov and the famous shipbuilder N.E. Kuteinikov arrived in Port Arthur, along with several cars of spare parts and equipment for repairs. Makarov immediately took vigorous measures to restore the fighting efficiency of the Russian squadron, which led to an increase in the military spirit in the fleet.

On March 27, the Japanese again tried to block the exit from Port Arthur harbor, this time using 4 old vehicles filled with stones and cement. The transports, however, were flooded too far from the harbor entrance.

On March 31, while going to sea, the battleship "Petropavlovsk" ran into 3 mines and sank within two minutes. 635 sailors and officers were killed. Among them was Admiral Makarov and the famous battle painter Vereshchagin. The battleship "Poltava" was blown up and out of order for several weeks.

On May 3, the Japanese made their third and final attempt to block the entrance to Port Arthur's harbor, this time using 8 transports. As a result, the Russian fleet was blocked for several days in the harbor of Port Arthur, which cleared the way for the landing of the 2nd Japanese army in Manchuria.

Of the entire Russian fleet, only the Vladivostok cruising detachment ("Russia", "Gromoboy", "Rurik") retained freedom of action and in the first 6 months of the war several times went on the offensive against the Japanese fleet, penetrating into the Pacific Ocean and being on the Japanese coast, then , leaving again to the Korea Strait. The detachment sank several Japanese transports with troops and guns, including on May 31, Vladivostok cruisers intercepted the Japanese transport "Hi-tatsi Maru" (6175 brt), which carried 18 280-mm mortars for the siege of Port Arthur, which made it possible to tighten siege Port Arthur for several months.

Japanese offensive in Manchuria and the defense of Port Arthur

On April 18 (May 1), the 1st Japanese Army of about 45 thousand people crossed the Yalu River and, in a battle on the Yalu River, defeated the eastern detachment of the Russian Manchurian Army under the command of M.I.Zasulich, numbering about 18 thousand people. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began.

On April 22 (May 5), the 2nd Japanese Army under the command of General Yasukata Oku, numbering about 38.5 thousand people, began landing on the Liaodong Peninsula, about 100 kilometers from Port Arthur. The landing was carried out by 80 Japanese transports and lasted until April 30 (May 13). The Russian units, numbering about 17 thousand people, under the command of General Stoessel, as well as the Russian squadron in Port Arthur under the command of Vitgeft, did not take active steps to resist the landing of the Japanese.

On April 27 (May 10), the advancing Japanese units interrupted the railway communication between Port Arthur and Manchuria.

If the 2nd Japanese Army landed without losses, then the Japanese fleet, which provided the landing operation, suffered very significant losses. On May 2 (15), 2 Japanese battleships, 12 320-ton Yashima and 15 300-ton Hatsuse, were sunk after hitting a minefield exposed by the Russian minelayer Amur. In total, from May 12 to May 17, the Japanese fleet lost 7 ships (2 battleships, a light cruiser, a gunboat, an advice note, a fighter and a destroyer), and 2 more ships (including the Kasuga armored cruiser) went to Sasebo for repairs.

The 2nd Japanese Army, having completed the landing, began to move south, towards Port Arthur, in order to establish a close blockade of the fortress. The Russian command decided to accept the battle at a well-fortified position near the city of Jinzhou, on the isthmus connecting the Kwantung Peninsula with the Liaodong Peninsula.

On May 13 (May 26), a battle took place at Jinzhou, in which one Russian regiment (3.8 thousand people with 77 guns and 10 machine guns) for twelve hours repelled the attacks of three Japanese divisions (35 thousand people with 216 guns and 48 machine guns) ... The defense was broken only in the evening, after the approaching Japanese gunboats suppressed the left flank of the Russians. The losses of the Japanese amounted to 4.3 thousand people, Russians - about 1.5 thousand killed and wounded.

As a result of success during the battle at Jinzhou, the Japanese overcome the main natural obstacle on the way to the Port Arthur fortress. On May 29, the Japanese troops occupied the Dalny port without a fight, and its shipyards, docks and railway station went to the Japanese practically intact, which greatly facilitated their supply of the troops besieging Port Arthur.

After the occupation of Far, the Japanese forces split up: the formation of the 3rd Japanese army under the command of General Maresuke Nogi began, which was tasked with taking Port Arthur, while the 2nd Japanese army began to advance north.

On June 10 (23), the Russian squadron in Port Arthur made an attempt to break through to Vladivostok, but three hours after leaving the sea, noticing the Japanese fleet on the horizon, Rear Admiral V.K. battle.

On June 1-2 (14-15), in the battle at Wafangou, the 2nd Japanese Army (38 thousand people with 216 guns) defeated the Russian 1st East Siberian Corps of General G.K. Stackelberg (30 thousand people with 98 guns), sent by the commander of the Russian Manchurian army Kuropatkin to lift the blockade of Port Arthur.

After the defeat at Jinzhou, the Russian units retreating to Port Arthur took a position "on the passes", about halfway between Port Arthur and Dalny, which the Japanese did not attack for quite a long time in anticipation of the full complement of their 3rd army.

On July 13 (26), the 3rd Japanese Army (60 thousand people with 180 guns) broke through the Russian defense "on the passes" (16 thousand people with 70 guns), on July 30 took Volch'i Hills - positions on the distant approaches to the fortress itself, and already on August 9, it reached its original positions along the entire perimeter of the fortress. The defense of Port Arthur began.

