Russo-Japanese war.

Now in 1945 Russia swept the Japanese Forces out of China in a matter of weeks. The put up less of a fight than the Germans did, this was a very interesting but short campaign.
 
It was through superior naval engeneering and brilliant naval strategy.

It's actually really facinating to read up on. There was a very cool 2-hour history channel presentation about how japan moved from a backwards nation with a small navy to a global superpower in just a few years. If there is one thing the Japanese can do well, it's innovate and have explossive success. We saw it in the early 1900s and we saw it again after WW2.
 
LE, the Russo-Japanese war to which Sandy is referring is the one in 1905. It was a short but nasty war during which the Japanese cleaned the Russian's clocks for them in one campaign. The Russians never forgave or forgot, and 1945 was the result of that.

The Russians were defeated because they were prepared for a war in 1890. The war started and finished in 1905. Although their ships and army looked really good on paper, they were often badly led, poorly trained conscripts who were far less than ready to die for God, Czar and Mother Russia than anyone realized. Their navy in particular was far from ready for battle, and when they arrived in Tsushima strait, the Japanese had every advantage... the Japanese knew exactly where the Russians were as well as the course they had to take. In fact, the Japanese made only one mistake, but the Russians were unable to capitalize on it. During the battle, they made a turn in which their battle line was in single file and they all turned at exactly the same place. The Russians saw this and were ble to concentrate all their guns on that one spot, forcing the Japanese to sail through a curtain of fire. However, the damage to the Japanese fleet was relatively light, and the Japanese then proceeded to cross the Russian T, damaging virtually the entire Russian fleet beyond repair. (IIRC, only one Russian ship actually made it to port. the rest of the fleet was sunk.) With the sinking of the fleet, reinforcing and supporting the Far East armies became impossible, and the Russians asked for terms.
The surprising thing is that there was a lot of admiration between the two admirals after the war. The Japanese noticed that the Russians continued to fight their ships even if they were on fire, immobile or otherwise incapacitated. They felt that the Russians were showing a lot of courage in doing so, and because of this, Russian prisoners were very well treated and the two admirals became friends.
It always seemed to me that the land battles were merely sideshows. The Russian navy was the pride of the military services, and its defeat took all of the fight out of the Russians. On land, looking at the situation, I have always believed that the Russians could have done a lot more with what they had in theatre. That they did not speaks volumes about their attitude towards this war. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have always considered the Russo-Japanese war to be the beginning of the end of the Romanov dynasty.

Dean.
 
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sandy said:
I have many question about that war.
Why they could win mighty Russia?
Those days,Russia was called "Policeman of Europe" as today US is called "Policeman of world"


http://www.russojapanesewar.com/index.html
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The reasons were many.
The most important one was the remoteness of the war theater from the industrial and political centers of the Russian Empire. The russian lines of communications were too long. Just to remind you - Russia has 12 time zones(if I am not mistaken!) vs. just 4 in the Continental US of A.
Their Far East provinces had almost no infrastructure to support the troops. Even today, 100 years later, they bring supplies from the Center - can't produce them there. The Japanese were fighting with their backs close to home. So, while Russia has been much stronger economically and militarily than Japan(in general), she was very weak on the Far East.
Compare this situation with the Brits able to defeat Napoleon close to home but defeated by the colonists in then remote America.
Russia had not have good allies to help her in this situation with supplies, bases, etc. Only France had supported her, but not wholeheartedly. Everybody else(especially, the mighty Britain) has sided with Japan.
But the most important, I think, was the internal strife in the Russian society which ended with the First Russian revolution of 1905-1907.
Japan has been exhausted by the war as well and couldn't fight for much longer.
Russia has suffered many defeats on land and sea, but could outlast Japan, if not the revolution.
The war lasted for 2 years, not one, and was ended with Ted Roosvelt help with Portsmouth Threaty of 1906
 
Dean said:
LE, the Russo-Japanese war to which Sandy is referring is the one in 1905. It was a short but nasty war during which the Japanese cleaned the Russian's clocks for them in one campaign. The Russians never forgave or forgot, and 1945 was the result of that.

The Russians were defeated because they were prepared for a war in 1890. The war started and finished in 1905. Although their ships and army looked really good on paper, they were often badly led, poorly trained conscripts who were far less than ready to die for God, Czar and Mother Russia than anyone realized. Their navy in particular was far from ready for battle, and when they arrived in Tsushima strait, the Japanese had every advantage... the Japanese knew exactly where the Russians were as well as the course they had to take. In fact, the Japanese made only one mistake, but the Russians were unable to capitalize on it. During the battle, they made a turn in which their battle line was in single file and they all turned at exactly the same place. Dean.
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The war started in 1904 and ended in 1906. It had much more than just Tsushima. The siege of the fortress of Port-Arthur, Mukden battle and loss of the Russian Pacific Fleet has induced the Russian government to send its Baltic Fleet, called the Second Pacific Escadre from the Baltic to the Far East. It was a desperate measure and pointless - Port-Arthur has been lost by the time the Russans even approached the war theater, so they had no base to operate from, besides the remote from the front port of Vladivostok, And they could get there only by defeating the Japanese
 
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