Russo-Japanese war 1904-1905

[The Basket]

Do you think the Japanese thought that the suprise torpedo attack at Port Arthur was so successful that might come in handy in the future?
Find this war so fascinating although often misquoted as the first time an Asian power defeated a European one as the Mongols bought that one.
It taught machine gun tactics and set the stage for the later Russian Revolution and of course the road to Pearl Harbour.

 

[Shinpachi]

Was it the road to PH ?

Based on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance from 1902 (-1923), Great Britain and Empire of Japan were going to form a firm community with a common destiny in Asia by excluding Russia from Manchuria and Korea at the time. The road to PH was started when the US was interested in this alliance and region after the WW1 was over.

 

[The Basket]

Wasn't the UK Japan alliance based on fear of Russia?
A few historians do say the Japanese legend started here. Beating a European power so relatively easily showed that with even more powerful ships that anything was possible.
Of course Tsushima and Pearl Harbour are not linked militarily. But you can't have Pearl Harbour without Tsushima.

 

[Shinpachi]

A few historians in UK ?
Yes, Japanese fought Russians because Britons supported it positively through the alliance.
In other words, Japan had neither guts to fight Russia nor plan to attack the US in the future without the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.

The aviation torpedoes.
They left such a great gift to the Japanese in 1921 when they had to say good-bye soon.
This was the moment when the Japanese saw the road to Pearl Harbor.

 

[The Basket]

The Anglo-Japanese alliance ended in 1921 so how could that support the attack in 1941?
The Mikasa which was the flagship at Tsushima exists today and one the finest examples of a British made battleship that exists today.

 

[Shinpachi]

GB noticed Japan demise of the alliance in 1921 and it was officially terminated in 1923.
No problem for the GB about selling the weapon and sending dozens of retired British airmen as flight instructors for the Sempill Mission to Japan during 1921-1922.

 

[Shinpachi]

Lord Sempill (1893-1965) kept a good friendship with the Japanese even after the alliance was over.
He was to be doubted as a spy later because he kept it even during the Pacific War.
From the Japanese viewpoint, he was not a spy but unofficial military advisor for his Japanese friends in IJN.

 

[The Basket]

Use of the machine gun in modern warfare is certainly consider a first by the Russians.

Use of radio equipment by the Japanese navy.

1905 Russia Revolution and the mutiny by the Potemkin.

The Russians left Korea and Manchuria leaving it open for Japanese expansion and the ceding of South Sakhalin to Japan.

Russian leadership was considered weak and timid while Japanese leadership was considered aggressive and without regard for casualties. This gave the misconception that sheer will and esprit de corps can overcome any military situation. Something that will be played out time and again in the 20th century.

 

[Shinpachi]

Beside politically but historically, how the Americans looked to the Japanese can be observed even today.

In April 2017, US threatened NK that it would attack NK if the latter did not abandon the nuclear weapon.
NK did not obey but US did not attack.
NK understood US only shouted and was not so strong as it imagined.

History repeats.

 

[The Basket]

I fear that Japan's victory and subsequent other victories made war attractive.

 

[Shinpachi]

I fear that Japan's victory and subsequent other victories made war attractive.

I searched for the connection between the Russo-Japanese War and the Pearl Harbor to find a person.
Prince Fushiminomiya-Hiroyasu (1875-1946) seems to have been a key person who gave the absolute authority to the Imperial Japanese Navy as the Chief of Staff for the Naval General Staff Office in 1933 in order to compete with the U.S. Navy as the Washington Naval Treaty was to be terninated in 1938. Budget for the Imperial Japanese Navy was doubled in 1941 to be prepared for the coming operation in the Pacific. As Fushiminomiya was also a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, he might have been a bridge between the two wars.

Prince Fushiminomiya-Hiroyasu (1875-1946)

 

[The Basket]

Isoroku Yamamoto was at Tsushima. On the armoured cruiser Nisshin.

He lost 2 fingers on his left hand and was badly wounded.

 

[Shinpachi]

I think I have got wiser because of your question and information.
Thanks Basket

 

[nuuumannn]

I searched for the connection between the Russo-Japanese War and the Pearl Harbor

Another connection is the British themselves; both battles benefitted from British (in Pearl Harbour's case British derived, the aircraft carrier based torpedo bomber was a British invention) weapons and the implementation of British philosophies and policy; Tsushima is obviously British built ships and crossing the Russian 'T' and Pearl Harbour by the 1921 Sempill mission and torpedoplanes being introduced into the Japanese navy for the first time, as well as instruction on their strategic and tactical use, not to forget Taranto.

Pearl and Taranto hark back to the 1917 Richmond/Rutland paper describing the sinking of the High Seas Fleet at its anchorage in Wilhelmshaven using torpedoplanes launched from ships. Instructors from training the RNAS carried out in Scotland went with Sempill on his 1921 mission to Japan, along with Sopwith Cuckoo torpedoplanes, which were built for the British raid. The foundation of the idea harks back to what the RN called the 'Copehagen'; storming an enemy harbour by surprise and destroying its ships at anchor, after the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. The term 'to Copenhagen the enemy fleet' fell into RN vernacular after the battle.

The British themselves fell victim to such an attack when the Dutch Navy sailed down the Medway River by night and attacked British warships in harbour at Chatham in 1667.

 

[GrauGeist]

Use of the machine gun in modern warfare is certainly consider a first by the Russians.

The Gatling Gun was first used in 1862 by Union forces against Confederate troops and adopted byseveral European nations soon after.
The first modern machine gun was the Maxim and was first used in combat by British forces during the Matabele War (1893-1894).

 

[The Basket]

The use of the machine gun in modern warfare against a modern army with modern tactics was certainly new.

Maxims were the new thing and tactics which was to play role a few years later in the Great War.

 

[GrauGeist]

The American Civil War can be considered the first war of the modern age.
They had:
Trench Warfare
Railway Mortars
Aerial Observation
Blackouts to prevent aerial observation
Mobile Artillery
Machine Guns (Gatlings)
Submarine attack
Ironclad battles
Etc...

And as a sidenote: The first modern warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy was a Confederate warship, the CSS Stonewall, renamed the Kōtetsu

 

[The Basket]

The use of rapid firing artillery, machine guns and rifles was new. And tactics to use them or hide from them was new.

Whether the loss led to the Soviet revolution is debatable but it didn't help.

The Japanese were not hindered in their expansion either.

 

[nuuumannn]

The American Civil War can be considered the first war of the modern age.

The Civil War was also a very mobile conflict. The battle front moved up and down almost the entire East Coast of the USA, battles were waged across great distances.

 

[The Basket]

I was reading about Lord Sempill and what the hell? A well known spy giving all sorts to the Japanese and they kept giving him high level positions with access to secret info and he kept on spying for the Japanese. Absolute bonkers! He was never tried as a traitor due to the old boy network but he should have been nowhere near anything!

One issue was the Type 30 rifle which proved to be troublesome which was later replaced by the Type 38 and the 6.5mm wasn't powerful enough.

Type 38 was very successful and still used 6.5mm round although now in pointy bullet mode. The concern of 6.5mm was addressed 35 years later with 7.7mm so good on the Japanese for eventually getting the job done!

Oddly all Japanese rifles are called Arisaka which is not true as the Type 30 was an Arisaka design but the 38 and 99 were not.

If fact the Type 38 was a Nambu.