In connection with the beginning of the shelling of the harbor of Port Arthur by Japanese long-range artillery, the command of the fleet decided to make an attempt to break through to Vladivostok.

On July 28 (August 10), the Battle in the Yellow Sea took place, during which the Japanese fleet, due to the death of Vitgeft and the loss of the Russian squadron of control, managed to force the Russian squadron to return to Port Arthur.

On July 30 (August 12), not knowing that the attempt to break through to Vladivostok had already failed, 3 cruisers of the Vladivostok detachment entered the Korea Strait, aiming to meet the Port Arthur squadron that was breaking through to Vladivostok. On the morning of August 14, they were discovered by a Kamimura squadron consisting of 6 cruisers and, unable to evade, took a battle, as a result of which the Rurik was sunk.

The defense of the fortress lasted until January 2, 1905 and became one of the brightest pages of Russian military history.

In the fortified area cut off from the Russian parts, there was no single indisputable leadership, there were simultaneously three authorities: the commander of the troops, General Stoessel, the commandant of the fortress, General Smirnov, and the commander of the fleet, Admiral Vitgeft (due to the absence of Admiral Skrydlov). This circumstance, together with the difficult communication with the outside world, could have dangerous consequences if General R.I. ". Kondratenko became the hero of the Port Arthur epic and died at the end of the siege of the fortress. Through his efforts, the defense of the fortress was organized: the fortifications were completed and put on alert. The garrison of the fortress numbered about 53 thousand people, who were armed with 646 guns and 62 machine guns. The siege of Port Arthur lasted about 5 months and cost the Japanese army about 91 thousand people killed and wounded. Russian losses amounted to about 28 thousand people killed and wounded; Japanese siege artillery sunk the remnants of the 1st Pacific Squadron: battleships Retvizan, Poltava, Peresvet, Pobeda, armored cruiser Bayan, armored cruiser Pallada. The only remaining in the ranks the battleship "Sevastopol" was withdrawn to the White Wolf Bay, accompanied by 5 destroyers ("Angry", "Statny", "Fast", "Brave", "Vlastny"), the harbor tug "Silach" and the patrol ship "Brave ". As a result of the attack undertaken by the Japanese under cover of night, the Sevastopol was seriously damaged, and since in the conditions of a bombed port and the possibility of a bombardment of the inner raid by Japanese troops, the ship could not be repaired, it was decided to sink the ship by the crew after preliminary dismantling of the guns and removal of ammunition ...

Liaoyang and Shahe

During the summer of 1904, the Japanese slowly moved to Liaoyang: from the east - the 1st army under the command of Tamemoto Kuroki, 45 thousand, and from the south - the 2nd army under the command of Yasukata Oku, 45 thousand and the 4th army under the command Mitsura Nozu, 30 thousand people. The Russian army was slowly retreating, while at the same time it was constantly replenished with reinforcements arriving via the Transsib.

On August 11 (24), one of the main battles of the Russo-Japanese War began - the battle of Liaoyang. Three Japanese armies attacked the positions of the Russian army in a semicircle: the army of Oku and Nozu was advancing from the south, and Kuroki in the east. In the battles that lasted until August 22, the Japanese troops under the command of Marshal Iwao Oyama (130 thousand with 400 guns) lost about 23 thousand people, the Russian troops under the command of Kuropatkin (170 thousand with 644 guns) - 16 thousand (according to other sources, 19 thousand . killed and wounded). The Russians successfully repulsed all Japanese attacks south of Liaoyang for three days, after which A. N. Kuropatkin decided, concentrating his forces, to go on the offensive against Kuroki's army. The operation did not bring the desired results, and the Russian commander, who overestimated the forces of the Japanese, deciding that they could cut the railway from the north of Liaoyang, ordered a withdrawal to Mukden. The Russians retreated in perfect order, leaving not a single weapon behind. The overall outcome of the battle at Liaoyang was uncertain. Nevertheless, the Russian historian Professor S. S. Oldenburg writes that this battle was a heavy moral blow, since everyone was waiting in Liaoyang for a decisive rebuff to the Japanese, and in fact, the historian writes, it was another rearguard battle, extremely bloody, besides ...

On September 22 (October 5), a battle took place on the Shah River. The battle began with an attack by Russian troops (270,000 men); On October 10, Japanese troops (170 thousand people) launched a counterattack. The outcome of the battle was uncertain when on October 17 Kuropatkin gave the order to stop the attacks. The losses of the Russian troops amounted to 40 thousand killed and wounded, the Japanese - 30 thousand.

After the operation on the Shakhe River, a positional calm was established at the front, which lasted until the end of 1904.

Campaign of 1905

In January 1905, a revolution began in Russia, which complicated the further conduct of the war.

On January 12 (25), the Battle of Sandepu began, in which Russian troops tried to go on the offensive. After the occupation of 2 villages, the battle was stopped on January 29 by order of Kuropatkin. The losses of the Russian troops amounted to 12 thousand, Japanese - 9 thousand killed and wounded.

