Skimmed this assigned reading for S&W at the NWC in 2023.

From the syllabus: Connaughton, a long-serving officer in the British Army, provides a general and comprehensive overview of the war, offering the background necessary for the more focused or theoretical readings on the case.

Interesting; didn’t know much about the Russo-Japanese War except for some stray articles from Strategy & Tactics years ago. It gets sort of overwhelmed by the rest of the 20th century but pretty important – sowed the seeds of the Russia Revolution and WWII. Makes me wonder what events we’re seeing now that seem peripheral but will end up being central to future history.


Richard Connaughton has written a good, solid military history (you do have to remember here that any book I learn anything from gets defined as “good”, but this one really is pretty good). If the Russo-Japanese war sowed the seeds of the Russian Revolution and the Pacific campaign in WWII, then its seeds in turn came from the Sino-Japanese of 1894-1895. After a confrontation in Korea, the Japanese beat the living daylights out of the Chinese and got territorial concessions, including Formosa, the Pescadores, and the Liaotung Peninsula (with the major port of Port Arthur), plus the guaranteed independence of Korea (as opposed to the status quo, where Korea was more or less a Chinese protectorate). That didn’t go over well with the European powers, who couldn’t have an Asian nation demonstrating any sort of strength; thus representatives of Russia, France, and Germany showed up in Tokyo and demanded the return of the Liaotung Peninsula to China. The Japanese had to give in, as their navy was as yet nowhere near strong enough to confront even the Asiatic fleet of any of the three powers, let alone all three of them. They were not, however, happy about it.


To add to the insult, the European powers promptly took advantage of the now exposed Chinese weakness. In 1897 the Germans turned the murder of two missionaries into a 99-year lease on Kiaochao Bay; the Russian fleet showed up off Port Arthur later that year, got their own lease, and promptly began fortifying and building a railroad connection to the TransSiberian; the British picked up Hong Kong and dispossessed the Japanese of Weihaiwei, their sole remaining possession on mainland China; and the French got Kwangchouwan. The European territorial demands just increased after the Boxer Rebellion; several stations on the Port Arthur railroad were burned and the Russians reacted by occupying Manchuria. The British were getting a little antsy about the Russians and concluded a treaty with Japan recognizing Japanese interest in Korea; the Russian concluded a treaty with China promising to gradually withdraw from Manchuria as long as extraterritoriality of the railroad was recognized, but instead strengthened their hold. The Japanese were more and more insulted (although, ironically and to Russia’s later detriment many of the contracts for work in Manchuria were let to Japanese companies. Japan proposed a treaty whereby she would recognize that Manchuria was outside her sphere of interest as long as Russia agreed that Korea was outside hers; the Russians agreed to “consider” the treaty but did nothing; most of his advisors (although not his military advisor) thought the Japanese were bluffing and foresaw a short, victorious war that would boost patriotism. The Japanese recalled their ambassador and on February 6 1904 Admiral Togo read his orders: “Destroy the Russian Fleet”. Nothing like keeping it simple.


That lead to a war between two powers over territory that neither of them actually owned. Russian rank and file were brave and tough; mid-level officers were usually adequate, but the upper ranks were mediocre at best and appalling at worst. Russian open field tactics at the start of the war were Napoleonic; the infantry and artillery were positioned in the open and only fired on an officer’s orders. Japanese rifles and artillery were slightly inferior to the Russians; the rifles were smaller caliber and shorter range and the field artillery had shorter range, a slower rate of fire, and smaller shells. That ended up not making any difference since the Russians failed to take advantage of superior range and Japanese took advantage of terrain, deployed on reverse slopes when they could, and dug trenches and emplacements when they couldn’t. The Japanese also paid much more attention to logistics and communications than the Russians.

The total strength of the Russian Far Eastern Fleet was superior to the Japanese. However, the Japanese fleet was concentrated and ready for war, while the Russian were spread between Vladivostok, Port Arthur, and Chemulpo (now Inchon). The Russian naval officers had a marginally better reputation than their army officers. Admiral Makarov remains an unknown quality; he was respected by his men but went down with the Petropavlovsk when she hit a mine while deploying for battle on April 13, 1904. (Port Arthur was very well protected from naval assault by fortresses at the entrance. Unfortunately the same narrow channel that made it easy to defend made it difficult to get out of; it usually took the Russian fleet three days (!) to get out of the harbor and deploy in the roadstead outside. Togo took advantage by laying mines; Makarov demonstrated competence by ordering the channel swept; nobody did so. His successor, Admiral Witgeft, although accused of timidity and indecisiveness after several failed tries, was doing fairly well in his final attempt to break out of Port Arthur and get the fleet to Vladivostok when his flag bridge was hit almost simultaneously by three 12-inch shells; since the only thing recognizable was one leg, his signalman hoisted “Admiral transfers command” and Prince Ukhtomski immediately led a disorganized return to Port Arthur and eventually destruction by shore-based artillery. Admiral Rozhdestvenski had a somewhat dubious reputation before the war but after a rather bad start involving English fishing trawlers that he mistook for Japanese torpedo boats – in the North Sea – really did perform an amazing logistic accomplishment by leading a coal-fired fleet halfway around the world. The whole trip was rather pointless, as the Port Arthur fleet had already been smashed; Rozhdestvenski’s tactical prowess – well, to be fair, he only got one chance to test it – proved not to be equal to Togo’s and the Russian Baltic fleet ended up interned in neutral ports, surrendered and captured, or at the bottom of the Yellow Sea. The Russian navy’s one positive accomplishment – although it didn’t seem like much at the time and didn’t make a difference in the long run – was the Vladivostok cruiser squadron’s interception and sinking of two Japanese merchant ships in the North Pacific. Although the Russians didn’t know it, the ships were carrying American 11-inch howitzers for the siege of Port Arthur. Eventually the Japanese got the howitzers by stripping their coastal defenses, but the delay gave some respite. (It’s interesting to speculate on what might have happened if the Russians had used their cruiser fleet more effectively. The Japanese, after all, were highly dependent on their merchant fleet. The Second World War showed how reluctant the IJN was to provide escorts and a convoy system).


