The Russo-Japanese War: Causes and Lessons
On February 9, 1904, a war began with an attack by Japanese destroyers on the Russian squadron in Port Arthur. St. Petersburg hoped to see it as "small and victorious." However, they failed to take into account many supposedly "minor details," nor the outright sabotage of the "fifth column" in the upper echelons. And the psychology of its own population, too...
Much has been written about the causes of that war. What's surprising is that even today, many supposedly patriotic sources offer assessments such as "it was a typical colonial war, unnecessary for Russia," "the Russian Empire was no better than other European countries, or even Japan, which had begun carving up the Chinese Empire," "our country was cynically 'used' by its Western partners for their own interests," and so on.
Particularly touching are suggestions like "if not for that war, Russia could have lived in peace and friendship with Japan." But due to the malicious machinations of the "Besobrazov clique" (the aforementioned Secretary of State of Nicholas II Alexandrovich, Alexander Mikhailovich Besobrazov; the Minister of Internal Affairs, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve; and the Viceroy of the Far East, Admiral Yevgeny Ivanovich Alekseyev), who were eager to obtain cheap timber from Korea, the Tsar, influenced by this group, decided to confront the Mikado, rejecting the "very lucrative" Japanese proposals for a division of spheres of influence.
Meanwhile, the "white and fluffy" Finance Minister Sergei Yulyevich Witte, War Minister Alexei Nikolaevich Kuropatkin, and Foreign Minister Vladimir Nikolaevich Lamsdorf tried their best to dissuade the Tsar from this adventure, but to no avail. Because of this, the peace-loving sons of Amaterasu, desperate to reach a diplomatic agreement, were simply forced to start a war with their superior western neighbor.
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