In February 1905, the Japanese forced the Russian army to retreat in the general battle at Mukden, which was fought on more than a 100-kilometer front and lasted three weeks. Until the outbreak of World War I, it was the largest land battle in history. In heavy battles, the Russian army lost 90 thousand people (killed, wounded and captured) out of 350 thousand who participated in the battle; the Japanese army lost 75 thousand people (killed, wounded and captured) out of 300 thousand. On March 10, Russian troops left Mukden. After that, the war on land began to subside and took on a positional character.

On May 14 (27) - May 15 (28), 1905, in the Battle of Tsushima, the Japanese fleet destroyed the Russian squadron, which had been transferred to the Far East from the Baltic under the command of Vice Admiral Z.P. Rozhestvensky.

On July 7, the last major operation of the war began - the Japanese invasion of Sakhalin. The 15th Japanese division, numbering 14 thousand people, was opposed by about 6 thousand Russians, consisting mainly of exiles and convicts who joined the troops only to acquire benefits for serving hard labor and exile and did not differ in particular combat capability. On July 29, after the surrender of the main Russian detachment (about 3.2 thousand people), the resistance on the island was suppressed.

The number of Russian troops in Manchuria continued to increase, reinforcements arrived. At the time of the conclusion of peace, the Russian armies in Manchuria occupied positions near the village of Sypingai (English) and numbered about 500 thousand fighters; the troops were deployed not in a line, as before, but echeloned in depth; the army has significantly strengthened technically - the Russians have howitzer batteries, machine guns, the number of which has increased from 36 to 374; communication with Russia was no longer maintained by 3 pairs of trains, as at the beginning of the war, but by 12 pairs. Finally, the spirit of the Manchu armies was not broken. However, the Russian command did not take decisive actions at the front, which was largely facilitated by the revolution that began in the country, as well as Kuropatkin's tactics to maximize the exhaustion of the Japanese army.

For their part, the Japanese, who had suffered huge losses, were also not active. The Japanese army, opposing the Russian, numbered about 300 thousand fighters. The former upsurge in it was no longer observed. Japan was economically exhausted. Human resources have been exhausted, among the prisoners there were old people and children.

Results of the war

In May 1905, a meeting of the military council was held, where the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich reported that, in his opinion, a billion rubles of expenses, about 200 thousand losses and a year of hostilities were necessary for the final victory. After reflection, Nicholas II decided to enter into negotiations with the mediation of the American President Roosevelt for the conclusion of peace (which Japan had already twice proposed). S. Yu. Witte was appointed the first empowered Tsar, and the very next day he was received by the Emperor and received the appropriate instructions: under no circumstances to agree to any form of payment of indemnity that Russia has never paid in history, and not to give “an inch Russian land ". At the same time, Witte himself was pessimistic (especially in light of the demands of the Japanese side to alienate the entire Sakhalin, Primorsky Territory, transfer of all interneed ships): he was sure that "indemnity" and territorial losses were "inevitable."

On August 9, 1905, peace negotiations began in Portsmouth (USA) with the mediation of Theodore Roosevelt. The peace treaty was signed on August 23 (September 5), 1905. Russia ceded to Japan the southern part of Sakhalin (already occupied at that time by Japanese troops), its lease rights to the Liaodong Peninsula and the South Manchurian Railway, which connected Port Arthur with the Sino-Eastern Railway. Russia also recognized Korea as a Japanese zone of influence. In 1910, despite protests from other countries, Japan formally annexed Korea.

Many in Japan were dissatisfied with the peace treaty: Japan received less territory than expected - for example, only part of Sakhalin, and not all, and most importantly, did not receive monetary contributions. During the negotiations, the Japanese delegation put forward a demand for an indemnity of 1.2 billion yen, but the firm and unyielding position of Emperor Nicholas II did not allow Witte to concede on these two fundamental points. He was supported by US President Theodore Roosevelt, informing the Japanese that if they insisted, the American side, which had previously sympathized with the Japanese, would change its position. The Japanese side's demand for the demilitarization of Vladivostok and a number of other conditions were also rejected. Japanese diplomat Kikujiro Ishii wrote in his memoirs that:

As a result of the peace negotiations, Russia and Japan pledged to withdraw their troops from Manchuria, to use the railways only for commercial purposes and not to obstruct the freedom of trade and navigation. The Russian historian A. N. Bokhanov writes that the Portsmouth Accords became the undoubted success of Russian diplomacy: the negotiations were rather an agreement of equal partners, and not an agreement concluded as a result of an unsuccessful war.

The war cost Japan a huge, in comparison with Russia, exertion of forces. She had to put under arms 1.8% of the population (Russia - 0.5%), during the war, its external public debt increased 4 times (in Russia by a third) and reached 2,400 million yen.

The Japanese army lost in killed, according to various sources, from 49 thousand (B. Ts.Urlanis) to 80 thousand (Doctor of Historical Sciences I. Rostunov), while the Russian from 32 thousand (Urlanis) to 50 thousand . (Rostunov) or 52 501 people (G. F. Krivosheev). Russian losses in battles on land were half the Japanese. In addition, 17,297 Russians and 38,617 Japanese soldiers and officers (Urlanis) died from wounds and diseases. The incidence in both armies was about 25 people. per 1000 per month, however, the mortality rate in Japanese medical institutions was 2.44 times higher than the Russian indicator.

According to some representatives of the military elite of that time (for example, the chief of the German General Staff Schlieffen), Russia could well continue the war, it was only necessary to better mobilize the forces of the empire.

