September 5 marks 116 years since the end of the Russo-Japanese War, with the signing of the U.S.-mediated Treaty of Portsmouth. Fought in the beginning of the 20th century, it has a unique place in history, as the warring sides fought over the territory of two neutral states – China and Korea – and it also saw a European power being defeated by an Asian power for the first time in the modern era.
The Background
1904-05 was a tense period in the history of Asia. The story begins a few decades back when the island nation of Japan emerged from over two-and-a-half century of isolation, following the Meiji Restoration of 1868. In the next three to four decades, the country would undergo a rapid modernisation of its society, army, navy, and industry, with the adoption of Western methods and standards. The Russian Empire which already had control over Siberia was looking to expand further into East Asia, particularly towards the east of River Amur which would give them outlets of warm-water ports in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, and thereby in the Pacific Ocean. Since the 1850s, Russian urban settlements appeared along the left bank of River Amur, despite protests from a weakening Qing China.
Owing to the domestic turmoil in the backdrop of the struggle against British and French aggression and the Taiping Rebellion, imperial China was not in a position to resist Russian power. Finally, China was forced to cede to Russia all the territory from the mouth of the Amur till the frontiers of the Korean peninsula, including the region where the port of Vladivostok would emerge soon. Russian expansionist policy went unchallenged for the next three decades. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, Russia’s interest in Siberia, Russian Far East and East Asia saw a revival, but this time there it had to confront a newly emerging Asian power – Japan.
The decisive victory of Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, which was fought over the control of Korea, demonstrated Japanese power and the weakness of the Qing Empire. Before the war, Korea had long been a key client state of the Chinese empire, but its strategic location opposite the Japanese archipelago, with all its natural resources like coal and iron, attracted Japanese interest in the peninsula. The war ended in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed in 1905. After the war, Korea was removed from the suzerainty of China and was placed under the Japanese sphere of influence. Taiwan and parts of Manchuria also came under Japanese control.
Japanese power emerges from the shadows
In the next ten years, Japan, a collection of islands in the Pacific with a largely rugged terrain, would go into war with a European great power and a bi-continental giant – Russia. With the 1894-95 war with China, Japan now has control over the Korean Peninsula. This signalled Russia that an upcoming face-off with Japan was inevitable due to its own conflicting interest in the region. A slew of diplomatic efforts by Russia followed as a run-up to the war. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia led the efforts along with his cousin, Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II, and France, a part of the so-called ‘Triple Intervention’, trying to persuade Japan to give up its territorial demands in Northeast Asia in return for an increased indemnity.
In 1896, Russia even forged an alliance with the Qing Empire to protect the latter’s territorial integrity from foreign aggressions in the future. But, in fact what followed was the scramble for China’s coastal territories among the Russians, Germans, French and the British in the remaining part of the 1890s, which culminated in the rise of resistance movements against the Qing dynasty, including the Boxer Rebellion. In the meantime, Japan was building up its own armed forces by the way of increased conscription that gathered momentum in the late 1890s.
The breakout of war
The Japanese strategy was such that it never intended of attacking Russia directly, but the focus was put on winning an early and decisive victory that would secure their hegemony in Northeast Asia without any rivals. Russian leadership was also ineffective to counter a well-prepared and well-equipped land and naval forces like Japan’s. Realising Japanese strength in the region, Russia’s minister of war, Aleksey Kuropatkin, in fact, recommended the Tsar to abandon his imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Amur River region.
Even though the Tsar accepted his minster’s proposal, the extremists at the imperial court and other influential commercial interest groups behind the Russia’s expansionist project in East Asia acted as a hindrance for its execution. Meanwhile, the Russian military was left in the lurch to fight the Japanese, who were well-determined to win any battle. In short, Russia heavily underestimated Japan’s military edge. Thus, in February 1904, the Russo-Japanese War broke out with the Battle of Port Arthur, then a naval base and currently in the Liaodong Province of north-eastern China, which was then leased to Russia by the Qing dynasty of China from 1897 onwards. It was a surprise night attack by the Japanese naval forces on the Russian fleet stationed in the port.
The war escalated and went on for the next one-and-a-half years. Russia suffered a number of defeats in the battles that followed, both in land and sea, with some being indecisive. Tsar Nicholas II thought that Russia could win if it continued to fight, and he chose to remain engaged in the war and wait for the outcomes of key naval battles. By May 1905, Russia’s final glimmer of hope for victory faded in sight with its defeat in the Battle of Tsushima, a strait located halfway between the Japanese island of Kyushu and the Korean Peninsula.
Negotiations begin in Portsmouth, the peace treaty is signed
By August 1905, negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War began when the then American President Theodore Roosevelt invited both nations to conduct direct negotiations at a neutral site of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the north-eastern coast of the United States. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard was specifically selected as the site for the negotiations by President Roosevelt. The final treaty was signed on 5 September 1905, affirming Japanese presence in south Manchuria and Korea. It also ceded the southern half of the island of Sakhalin to Japan. It was the first international treaty to be signed in the U.S. and also with American mediation.
The Treaty of Portsmouth would set the balance of power in East Asia and the Pacific for the next four decades. It effectively ended Russia’s expansionist policies in Northeast Asia. The war and the subsequent treaty announced the emergence of Japan to the status of a world power. American diplomacy, thus, began its journey, which would reach it zenith following the two world wars. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War. The following four decades would witness Japan going on a rampage across Asia in pursuit of its militaristic ambitions, particularly in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia, before it would savour defeat at the hands of the Americans in 1945.
