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Russo-Japanese War: Imperial Russia
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Book Description: Sidney Lewis Gulick's 1905 masterpiece, The White Peril in the Far East: An Interpretation of the Significance of the Russo-Japanese War is a fascinating contemporary study of the most significant war of the early modern era. Japan's stunning victory over Russia was the first time that an Asian country had defeated a white European nation. Japan's victory was a clear signal to other Asians that they too could roll back the tide of Western imperialism. The republication of Gulick's book is part of an ongoing effort by this scholar to introduce modern readers to now long-forgotten out-of-print works by pioneer Japanologists. The Editor (Daniel Metraux) provides an introduction that places Gulick's work in the context of modern Japanese history.
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The Russo-Japanese War was a clash between two expanding empires. In some ways it was a very twentieth-century war, with large armies using automatic weapons; in other ways it reflected the values of the nineteenth century, with Russian citizens donating money to the Japanese Red Cross in appreciation for the care of their soldiers. Both Japan and Russia desired to enlarge their power and influence in countries that China had controlled. Previously, Japan had defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. The Treaty of Shimonoseki ending this war gave Korea nominal independence, although Japanese settled there and controlled the railroad. Japan received Port Arthur (Lüshun) and the entire Liaodong peninsula, and ... could control the Yellow Sea.
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On Oct. 9, 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, Czar Nicholas II of Russia ordered his "invincible" 42-ship Baltic Fleet to sail 18,000 mi. around the world and attack Japan. Steaming into the North Sea, the Russian armada scored its first victory. Russian sailors spotted "Japanese torpedo boats" on the misty horizon, opened fire, and sank one and damaged several others. Unfortunately, the boats turned out to be English trawlers.
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The Russo-Japanese War is occasionally alluded to in James Joyce's novel, Ulysses. In the "Eumaeus" chapter, a drunken sailor in a bar proclaims, "But a day of reckoning, he stated crescendo with no uncertain voice—thoroughly monopolizing all the conversation—was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in history. The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little lookin, he affirmed." The prophecy of Japan's rise as a great land and maritime power vis-à-vis the empires of Europe (first Russia, then presumably England at a future point) is consistent with the novel's narrative of Western Civilization's exhaustion, decline and diminished potential.
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The Russo-Japanese War was fought on Chinese soil with China a neutral observer. Russia was anxious for the conflict, regarding Japan as militarily weak and hoping to divert attention from domestic turmoil. In February 1904, Japan struck first without a declaration of war, and attacked Port Arthur on the western extremity of the Liaotung peninsula. In the ensuing months, the world was astounded by a string of Japanese successes. The most notable encounter was the destruction of the Russian fleet in May 1905 at Tsushima Strait, the area between the Sea of Japan (East Sea) and the East China Sea.
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Book Description: On the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 Russia's Baltic Fleet was sent to the aid of embattled troops in Russia's Chinese enclaves. Most observers thought that the Russians would have little trouble defeating Japanese naval forces. The two fleets met at Tsushima on May 27, 1905. What followed was perhaps the greatest naval victory of all time. At a cost of three torpedo boats, the Japanese admiral Togo sank three Russian battleships and much of the rest of the fleet.
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