In his memoirs, Witte admitted:

Opinions and ratings

General Kuropatkin, in his "Results" of the Japanese war, wrote about the command staff:

Other facts

The Russo-Japanese War gave rise to several myths about the explosives used by the Japanese, shimose. The shells stuffed with shimosa exploded on impact on any obstacle, giving a mushroom cloud of suffocating smoke and a large number of fragments, that is, they had a pronounced high-explosive effect. Russian shells filled with pyroxylin did not give such an effect, although they had better armor-piercing properties. Such a noticeable superiority of the Japanese shells over the Russian in high-explosiveness gave rise to several common myths:

1. The explosion power of shimosa is several times stronger than pyroxylin.
2. The use of shimosa was Japan's technical superiority, due to which Russia suffered naval defeats.

Both of these myths are incorrect (discussed in detail in the article on shimosis).

During the transition of the 2nd Pacific Squadron under the command of Z.P. Rozhestvensky from the Baltic to the Port Arthur area, the so-called Hull incident occurred. Rozhestvensky received information that Japanese destroyers were waiting for the squadron in the North Sea. On the night of October 22, 1904, the squadron fired at British fishing vessels, mistaking them for Japanese ships. This incident caused a serious Anglo-Russian diplomatic conflict. Subsequently, an arbitration tribunal was established to investigate the circumstances of the incident.

Russian-Japanese war in art

Painting

On April 13, 1904, the talented Russian battle painter Vasily Vereshchagin was killed by Japanese mines when the battleship "Petropavlovsk" was blown up. Ironically, shortly before the war, Vereshchagin returned from Japan, where he created a number of paintings. In particular, one of them, "Japanese woman", he created at the beginning of 1904, that is, just a few months before his death.

Fiction

	Book title	Description
Doroshevich, V.M.	East and war	The main topic is international relations during the war
Novikov-Priboy
V.P. Kostenko	On the "Eagle" in Tsushima	The main theme is the Battle of Tsushima
Stepanov A.N.	"Port Arthur" (in 2 parts)	Main topic - Defense of Port Arthur
Pikul V.S.	Cruisers	Operations of the Vladivostok squadron of cruisers during the war
Pikul V.S.	Wealth	Defense of the Kamchatka Peninsula
Pikul V.S.		Landing of Japanese troops on Sakhalin Island. Defense of Sakhalin.
Pikul V.S.	Okini-san's three ages	The life story of a naval officer.
Daletsky P. L.	On the hills of Manchuria
Grigoriev S.T.	Thunderbolt stern flag
Boris Akunin	Diamond chariot (book)	Japanese espionage and sabotage on Russian railways during the war
M. Bozhatkin	The crab goes to sea (novel)
Allen, Willis Boyd	The north Pacific: a story of the Russo-Japanese war	The Russo-Japanese War through the Eyes of US Navy Seamen

War in music

• Waltz by Ilya Shatrov "On the Hills of Manchuria" (1907).
• Song by an unknown author "The sea spreads wide" (1900s) about the 2nd Pacific squadron: L. Utesov, L. Utesov video, E. Dyatlov, DDT
• The song "Upward you, comrades, all in their places" (1904), dedicated to the death of the cruiser "Varyag": frames from the film "Varyag", M. Troshin
• The song "Cold waves are splashing" (1904), also dedicated to the death of the cruiser "Varyag": Alexandrov Ensemble, 1942, O. Pogudin
• Song to the verses of Alexander Blok "The girl sang in the church choir" (1905): L. Novoseltseva, A. Kustova and R. Stanskov.
• Oleg Mityaev's song "Another's War" (1998) from the point of view of a sailor of the 2nd Pacific Squadron - a resident of Tobolsk.

The economic upsurge of Russia, the construction of railways, and an expansive policy of developing the provinces led to the consolidation of Russia's position in the Far East. The tsarist government had the opportunity to extend its influence to Korea and China. To this end, the tsarist government in 1898 rented the Liaodong Peninsula from China for a period of 25 years.

In 1900, Russia, together with other great powers, took part in suppressing the uprising in China and sent its troops into Manchuria under the pretext of providing protection for the CER. China was given a condition - the withdrawal of troops from the occupied territories in exchange for the concession of Manchuria. However, the international situation was unfavorable, and Russia was forced to withdraw its troops without satisfying claims. Dissatisfied with the growth of Russian influence in the Far East, supported by Britain and the United States, Japan entered the struggle for a dominant role in Southeast Asia. Both powers were preparing for a military conflict.

The balance of power in the Pacific region was not in favor of tsarist Russia. It was significantly inferior in the number of ground forces (a grouping of 98 thousand soldiers was concentrated in the Port Arthur area against a 150 thousand Japanese army). Japan significantly surpassed Russia in military equipment (the Japanese Navy had twice as many cruisers and three times outnumbered the Russian fleet in the number of destroyers). The theater of military operations was located at a considerable distance from the center of Russia, which made it difficult to supply ammunition and food. The situation was aggravated by the low traffic capacity of the railways. Despite this, the tsarist government continued its aggressive policy in the Far East. In a desire to distract the people from social problems, the government decided to raise the prestige of the autocracy with a "victorious war."

On January 27, 1904, without declaring war, Japanese troops attacked a Russian squadron stationed at the roadstead of Port Arthur.

