Why did Russia lose?
There
were six reasons why Japan won the war:
-
Japan
made a surprise
attack on
Port Arthur
in 1904 (as it was to do at
Pearl Harbor
in 1941!). It took
Russia
a while to organise its response.
-
Although
Russia
had just finished (1904) the trans-Siberian railway, every gun, bullet
and ration had to be sent thousands of miles by rail from
St Petersburg.
Korea
was at the end of a VERY
long supply line.
-
The
Russian Tsar was incompetent and fell prey to political intrigue –
therefore his best adviser Witte fell from power and other advisers
came and went – so the Russian
high command was incompetent and kept
changing its strategy. The
Russian generals hated each other and tried to make the others fail.
-
Just
when the Russians had organised their army and looked as though they
might be able to get the upper hand in the land war, in Jan 1905 the Russian commander of Port Arthur
surrendered, without asking his
officers and with plenty food and weapons for a longer siege.
-
Japan
had been growing stronger for many years.
It had a big army, and the Japanese
simply defeated the Russians in a very bloody land war
(battles of Fuhsien and
Liaoyang
in 1904, and
Mukden
in 1905). It also
had a big navy (remember the Anglo-Japanese naval Treaty of 1902) –
when the Russians sent their Baltic Fleet to try to help, the Japanese
NAVy also ambushed and defeated them at sea
at the battle of Tsushima (which effectively ended the war).
-
The
British
helped the Japanese – they stopped
the Russian Baltic Fleet going through the
Suez canal, and the British press led a campaign against the Russians.
|
Going Deeper
What
happened in the war?
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