Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War
Date	8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905
Location	Manchuria, Yellow Sea, Korean Peninsula, Sea of Japan
Result	Japanese victory; Treaty of Portsmouth
Belligerents
Japanese Empireball Supporters: USAball British Empireball British Rajball British Canadaball Argentinaball
Russian Empireball Supporters: Principality of Montenegroball Kingdom of Serbiaball French Empireball German Empireball
Commanders
Emperor Meiji Ōyama Iwao Kodama Gentarō Nogi Maresuke Kuroki Tamemoto Oku Yasukata Tōgō Heihachirō
Nicholas II Aleksey Kuropatin Anatoly Stessel Yevgeny Alexseyev Stepan Makarov † Wilhelm Vitgeft † Zinovy Rozhestvensky

The Russo-Japanese War was a war between Japanese Empireball and Russian Empireball over who would get Manchuria's clay.

Russian Empireball and Japanese Empireball both wanted to get Manchuriaball and Korea from Qingball and Korean Empireball respectively. So, they went to war in order to anschluss the region. Japanese Empireball won and gained the Kwantung Leased Territory and South Sakhalin. Montenegroball was technically at war with Japanball until 2006 because of this.

History

Background and Beginning of the War

Introduction

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 changed the history of warfare forever, ushering in a new era of conflicts in which naval battles became central to the fate of the struggle. Its ending had long-term consequences, becoming another factor that made WWI and WWII inevitable.

Before the First Sino-Japanese War

In 1868, Tokugawaball entered a modernization period called the Meiji Restoration, which resulted in the formation of Japanese Empireball. In the same year, the Imperial Japanese Navy was formed, which showed Japanese Empireball was now vying for naval dominance in the region. However, since it lacked industrial capacity, Japanese Empireball relied on UKball for a development of a modern navy. Meanwhile, in Russian Empireball, they were eager to increase their presence in the Pacific.

It had strong navies in the Baltic and Black Seas, but the country didn't have a naval port/base in the East. So, in 1860 Russian Empireball acquired Vladivostokball from Qingball, and turned it into a naval base in 1871. Meanwhile, in Moscowball, they built the Trans-Siberian Railroad to link Moscowball and Vladivostokball together in 1891. Although Vladivostokball was in a prime position, it wasn't a warm water port, which Russian Empireball desperately needed. Meanwhile, Qingball, which was reeling from defeats at the hands of European Powers, bought 2 battleships from German Empireball in 1885, which threatened Japanese Empireball, as it lacked financial resources to acquire his own. In 1893, Japanese Empireball ordered 2 battleships from Britain, but the war between Japanese Empireball and Qingball erupted, resulting in the First Sino-Japanese War, resulting in Japanese Empireball to rely on its cruisers.

After the First Sino-Japanese War

To the shock of the entire world, Japanese Empireball won the war in less than a year, managing to destroy one of the Qingball's battleships, and capturing another. Since the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japan feared Russian plans to create a sphere of influence in Korea and Manchuriaball. Russia had demonstrated an expansionist policy in Far East Siberia from the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. Seeing Russia as a rival, Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for recognition of Korea as being within the Japanese sphere of influence. Russia refused and demanded Korea north of the 39th parallel to be a neutral buffer zone between Russia and Japan. The Japanese government perceived a Russian threat to its plans for expansion into Asia and chose to go to war. After negotiations broke down in 1904, the Japanese Navy opened hostilities by attacking the Russian Eastern Fleet at Port Arthur, China, in a surprise attack.

Minor Battles and Land Battles after 1st Port Arthur

Russia suffered multiple defeats by Japan, but Tsar Nicholas II was convinced that Russia would win and chose to remain engaged in the war; at first, to await the outcomes of certain naval battles, and later to preserve the dignity of Russia by averting a "humiliating peace". Russia ignored Japan's willingness early on to agree to an armistice and rejected the idea to bring the dispute to the Arbitration Court at The Hague. The war concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth. Russiaball was forced to cede South Sakhalin Oblastball to Japanball, which they made into Karafutoball. The complete victory of the Japanese military surprised world observers. The consequences transformed the balance of power in East Asia, resulting in a reassessment of Japan's recent entry onto the world stage. It was the first major military victory in the modern era of an Asian power over a European one since the Mongols.