As a result, several Russian warships were damaged. In the Korean port of Chemulpo, the Russian cruiser Varyag and the gunboat Koreets were blocked. The crews were offered surrender. Rejecting this proposal, the Russian sailors took the ships to the outer roadstead and took up the battle with the Japanese squadron.

Despite heroic resistance, they failed to break through to Port Arthur. The surviving sailors scuttled the ships without surrendering to the enemy.

The defense of Port Arthur was developing tragically. On March 31, 1904, during the withdrawal of the squadron to the outer roadstead, the flagship cruiser Petropavlovsk was blown up by a mine, an outstanding military leader, the organizer of the defense of Port Arthur, Admiral S.O. Makarov. The command of the ground forces did not take proper action and allowed the encirclement of Port Arthur. Cut off from the rest of the army, the 50,000th garrison from August to December 1904 repelled six massive attacks by Japanese troops.

Port Arthur fell at the end of December 1904. The loss of the main base of the Russian troops predetermined the outcome of the war. The Russian army suffered a major defeat at Mukden. In October 1904, the second Pacific squadron came to the aid of the besieged Port Arthur. Near about. Tsushima in the Sea of ​​Japan, she was met and defeated by the Japanese Navy.

In August 1905 in Portsmund Russia and Japan signed, according to which the southern part of Fr. Sakhalin and Port Arthur. The Japanese were given the right to freely fish in Russian territorial waters. Russia and Japan pledged to withdraw their troops from Manchuria. Korea was recognized as a sphere of Japanese interests.

The Russo-Japanese War placed a heavy economic burden on the shoulders of the people. The cost of the war amounted to 3 billion rubles from external loans. Russia lost 400 thousand people killed, wounded and captured. The defeat showed the weakness of tsarist Russia and increased discontent in society with the existing system of power, brought the beginning closer.

By 1890, Russia's attention had shifted to the East. The Aigun Treaty with China in 1858 recorded the transfer of the modern Primorsky Territory to Russia, on the territory of which Vladivostok was founded already in 1860. In 1855, the Shimoda Treaty was signed with Japan, according to which the Kuril Islands to the north of Iturup Island were declared the possession of Russia, and Sakhalin - the joint possession of the two countries. The St. Petersburg Treaty of 1875 fixed the transfer of Sakhalin to Russia in exchange for the transfer of all 18 Kuril Islands to Japan. In May 1891, the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway began, designed to connect the European part of Russia and the Far East by rail. The Russian government was keenly interested in the agricultural colonization of Primorye and, as a consequence, in ensuring unimpeded trade through ice-free ports in the Yellow Sea, such as Port Arthur.

In 1876, Korea signed an agreement with Japan, which opened the ports of Korea to Japanese trade. In 1895, the Sino-Japanese War began, ending with the signing of the Shimonoseki Treaty, according to which China renounced all rights to Korea, transferred the island of Taiwan, the Pescadores and the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan, and also paid an indemnity, the amount of which was equivalent to 3 annual budgets of the Japanese government ...

Immediate causes of war

On April 23, 1895, Russia, France and Germany in an ultimatum demanded Japan's refusal to annex the Liaodong Peninsula. Japan conceded. On March 15 (27), 1898, a convention was signed between Russia and China, according to which the ice-free ports of the Liaodong Peninsula Port-Arthur and Dalniy were leased to Russia and a railway was allowed to be laid to these ports. This led to a new wave of militarization of Japan, this time directed against Russia.

In October 1900, Russian troops occupied Manchuria.

In May 1901, Japan entered into an alternative agreement with Great Britain.

On January 17 (30), 1902, the Anglo-Japanese agreement on the provision of military assistance was signed. The treaty gave Japan the opportunity to start a fight with Russia.

On March 3 (16), 1902, the Franco-Russian declaration was adopted (a diplomatic response to the Anglo-Japanese alliance). March 26 (April 8) 1902 - the Russian-Chinese agreement, according to which Russia pledged to withdraw its troops from Manchuria by October 1903. On July 1 (14), 1903, traffic on the Transsib was opened along its entire length. The movement went through Manchuria (along the CER). Under the pretext of checking the capacity of the Transsib, the transfer of Russian troops to the Far East immediately began. The governorship of the Far East was formed, uniting the Amur general governorship and the Kwantung region (Admiral E.I.

On January 24, 1904, Japan officially announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Russia. January 26, 1904 the Japanese fleet, without declaring war, attacked the Port Arthur squadron. This is how the Russo-Japanese War began.

The main contradictions that led to the war between Russia and Japan were:

A) economic - construction and operation of the CER and Russian expansion in Manchuria; lease by Russia of the Liaodong Peninsula and Port Arthur;

B) political - the struggle for spheres of influence in China and Korea; war as a means of distracting from the revolutionary movement in Russia.

The balance of forces in the theaters of military operations was not in favor of Russia, which was due to the difficulties of concentrating troops on the outskirts of the empire, the clumsiness of the military and naval departments, and gross miscalculations in assessing the enemy's capabilities.

The parties' plans:

Japan is an offensive strategy, the goal of which is dominance at sea, the capture of Korea, the possession of Port Arthur, the defeat of the Russian group.

Russia is a defensive strategy; there was no general war plan that would ensure interaction between the army and the navy.