On land, the Russian fought brave and hard in every battle, and lost every one. Japanese General Nogi did well when he had maneuvering room but as thing finally drew down to a siege of Port Arthur he relied increasingly on banzai charges, which worked about as well against a well-defended position in 1905 as they did in 1945. Although attempts by the Manchurian army to relieve them repeatedly failed, and the Japanese had got close enough to sink the fleet in the harbor, the Port Arthur garrison had plenty of supplies and was bleeding the Japanese dry. Once again, however, a key and popular officer, General Kondratenko, was killed by a heavy shell. The new general in command, Stoessel, who appears to have been both a coward and a megalomaniac, almost immediately surrendered over the protests of his staff (he was eventually court martialed and sentenced to death, but pardoned by the Tsar).


An observation of some interest in the uniform fair treatment of prisoners by the Japanese. Admiral Togo ordered the fleet’s flags to half-mast upon hearing of the Admiral Makarov’s death, and visited the badly-wounded Rozhdestvenski in the hospital. Ordinary Russian soldiers and sailors seemed to be equally well treated.


Oddly, the Russians lost the war but did fairly well with the peace. The Japanese had spent almost all they could in blood and treasure, while the Russians had plenty of reserves in both. They had improved the TransSiberian to the point where it could easily supply a much larger army in the Far East. By remaining adamant at the peace conference and threatening to resume the fight, the Russians eventually bargained the Japanese down to the south half of Sakhalin Island – not exactly one of the world’s prime pieces of real estate; Port Arthur and adjacent areas; and the southern half of the Port Arthur railway (which really wasn’t much good to the Russians without Port Arthur anyway). Both sides had to withdraw from Manchuria (which, again, wasn’t much good to the Russians without Port Arthur). Japanese public opinion was outraged and there were riots in the streets.


There aren’t really any flaws with the book. The background to the war was instructive; the analysis of the personalities involved was clear; and the maps and descriptions of both land and naval actions were easy to follow. There was possibly a little too much emphasis on accounts from the Russian side and from European observers, which I excuse based on the language barrier and the likely latter destruction of a lot of Japanese records. A minor annoyance is that all weapon dimensions are given in English measurements; possibly not out of place with the Russians, who were still using “lines” – a “line” is almost a tenth of an inch, so a Moisin-Nagant rifle is a “three line rifle” or 0.300 caliber, but years of WWII reading make it difficult to imagine it as anything but 7.62mm. And Japanese field guns are “2.95 inches” or “4.72 inches”, which is not as easy to compare to later use as 75mm or 120mm (to be fair, Japanese naval guns and siege artillery were mostly made in England or America, so the 11 inch howitzers and 12 inch naval guns really were 11 and 12 inches). And a minor warning, since this is the only book I’ve ever read about the Russo-Japanese ware, I have nothing to compare it to for accuracy and quality. However, it was a good, informative and enjoyable read and I see no reason not to recommend it. ( )

Like many military histories it is at time plodding and ponderous with little analysis of the wider strategic aims of both partners. It appears to be based in the main on secondary sources and accounts rather than on the Russian and Japanese archives, although to be fair, at the time the book was written there would have been little or no access to the Russian archives.

That said it remains a valuable resource, if only due to the paucity of English language sources about Russian and Japanese conflict over Manchuria and Korea in the first half of the twentieth century ( )

This book provides a very informative and enjoyable account of the Russo - Japanese war 1904 / 1905. The political and strategic origins of the war are briefly discussed before the majority of the text is devoted to the military history of the conflict.

It is clear from reading this that the Russians had not learnt many of the hard lessons on offer from the Crimea fifty years earlier. The author draws interesting comparisons with the Boer war and the conflict has understandably been seen as a tactical prelude to 1914-18. The subsequent events and mistakes made ten years later appear all the worse given that Manchuria 1904 was replete with observers and advisors from European armed forces.

The book is superbly detailed and, as the other reviewer suggests, contains many little details that really make a difference. Connaughton is a professional military historian and this is evident in the excellent discussion of tactics and logistics that is presented. His writing style also maintains interest and with more extensive coverage of the diplomacy before and after the war, I'd have awarded five stars. ( )

Rather dry military history, but useful as a thorough account of a war which had critical effects on Russia, Japan, Korea, and all East Asia ( )