The course of hostilities

Stage I. War at sea

The 1st Pacific Squadron and part of the ships of the Siberian Flotilla were based in Port Arthur, other ships of the Siberian Flotilla were based in Vladivostok. In total, the Russian fleet consisted of 64 ships. The Russian naval forces in the Pacific Ocean were inferior to the Japanese not only in the number of ships, but also in speed, rate of fire and range, area of ​​armored sides, etc.

- Attack on the Pacific Fleet in Port Arthur (1904). On the night of January 27, 1904, without declaring war, the Japanese fleet under the command of Admiral Togo unexpectedly attacked the Port Arthur squadron under the command of Vice-Admiral Stark standing in the outer roadstead. This attack marked the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. Japan seized supremacy at sea and began an amphibious operation.

- Fight of "Varyag" and "Koreyets" in the Chemulpo Bay (1904). On the morning of January 27, another Japanese squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Uriu approached the Korean port of Chemulpo. Two Russian ships in a fierce battle - "Varyag" (captain V. V. Rudnev) and gunboat "Koreets" - received heavy damage in an unequal battle, and the sailors, not wanting to surrender the ships to the Japanese, sank the "Varyag" and blew up the "Koreets" ...

- The death of the battleship "Petropavlovsk" (1904). On February 1, 1904, Vice-Admiral S.O. Makarov was appointed commander of the 1st Pacific Squadron. However, on March 31, Makarov died on the lead battleship "Petropavlovsk", which, after going to sea, was blown up by a mine. The Japanese managed to blockade the Russian fleet in Port Arthur and began to land a ground army on the mainland.

Stage II. Struggle on the passes and for the Liaodong Peninsula

- The main Russian forces in Northeast China under the command of General A. Kuropatkin were located in South Manchuria. The general command of the armed forces in the Far East (until October 1904) was carried out by Admiral E. Alekseev.

- Battle on the Yalu River (1904). Success in the battle ensured that the Japanese army seized the strategic initiative.

- The battle for the port of Dalny. The Japanese army was able to tightly blockade Port Arthur, eliminate the threat of a double strike from the Russian troops from the Kwantung Peninsula and from Manchuria to launch an offensive inland.

- Battle on the passes and at Dashichao (1904). Despite the tactical success, the commander of the Manchurian Army, General Kuropatkin, ordered a retreat. During this stage, Japanese troops drove the Russians from the mountains to the plain, completely captured the coast, occupied the Liaodong Peninsula and blockaded Port Arthur.

- Battle of the Yellow Sea (1904). At the end of July, the 1st Pacific Squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Vitgeft entered the Yellow Sea, where on 28 July 1904 it was attacked by the Japanese fleet of Admiral Togo. During the battle, Rear Admiral Vitgeft was killed and the flagship Tsesarevich went out of order, which left the Russian squadron in confusion. The rest of the ships, being damaged, returned to Port Arthur.

- Battle in the Korea Strait (1904). The Japanese fleet gained complete supremacy in sea communications.

Stage III. Struggle for South Manchuria and Port Arthur

- Battle of Liaoyang (11-21 August 1904). Kuropatkin gave the order to leave Liaoyang and retreat to Mukden. The losses of the Russians amounted to about 16 thousand people, the Japanese - 24 thousand people. The results of the Liaoyang battle had an extremely negative impact on the morale of the Russian troops.

- Battle on the Shahe River (1904). Despite the tactically drawn result of the battle, the strategic success was on the side of the Japanese, who repelled Kuropatkin's last attempt to save Port Arthur.

- Defense of Port Arthur (January 27 - December 20, 1904). Port Arthur was not only a naval port, but also a powerful land fortress. The defense of Port Arthur was headed by the chief of the Kwantung fortified region, General Stoessel. In repelling attacks, the Russians used new means of struggle, including mortars invented by midshipman S.N. Vlasyev. The main struggle in November unfolded for Mount Vysokaya on the Northern Front, as well as for the 2nd and 3rd forts on the Eastern Front. Capturing Vysokaya and installing long-range artillery on it, the Japanese began shelling the city and port. From that moment on, the fate of the fortress and the fleet was finally decided. On December 2, the chief of ground defense, its organizer and inspirer, General R.I.Kondratenko, was killed. Stoessel signed the surrender on December 20, 1904. For Russia, the fall of Port Arthur meant the loss of access to the ice-free Yellow Sea, the deterioration of the strategic situation in Manchuria and a significant aggravation of the internal political situation in the country.

- Battle of Mukden (1905). On February 24, the 5th Japanese army broke through the left flank of the Russians and, reaching the area northeast of Mukden, threatened to encircle the troops defending the city. On the same day, Kuropatkin gave the order for a general retreat. The battle of Mukden was the last major military clash on land in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

Stage IV. Tsushima battle and loss of Sakhalin

To help the Pacific Fleet, the 2nd Pacific Squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Z. Rozhestvensky and the 3rd Pacific Squadron headed by Rear Admiral N. Nebogatov were formed in the Baltic. On April 26, both squadrons linked up on the way and, under the general command of Rozhestvensky, continued their journey to the Far East. After the fall of Port Arthur and the death of the 1st Pacific Squadron, the situation for Rozhestvensky became much more complicated. From now on, Vladivostok remained the base for his squadron.

- Battle of Tsushima (1905). The Battle of Tsushima is one of the largest naval battles in world history. This was the last battle of the era of armored ships. The death of the Pacific Fleet put an end to the Russo-Japanese confrontation. She deprived the Far Eastern borders of Russia of protection against aggression from the sea. The territory of Japan became invulnerable. In the summer of 1905, the Japanese embarked on the second part of their military program and took possession of Sakhalin Island almost unhindered. The defending detachment under the command of General Lyapunov surrendered on 18 July. The threat of attack also looms over the poorly defended Russian Primorye.

Portsmouth world. Results of the Russo-Japanese War

Japan was seriously exhausted by the war. Russian forces arrived and accumulated in Manchuria. For the first time, Russia was faced in full with the problems of the new army, created according to the system of universal conscription. Under these conditions, such issues as explaining the goals and meaning of a future war to the people, fostering respect for the army, a conscientious attitude to military duty, raising the prestige of military service, etc., were of great importance. None of this before the war of 1904-1905. was not done.

Serious social inequality also had a depressing effect on the soldiers.

Due to the growing internal instability, the tsarist government after the Tsushima defeat was forced to agree to start negotiations with Japan, which had already repeatedly tried to persuade Russia to peace through intermediaries (the United States, Britain and Germany).

1) Russia ceded South Sakhalin to Japan, and also transferred to her lease rights to the Liaodong Peninsula with a branch of the railway leading to it.

2) Russian troops were withdrawn from Manchuria, and Korea became a zone of Japanese influence.

3) Japan received the right to fish along the Russian coast.

Reasons for defeat:

- technical, economic and military superiority of Japan;

- military-political and diplomatic isolation of Russia;

- operational-tactical and strategic unpreparedness of the Russian army to conduct hostilities in difficult conditions;

- mediocrity and betrayal of some of the tsarist generals, unpopularity of the war among all strata of the population.

The "Manchurian lesson" forced the Russian leadership to start improving the state of the armed forces. From 1905 to 1912, important military reforms were carried out in the country: the senior command staff was being updated, the training of officers was being improved, new, modern military regulations were introduced, the service life of soldiers was reduced from 5 to 3 years, but more attention was paid to combat training. The troops are equipped with more advanced weapons, the fleet is being updated - more powerful battleships are replacing the battleships. These reforms strengthened the military ahead of a more formidable clash with Germany. The defeat from Japan also contributed to the growth of the government's attention to the problems of Siberia and the Far East. The war with Japan revealed the vulnerability of the country's Far Eastern borders.

(1904-1905) - the war between Russia and Japan, which was fought for control over Manchuria, Korea and the ports of Port Arthur and Dalny.

The most important object of the struggle for the final division of the world at the end of the 19th century was the economically backward and militarily weak China. It was to the Far East that the center of gravity of the foreign policy activity of Russian diplomacy was shifted from the mid-1890s. The tsarist government's keen interest in the affairs of this region was largely due to the appearance here by the end of the 19th century of a strong and very aggressive neighbor in the person of Japan, which had embarked on the path of expansion.

After, as a result of the victory in the war with China in 1894-1895, Japan acquired the Liaodong Peninsula under a peace treaty, Russia, having acted as a united front with France and Germany, forced Japan to abandon this part of Chinese territory. In 1896, a Russian-Chinese treaty on a defensive alliance against Japan was concluded. China has granted Russia a concession for the construction of a railway from Chita to Vladivostok through Manchuria (northeastern China). The railway line, known as the China Eastern Railway (CER), began to be built in 1897.

Japan, which asserted its influence in Korea after the war with China, was forced in 1896 to agree to the establishment of a joint Russian-Japanese protectorate over Korea with the actual predominance of Russia.

In 1898, Russia received from China on a long lease (for 25 years) the southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula, the so-called Kwantung region, with the city of Lushun, which also had a European name - Port Arthur. Since March 1898, this ice-free port became the base for the Pacific squadron of the Russian fleet, which led to a new aggravation of the contradictions between Japan and Russia.

The tsarist government decided to aggravate relations with its Far Eastern neighbor because it did not see a serious enemy in Japan and hoped with a small but victorious war to overcome the impending internal crisis that threatened revolution.

Japan, for its part, was actively preparing for an armed clash with Russia. True, in the summer of 1903, the Russian-Japanese negotiations began on Manchuria and Korea, but the Japanese military machine, enlisting the direct support of the United States and England, was already launched. On February 6 (January 24, O.S.), 1904, the Japanese ambassador handed Russian Foreign Minister Vladimir Lamsdorf a note on the severance of diplomatic relations, and on the evening of February 8 (January 26, O.S.), 1904, the Japanese fleet attacked the port without declaring war -Arthur squadron. The battleships Retvizan and Tsarevich and the cruiser Pallada were seriously damaged.

Hostilities began. In early March, the Russian squadron in Port Arthur was led by an experienced naval commander, Vice Admiral Stepan Makarov, but on April 13 (March 31, O.S.), 1904, he died when the flagship battleship Petropavlovsk was blown up by a mine and sank. The command of the squadron passed to Rear Admiral Wilhelm Wittgeft.

In March 1904, the Japanese army landed in Korea, and in April - in the south of Manchuria. Russian troops under the command of General Mikhail Zasulich could not withstand the onslaught of superior enemy forces and in May were forced to leave the Jinzhou position. Port Arthur was thus cut off from the Russian Manchu army.

By the decision of the Japanese commander-in-chief, Marshal Iwao Oyama, the army of Maresuke Nogi began a siege of Port Arthur, while the 1st, 2nd and 4th armies, which landed at Dagushan, moved to Liaoyang from the southeast, south and southwest. In mid-June, Kuroki's army occupied the passes southeast of the city, and in July repelled a Russian counter-offensive. Yasukata Oku's army captured the port of Yingkou after the battle at Dashichao in July, cutting off the Manchu army's communications with Port Arthur by sea. In the second half of July, three Japanese armies united at Liaoyang; their total number was more than 120 thousand against 152 thousand Russians. In the battle of Liaoyang on August 24 - September 3, 1904 (August 11-21 O.S.), both sides suffered huge losses: the Russians lost more than 16 thousand killed, and the Japanese - 24 thousand. The Japanese were unable to surround the army of Alexei Kuropatkin, which in perfect order withdrew to Mukden, but they captured Liaoyang and the Yantai coal mines.

The retreat to Mukden meant for the defenders of Port Arthur the collapse of hopes of any effective assistance from the ground forces. The 3rd Japanese Army captured the Wolf Hills and began intensive shelling of the city and the inner raid. Despite this, several assaults undertaken by her in August were repulsed by the garrison under the command of Major General Roman Kondratenko; the besiegers lost 16 thousand killed. At the same time, the Japanese were successful at sea. An attempt to break through the Pacific Fleet into Vladivostok at the end of July failed, Rear Admiral Vitgeft was killed. In August, the squadron of Vice Admiral Hikonojo Kamimura managed to overtake and defeat the cruising detachment of Rear Admiral Jessen.

By the beginning of October 1904, thanks to reinforcements, the number of the Manchu army reached 210 thousand, and the Japanese troops near Liaoyang - 170 thousand.

Fearing that in the event of the fall of Port Arthur, the forces of the Japanese would increase significantly due to the liberated 3rd army, Kuropatkin launched an offensive to the south at the end of September, but was defeated in the battle on the Shahe River, losing 46 thousand killed (the enemy - only 16 thousand) , and went on the defensive. The four-month "Shahey sitting" began.

In September-November, the defenders of Port Arthur repulsed three Japanese assaults, but the 3rd Japanese army managed to capture the High Mountain dominating Port Arthur. On January 2, 1905 (December 20, 1904 O.S.), the head of the Kwantung fortified region, Lieutenant General Anatoly Stessel, without exhausting all the possibilities for resistance, surrendered Port Arthur (in the spring of 1908, a military court sentenced him to death, commuted to ten years imprisonment).

The fall of Port Arthur sharply worsened the strategic position of the Russian troops and the command tried to turn the tide. However, the successfully launched offensive of the 2nd Manchurian Army on the village of Sandepu was not supported by other armies. After joining the main Japanese forces of the 3rd Army

Legs their number equaled the number of Russian troops. In February, Tamemoto Kuroki's army attacked the 1st Manchu Army southeast of Mukden, while Noga's army began to outflank the Russian right flank. Kuroki's army broke through the front of Nikolai Linevich's army. On March 10 (February 25, O.S.), 1905, the Japanese occupied Mukden. Having lost more than 90 thousand killed and captured, Russian troops retreated in disarray north to Telin. The largest defeat at Mukden meant that the Russian command lost the campaign in Manchuria, although it managed to retain a significant part of the army.

Trying to achieve a turning point in the war, the Russian government sent the 2nd Pacific Squadron of Admiral Zinovy ​​Rozhdestvensky, created from a part of the Baltic Fleet, to the Far East, however, on May 27-28 (May 14-15, O.S.) in the Battle of Tsushima, the Japanese fleet destroyed the Russian squadron ... Only one cruiser and two destroyers reached Vladivostok. At the beginning of the summer, the Japanese completely ousted the Russian detachments from North Korea, and by July 8 (June 25, O.S.) they captured Sakhalin.

Despite the victories, Japan's forces were exhausted, and at the end of May, through the mediation of US President Theodore Roosevelt, she invited Russia to enter into peace negotiations. Russia, which found itself in a difficult internal political situation, responded with consent. On August 7 (July 25 O.S.), a diplomatic conference opened in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA, which ended on September 5 (August 23 O.S.) 1905 with the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty. According to its terms, Russia ceded the southern part of Sakhalin to Japan, the rights to lease Port Arthur and the southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula and the southern branch of the CER from Changchun station to Port Arthur, allowed its fishing fleet to fish off the coast of the Japan, Okhotsk and Bering seas, recognized Korea a zone of Japanese influence and gave up its political, military and trade advantages in Manchuria. At the same time, Russia was exempted from paying any indemnities.

Japan, which, as a result of victory, took a leading place among the powers of the Far East, until the end of World War II, celebrated the day of victory at Mukden as Ground Forces Day, and the date of victory at Tsushima as Day of the Naval Forces.

The Russo-Japanese War was the first major war of the 20th century. Russia lost about 270 thousand people (including over 50 thousand killed), Japan - 270 thousand people (including over 86 thousand killed).

In the Russo-Japanese War, for the first time, machine guns, rapid-fire artillery, mortars, hand grenades, radiotelegraphs, searchlights, wire obstacles, including those under high voltage, naval mines and torpedoes, were used on a large scale.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources