Russo-Japanese War (Military History)

Introduction

The historiography of the Russo-Japanese War can be divided into three phases. The first, the period between the war itself and the outbreak of World War I, was the shortest in time span and the most prolific in numbers of works written. This outpouring of publications resulted in this war being observed by every military establishment and news agency in the world. The level of interest in the Russo-Japanese War rested on two facts: First, the idea of a small and rising Asian power engaging in a conflict with an established and huge European colonial power captured the imaginations of everyone. The other substantial issue was the use of weapons that were the product of a century of industrial development. The conclusions of these pre–World War I studies revealed that the battlefield had become intensely lethal, for which the belligerents were not well prepared in any aspect. Moreover, the defeat of Imperial Russia infused a level of hope and energy to struggle for liberation into the people of color throughout the colonial world. The outbreak of World War I almost rendered the Russo-Japanese War to the dustbin of history. A mini resurgence of studies occurred in the post–World War II period, thereby marking the second phase of publications on this Far Eastern conflict. These books offer readers a basic narrative of the course of the war both on land and sea. The analytical thrust of this literature places the war within the interpretative motif of conventional military history. The third and most recent phase of publications on the Russo-Japanese War occurred with the war’s centennial. Edited collections of essays, composed of articles written by international teams of scholars, were published to commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of the conflict. These studies focus on how much that occurred in Manchuria in 1904–1905 was repeated on a larger scale, primarily in Europe proper, in World War I, in 1914–1918. This premise prompted a historiographic debate over whether the significance of the war had been missed by previous scholarship. Because of the far-reaching global implications of the war, factors ranging from international political, financial, and military relationships to the scale of the battlefield(s), to the size of armies and duration of battles, resulted in conclusions that sought to contextualize it either as a large prelude to World War I or as a separate global conflict that should be renamed “World War Zero.”

Reference Works and Historiographic Guides

The reference books and historiographic guides listed in this section were selected to provide researchers with basic materials to consult if they decide to conduct further work on the conflict. The article signed by a British officer in 1911 (A British Officer 1911a and A British Officer 1911b) is a guide to the early literature on the war. The article on the Russo-Japanese War from the 1910–1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (Unsigned 1910–1911) provides an early comprehensive and authoritative narrative of the conflict. Luchiniin 1939, a bibliographic index, lists all Russian publications, especially articles that focus on unit histories. Kowner 2006 and Starshov 2004 offer readers contemporary historic dictionaries of the war.

A British Officer. “The Literature of the Russo-Japanese War, I.” American Historical Review 16 (April 1911a): 508–528.
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This article offers an extensive historiographic essay that identifies much of the most significant works published in the immediate aftermath of the war. The anonymous British officer who wrote this piece paid particular attention to the official histories, to the individual works of military observers, and to the journalist who covered the war for a myriad of news agencies.
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A British Officer. “The Literature of the Russo-Japanese War, II.” American Historical Review 16 (July 1911b): 736–750.
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This is the second half of the historiographic article listed in A British Officer 1911a.
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Kowner, Rotem. Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2006.
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Kowner’s dictionary is the most recent encyclopedic guide published in English. It concludes with an extensive (unannotated) bibliography. This bibliography identifies Japanese language sources, materials that are not cited in this bibliography.
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Luchiniin, V. Russko-Iaponskaia voina, 1904–05 gg. Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’ knizhnoi literatury. Moscow, 1939.
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This book offers a comprehensive list of most works published in Russia/Soviet Union in the period up to the outbreak of World War II. It is an especially important aid in helping scholars identify articles written in the prerevolutionary Russian journals.
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Starshov, Y. V. Russko-Iaponskaya voina: Slovar-spravochnik. Moscow: Exlibris, 2004.
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On a bibliographic level, this book updates Luchiniin 1939. On a reference level it follows the pattern of a dictionary that offers readers encyclopedia-like entries that provide basic knowledge of the war.
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Unsigned. “The Russo-Japanese War.” In Encyclopedia Britannica. 11th ed. Vol. 23. 919–930. Cambridge, UK: University Press, 1910–1911.
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Although it may be a bit unusual to include an encyclopedic article in a bibliography, this is no usual encyclopedia article. Clearly written by a veteran of the conflict, this article provides a short yet very thick narrative of the war from beginning to end. It divides the war into three theaters of operation: Naval, the Manchurian War of Maneuver, and the Siege of Port Arthur.
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General Overviews

These books were written for the general reading public. Burne 1936, a military observer of the war, offers a classic early account that considers literature published up until his date of publication. Connaughton 1988 provides a general overview; Jukes 2002 writes a general overview that also places the war in its global context. Westwood 1986 is a short concise study based on materials long inaccessible because of the limitations the Soviets placed on archival materials. The dissertation Greenwood 1971 is highly focused and informative on the topic of military observers, the people who formed the original understanding of the war through their reports. Walder 1973 is based largely on the works of military observers. Warner and Warner 2004 is the best English language account based on Asian sources. Kersnovskii 1992–1994 and Rostunov 1977 represent classic Russian/Soviet accounts of the conflict.

Burne, A. H. The Liao-yang Campaign. London: W. Clowes, 1936.
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Alfred Higgins Burne (b. 1886–d. 1959) was a soldier and military historian. In his introduction, Burne states he wrote this book in the post–World War I period to remind his audience that questions of the strategic concerns of empires/nations remain timeless and based largely on geography.
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Connaughton, R. M. The War of the Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear: A Military History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–05. London: Routledge, 1988.
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Besides providing another important narrative of the war, Connaughton might be best for readers to understand that the Russo-Japanese War was fought in China, officially a neutral country. Like so many post–World War II historians of this war, Connaughton demonstrates how military operations were transformed by modern weapons, and worse, how everyone ignored the lessons of this war.
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Greenwood, John T. “The American Observers of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905).” PhD diss., Kansas State University, 1971.
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Greenwood’s work is authoritative and the only study on this important topic. All histories of the Russo-Japanese War begin with the official reports written by military observers. Greenwood’s work places the US observers in their historic milieu and then tells their story through the reports they made based on their observations in Manchuria.
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Jukes, Geoffrey. The Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905. Oxford: Osprey Essential Histories, 2002.
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This is an Osprey “essential history,” which means the book is short, focuses primarily on the operational history of the conflict, and concludes with an effort to contextualize the war in global history. Jukes, a senior and emanate military historian from Australia, offers his readers an expert view of the 20th century’s first global conflict.
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Kersnovskii, A. A. Istoriia russkoi armii. 4 vols. Moscow: Golos, 1992–1994.
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Originally published in the 1930s in Belgrade, Kersnovski represents the most comprehensive history of the Imperial Army written by an émigré. Much of Vol. 3 is dedicated to an operational study of the Russo-Japanese War based on the memoirs of officers who served in Manchuria and fled Russia after the 1917 revolution.
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Rostunov, I. I., ed. Istoriia russko-iaponskoi voiny 1904–1905 gg. Moscow: Nauka, 1977.
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Rostunov has long been the representative of the Soviet view of this conflict. Once readers digest the Marxist Leninist framework, the work is notable for its extensive use of the archives of the Manchurian army.
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Walder, David. The Short Victorious War: The Russo-Japanese Conflict, 1904–1905. New York: Harper and Row, 1973.
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Walder writes a book based primarily on the official histories of the war. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how everyone ignored the lessons that could have been learned from the Russo-Japanese War.
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Warner, Denis, and Peggy Warner. The Tide at Sunrise. A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905. 2d ed. New York: Frank Cass, 2004.
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Billed as the definitive account of the war, the Warners write what remains the most detailed and sweeping narrative of the entire period in the Far East. The unique feature of this book is how the authors used Japanese but no Russian sources. As a result, this book stands alone in the postwar period of bringing the Japanese view to the interpretative framework of the war.
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Westwood, J. N. Russia Against Japan, 1904–05: A New Look at the Russo-Japanese War. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986.
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This book was genuinely ahead of its time because the author claims to be offering a new look at the war based on little-used Russian sources. The result is a short concise narrative (195 pp.) that is free of anecdotal evidence that plagued much of the earlier history of the war.
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Centennial Anthologies

Newly opened Russian archives provided the motivation for international scholarly groups forming and publishing a group of books at the time of its centennial. Airapetov 2004 is the first collection to offer the work of Western and Russian scholars. Kowner and Shillony 2007 seeks to demonstrate that the Russo-Japanese War exhibits how early 20th century empires chose conflict over any other means to resolve disputes. Steinberg, et al. 2005 and Wolff, et al. 2007 posit the conclusion that the war was in fact a global conflict, hence World War Zero. Smele and Heywood 2005 reexamines the 1905 revolution, nicely fusing much recent historiography with additional archival research. The Russo-Japanese War Society maintains a website with articles, photographs, documents, and memoirs.

Airapetov, Oleg Rudolfovich, ed. Russko-iaponskaia voina 1904–05: Vzgliad chepex stoletie. Moscow: Tri Kvadrata, 2004.
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Consisting of twenty chapters by authors from Russia, the United States, and Canada, this collection of essays seeks to utilize Russian-language sources to demonstrate that the dysfunctional nature of the tsarist regime doomed all military efforts in the Far East.
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Kowner, Rotem, and Ben-Ani Shillony, eds. Rethinking the Russo-Japanese War: Centennial Perspectives. 2 vols. Folkestone, UK: Global Oriental, 2007.
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This collection features an international group of scholars who address the war in terms of rethinking its meaning to world history. The point of the editors of these books is that the Russo-Japanese War cemented the path to World War I based on the principle of conflict as opposed to diplomacy as the best means for resolving differences between parties who have disputes over territorial and economic differences.
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The Russo-Japanese War Society.
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This is the most comprehensive website of the war. It is sponsored by a historical society that seeks to post stories, documents, and photographs of the conflict.
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Smele, Jonathan, and Anthony Heywood, eds. The Russian Revolution of 1905: Centenary Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2005.
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This is a recent essay collection that focuses on the revolution of 1905. Important themes examined in these articles include the roles of national and religious minorities and the parts played by individuals, social groups, political parties, and institutions. The book consists of thirteen chapters by scholars from around the world who use recently opened Russian archives to offer news views and assessments of the 1905 revolution.
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Steinberg, John W., Steven Marks, Bruce Menning, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, David Wolff, and Shinji Yokote, eds. The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero. Vol. 1. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005.
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Consisting of thirty-one articles with an international team of contributors, this collection is noteworthy for bringing to English-language audiences a revised view of the war based on open post-Soviet Russian language sources and for offering the interpretation that the Russo-Japanese War was in fact World War Zero.
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Wolff, David, Steven Marks, Bruce Menning, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, John W. Steinberg, and Shinji Yokote, eds. The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero. Vol. 2. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
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Volume 2 of this collection includes twenty-one articles written by native Japanese historians that bring to the Western world a view of the war that exposes the weaknesses and shortcomings of the Japanese war effort.
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The Conflict

The scope of the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese conflict stretched from Japan’s War of Emergence (the Sino-Japanese War, 1894–1895) to the Manchurian War’s conclusion with the Treaty of Portsmouth in September 1905. This section is organized into the following groups: The Origins of the War, Official Histories, Contemporaneous Military Memoirs and Histories, Observer Histories, Naval Operations, and Peacemaking. Much of the materials in all of this part of the article were generated from the activities of the people who either participated in or witnessed the conflict. As a result, the books sited in the Official Histories, Contemporaneous Military Memoirs and Histories, and Observer Histories sections were for the most part published, thus forming the basis of all public knowledge about the war for the remainder of the 20th century by 1914. The books in the The Origins of the War and Peacemaking sections of the bibliography have a few contemporary sources, mainly in an effort to publish documents revealing sources and motivations for actions taken. For the most part, however, the The Origins of the War and Peacemaking sections refer to secondary sources that were published in the post–World War II period. Together the books in this section allow readers to understand that control of the sea was the essential strategic goal for both the Russians and the Japanese. In large part, because the Japanese had control of the sea they were able to wage the Manchurian War of maneuver where they simultaneously bottled up elements of the Russian army and navy at Port Arthur, while chasing the rest of the tsar’s force northward toward Mukden and Harbin. All of the people who wrote about this conflict at the time it was occurring project the view that the Japanese army was disciplined, trained, and motivated to win at all cost while the Russian soldiers had training and discipline but no motivation to die for the tsar or the empire. An important part of the history that emerges here is the refusal by Nicholas II to negotiate a peace treaty after the February/March battle of Mukden. The tsar still had one more asset, the Baltic fleet circumnavigating the world, to deliver to the theater of operation that not even the turmoil of the 1905 revolution could stop. Once the Russian navy was destroyed at TsuShima (May 1905), the Japanese sued for peace and engaged in a peacemaking process that taught them for the second time that you can win a war but lose the peace.

The Origins of the War

Without question the origins of the Russo-Japanese War were rooted in the decline of China, the never satisfying quest of the European imperial powers for territory and natural resources, and Japan’s emergence as the Asian nation that modernized along Western lines; Japan, as a result, sought its own empire. Asakawa 1974 and Romanov 1952 examine the origins of the war from a national viewpoint. Later historiography such as Nish 1985 and Geyer 1987 place the war’s origin in a global context. While dated, Malozemoff 1958 is still useful for understanding how Russia’s diplomatic encounters in 1877–1878 led to an eastward shift in imperial thinking. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye 2001 exhibits the cultural links between East and West that culminated in conflict. The website PacificWar provides some Japanese diplomatic documents on the origins of the war.

Asakawa, K. The Russo-Japanese Conflict: Its Causes and Issues. Shannon: Irish University Press, 1974.
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This book represents the Japanese government’s point of view as it was shared with the world at the outbreak of the war. Japan was forced into the conflict because of the encroachment of tsarist activities across China, Manchuria, and especially Korea. Originally published in 1904 (London: Constable).
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Geyer, Dietrich. Russian Imperialism: The Interaction of Domestic and Foreign Policy, 1860–1914. Translated by Bruce Little. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
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Viewed as a stimulating synthesis of how domestic and foreign policy worked together to forge tsarist Russia’s imperialistic practices at the end of the 19th century, Geyer can be read with great profit by all students who seek to understand the nuances and complexities of how Russia’s internal politics governed her conduct in international politics in the period leading up to World War I.
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Malozemoff, Andrew. Russian Far Eastern Policy, 1881–1904: With Special Emphasis on the Causes of the Russo-Japanese War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958.
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Covering the period beginning after winning a war but losing a peace in the Balkans (Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878), this book focuses on how Russia’s Far Eastern policy developed as an alternative policy to pursue imperialistic ambitions. Malozemoff aptly demonstrates that tsarist policy toward the Far East was never well coordinated between military, domestic, and international considerations.
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Nish, Ian. The Origins of the Russo-Japanese War. New York: Longman, 1985.
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Without question, Ian Nish’s book is the classic statement on the origins of the Russo-Japanese War. Demonstrating how the weakness of China combined with the rise of Japan and the imperial ambitions of the European powers defined the deep roots of the war, Nish then masterfully exhibits how Russia’s bullying and bumbling collided with Japan’s overly aggressive and excessively enthusiastic military that together caused a war to explode in Manchuria.
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PacificWar.org.
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This site is strong on the diplomatic encounters that Japan fostered with Western Powers in the period leading up to the Russo-Japanese War. The main focus of this website, however, is on Japanese diplomatic practices that culminated with the outbreak of hostilities in Asia and the Pacific in the 1930s and 1940s.
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Romanov, B. A. Russia in Manchuria, 1892–1906. Translated by Susan Wilbur Jones. Ann Arbor, MI: J. W. Edwards, 1952.
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Long considered the classic statement by a Russian historian about the war’s origins and the impact its peacemaking process had on the Far East and on Russia’s status in the international community in its immediate aftermath. Originally published in Russian in 1928.
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Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, David. Toward the Rising Sun: Russian Ideologies of Empire and the Path to War with Japan. DeKalb: University of Northern Illinois Press, 2001.
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This pathbreaking, well written work offers readers an engaging narrative that fuses the history of ideas and cultural influences to the study of international affairs. Schmmelpenninck provides his readers with an intellectual study of the ideas that fueled the actions of Russian policymakers as they both defined and implemented their idea of empire in Russia’s Far East.
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Official Histories

Official histories were written immediately in the war’s aftermath. Most were published in time for any interested audience to read before World War I. The numerous official histories are some of the earliest available and should still be some of the first sources serious students of the Russo-Japanese War read. Their detail is numbing; their content is microscopic. With the exception of the Russians, this bibliography lists only English-language versions of the Official Histories of the Russo-Japanese War.

Russian

The collection edited by Baiov 1906 provides microscopic studies designed to inform readers about the operational activities of the army at a tactical level. The official army (Rabota voenno-istoricheskoi komissii po opisaniiu russko-iaponskoi voiny 1910–1913) and naval (Morskoi Generalnyi Shtab 1912–1918) histories were written by officially appointed historical commissions. The army history is encyclopedic while the naval history was never completed.

Baiov, A. K. ed. Russko-Iaponskaia voina v soobshcheniiakh v nikolaevskoi akademii general’nago shtaba. 2 vols. Saint Petersburg, Russia: S. G. Knorus, 1906.
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Baiov, a professor of military theory at the Nicholas Academy and a prolific editor and author, edited this collection, which comprises articles/presentations by veteran General Staff officers. The contents of this collection of essays set the agenda for the official military commission that have been assigned the task of writing an official history of the war.
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Morskoi Generalnyi Shtab. Voenno-istoricheskaia-kommissiia po opisaniiu deistvii flota v voinu 1904–05 gg.: Russko-iaponskaia voina 1904–05 gg. 7 vols. Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1912–1918.
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The Imperial Navy attempted to write a companion to the army’s history of the war. By 1918 they managed to publish seven volumes of what was projected to be a nineteen-volume work. While the army had little good to share in its history, the Imperial Navy’s performance in the Far East was scandalous. Such inefficiency marred its efforts to write an official history of the war.
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Rabota voenno-istoricheskoi komissii po opisaniiu russko-iaponskoi voiny. Russko-Iaponskaia voina 1904–1905 gg. 9 vols. Saint Petersburg, Russia: A. S. Suvorina, 1910–1913.
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Under the editorship of Major-General Vasili Gurko, this sixteen-book study utilized for the most part the operational records of the Manchurian army to provide an encyclopedic account of the war. The work is rich in content but void in analysis and/or assessment of the performance of the Russian army in the Far East.
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Great Britain

British histories of the conflict are superior for two reasons: (1) They had observers well placed in the both the Russian (Committee of Imperial Defence Historical Section 1906–1910) and Japanese armies and navies (Intelligence Branch (Division) War Office 1908) throughout the conflict; (2) Ultimately their historical commissions present a narrative of the war that combines the land and sea campaigns (Committee of Imperial Defence Historical Section 1910–1920).

Committee of Imperial Defence Historical Section. Official History of the Russo-Japanese War. 5 vols. London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1906–1910.
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This collection of reports was written by the British military observers who flooded the operational theaters of the war. They study challenges such as supplying and maintaining the health of mass armies in distant theaters of operation. It should also be noted that the British were unique among the Great Powers in that they sent observers to be attached to both the Russian and the Japanese navies.
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Committee of Imperial Defence Historical Section. Official History, Naval and Military, of the Russo Japanese War. 3 vols. London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1910–1920.
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This publication synthesized the ten books of their first two official histories of the war into three books. They accomplished two tasks: (1) They created a combined army/navy history; (2) After composing an initial draft, British staff officers visited both Tokyo and Saint Petersburg for further research. The result is perhaps the best combined military force history of the Russo-Japanese War.
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Intelligence Branch (Division) War Office. The Russo-Japanese War: Reports from British Officers Attached to the Japanese and Russian Forces in the Field. 5 vols. London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1908.
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These are the reports of the officers who trailed the operational armies of both the Russians and Japanese into the field. Reading this collection of documents offers readers a set of English language reports written in the field and very close in time and proximity to a battle. Every major campaign of the war is covered.
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German

As masters of the military art at the beginning of the 20th century, the Germans wrote the best operational official history of the war (German General Staff Historical Section 1908).

German General Staff Historical Section. The Russo-Japanese War. 7 vols. Translated by Karl von Donat. London: H. Rees, 1908.
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The German official history of the war dwells on the ill preparedness of the Russian army. Even, more revealing, the Germans clearly foresaw how general conditions in Russia were undermining the morale of imperial soldiers. The Germans, drawing an invaluable lesson from the war, concluded that the Russian army lacked the offensive spirit needed to prevail in modern war.
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United States

The United States official history of the War (United States War Department 1906–1907) is especially strong in its presentation of the logistical and supply side of primarily the Russian army’s military operation. The official publication was so heavy in reports on topics ranging from medical to equestrienne to sanitation challenges that a separate study, the Epitome (see United States War Department 1907), was published to present the combat side of the conflict to US military reading audiences.

United States War Department, General Staff, Office of the Chief of Staff, Second (Military Information Division). Reports of Military Observers Attached to the Armies in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War. 5 parts. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906–1907.
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This report is composed of numerous separate reports organized into thematic parts (hence five parts instead of volumes). While US military observers were attached to the operational armies of both belligerents, the US Army, much like the British, was equally concerned with observing and assessing the challenges of maintaining a large-scale army in a theater of operation far from their home territory.
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United States War Department, General Staff, Office of the Chief of Staff, Second (Military Information Division). Epitome of the Russo-Japanese War. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1907.
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Because so much of the operational history of the Russo-Japanese War was buried in the US official history to the point where it appeared more like ancillary text, the US Army had this book compiled for the instructional needs of officers studying military history in US military staff colleges.
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Japan

Anglophone audiences should not be surprised to learn that any official Japanese history of the war that was published in English is going to be a collection of selected documents and articles. The British admiralty (Great Britain Admiralty War Staff 1913–1914) helped produce an official naval history of the war, in part to study the wartime performance of ships built in the United Kingdom. Kinai 1905–1907 and the documents collected in Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1904 were selected specifically to justify and maintain domestic support.

Great Britain Admiralty War Staff. Japanese Official Naval History of the Russo-Japanese War. 2 vols. London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1913–1914.
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Written by the command staff of the Japanese navy and translated into English. These two volumes only examine the naval aspects of the war. The original Japanese version was published as Meiji 37-8-Nen Nichiro-Sensoshi (Tokyo, 1912).
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Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Correspondence Regarding the Negotiations between Japan and Russia (1903–1904), Presented to the Imperial Diet, March 1904. Tokyo, 1904.
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This is an official set of documents compiled and translated under the supervision of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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Kinai, M., ed. Official Report of the Russo-Japanese War. Vols. 1–2. Tokyo: The Shimbashido-Shoten, 1905–1907.
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Originally published as four thin Japanese volumes, these reports were written after significant military operations for the Japanese public. They were translated and provide an official Japanese government report of the war so their public would have basic information about the course of the war.
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Contemporaneous Military Memoirs and Histories

For much of the period after the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War all military establishments emphasized and enhanced professional military training throughout their officer’s cadre. As a result, by the time of the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian and Japanese military establishments had numerous officers more than capable of writing memoirs and making assessments of the performance and results of their military’s’ respective operations during the conflict.

Russian Perspective

Denikin 1975, Ignat’ev 1944, Martynov 1910, Solov’ev 1906, and Tretiakov 1911 are works by Russian commanders who served in numerous battles throughout the Manchurian theater of operations. All of these memoirs present studies on the ineffectiveness of the Russian officer corps in the heat of battle. Kuropatkin 1909, from the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army, provides readers with a perspective from the top that was also his personal effort to rehabilitate the author’s shattered reputation. Semenov 1912 provides a narrative of one of the participants who sailed with the Baltic fleet from Saint Petersburg to the straits of Tsushima. Svechin 1910 is the best one-volume analysis of the war that was published before the 1917 revolution. Svechin later gained great fame as a Soviet strategic thinker.

Denikin, A. I. The Career of a Tsarist Officer: Memoirs, 1872–1916. Translated by Margaret Patoski. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975.
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Denikin, son of an emancipated serf and future commander of the White forces in the Russian Civil War, shares his experiences as a smart, fast-rising officer who suffered within a military system that favored well connected aristocrats of the empire. He spent 1905 as a staff officer who spent much time restoring order in the ranks after the outbreak of the revolution.
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Ignat’ev, A. A. A Subaltern in Old Russia. Translated by Ivor Montagu. London and New York: Huchinson, 1944.
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Ignat’ev, a combat veteran of the war, describes in bitter detail how commanders of the Imperial Army did not work together in Manchuria, even when engaging the enemy. He leaves readers believing that the incompetence he witnessed in Manchuria was instrumental in his decision to remain in Russia and join the Red Army after 1917.
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Kuropatkin, A. N. The Russian Army and the Japanese War. 2 vols. Translated by Captain A. B. Lindsay. Eastbourne, UK: Gardners, 2007.
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Kuropatkin resigned as War Minister to become operational commander of the Imperial Army in the Far East. This book is a translation of Volume 4 of a larger four-volume set Kuropatkin wrote on the war. Not surprisingly, this book seeks to vindicate Kuropatkin’s conduct and actions in Manchuria and restore his reputation within Russia and throughout the world. Originally published in 1909 (London: John Murray).
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Martynov, E. I. Vospominaniia o iaponskoi voine komandira pekhotnago polka. Plotsk, Russia: Tip. Gub. Pravleniia, 1910.
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E. I. Martynov, commander of the 140th Zaraiski Infantry Regiment, found himself in the thick of battle throughout the war. As a former staff academy professor of military strategy, Martynov writes a concise description of the machinations involved in commanding an infantry regiment. He reveals that Russian officers did not support each other in battle largely because of a lack of will and concern for reputation.
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Semenov, Vladimir. The Battle of Tsushima between the Japanese and Russian Fleets, Fought on 27th May 1905. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1912.
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Written with the intention of providing a daily account of his service on board the Suvorov, the flagship of the Russian Second Pacific Squadron, this book is actually part of a trilogy. The other two books are Rasplan and The Price of Blood. What emerges is a vivid description of the incompetence of the Imperial Russian Navy on every level of its operations.
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Solov’ev, L. Z. Actual Experiences in War: Battle Action of the Infantry. Impressions of a Company Commander. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906.
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Solov’ev was a captain and company commander in the 34th East Siberian Rifle Regiment. He provides a microscopic view of the battlefield. The article was translated specifically for junior officers in the U.S. Army to read and learn lessons about fighting on the industrialized battlefield.
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Svechin, A. A. Russko-iaponskaia voina 1904–1905 gg. Oranienbaum, Russia: Izd. Ofitserskoi Strielkovoi Shkoly, 1910.
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Svechin, who gained great reputation as the foremost strategist during the early Soviet era, demonstrates his capabilities as a military historian in this book. Working largely from the work of the historical commission writing the official history of the war, Svechin writes what is arguably the best one-volume history of the war in any language.
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Tretiakov, N. A. My Experiences at Nan Shan and Port Arthur with the Fifth East Siberian Rifles. Translated by F. Nolan Baker and A. C. Alford. London: Hugh Rees, 1911.
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Tretiakov, commander of the Fifth East Siberian Rifles, wrote this memoir as a series of articles that were originally published in a Russia military journal. Perhaps the finest memoir to emerge from the war, he reveals that Russian military leaders and soldiers did possess the level of commitment needed to hold back the Japanese tide at Port Arthur.
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Japanese Perspective (in English)

Although the Japanese perspective is limited in English or other Western language sources, Hamilton 1912, Sakurai 1907, and Togo 1907 offer readers significant views of the war on the land and the sea. Hamilton, a British military observer, had access to the Japanese high command on a level unprecedented and, as a result, Western readers gain insight through his complementary portrayal of the Japanese army. Sakurai and Togo are first-person accounts of a Japanese soldier and sailor, respectively.

Hamilton, Ian. A Staff Officer’s Scrap-Book during the Russo-Japanese War. 2d ed. London: E. Arnold, 1912.
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Hamilton writes perhaps the single most important memoir/observation to emerge from this literature. He was attached to General Kuroki’s staff from May until September 1904. His portrayal of the professionalism of Japanese officers offers a manual on how all officers need to prepare and enact plans while remaining calm in responding to the ever-changing conditions of the modern battlefield.
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Sakurai, Tadayoshi. Human Bullets (Niku-Dan): A Soldier’s Story of Port Arthur. Translated by Masujiro Hondo and Alice Becon. London: A. Constable, 1907.
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Some eighty thousand Japanese causalities during the siege of Port Arthur left its commander, General Nogi, in such despair (in part because he lost his two sons) that he begged the emperor for permission to commit seppuku upon his return to Tokyo. This narrative explains to readers how Japanese soldiers endured this sacrifice for the sake of the empire and the emperor.
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Togo, Kichitaro. Naval Battles of the Russo-Japanese War. Tokyo: Gogakukyokwai, 1907.
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The author was the nephew of Japan’s commanding Admiral Togo. Much of this memoir provides descriptions of the Japanese fleet at sea. The other constant theme that exists is a running tribute to the sailors and commanders of both fleets. Especially worth reading are his own and Admiral Togo’s official reports of the Battle of the Japan Sea (Tsushima).
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Observer Histories

This section includes a short representative list of the numerous books published by the journalists who flocked to the Manchurian battlefield to write the main story of the day. Ashmend-Bartlett 1906, Baring 1905, and McCormick 1907 provide insight into the Russian experience while Fox 1905, Palmer 1904, Repington 1905, and Wright 1905 were observers of the Japanese military during the war.

Ashmend-Bartlett, Ellis. Port Arthur: The Siege and Capitulation. London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1906.
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Ashmend-Bartlett, a correspondent for Colliers magazine and the London Times, wrote what is considered one of the better and succinctly written exposés of the epic and bloody siege of Port Arthur. Like most accounts of this event, the author worked from within Port Arthur itself and therefore exposes the ineptitude of Russia’s military in the middle of a difficult operation.
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Baring, Maurice. With the Russians in Manchuria. London: Methuen, 1905.
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Working for the London Morning Post, Baring offers a narrative that begins in Moscow, provides travel notes about the trans-Siberian railroad in 1904, and then descriptions of the Russian army in action. Like so many of his peers, Baring posited the general conclusion that the Russians were good people but their political system was bankrupt and foul with corruption.
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Fox, John. Following the Sun-Flag. New York: Scribner’s, 1905.
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As military correspondent for Scribner’s Magazine, Fox followed the Japanese army from the beginning of the war to the battle of Liaoyang. His work offers readers a firsthand description of the activities and conduct of Japanese soldiers, not just officers, on the march into Manchuria.
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McCormick, Frederick. The Tragedy of Russia in Pacific Asia. 2 vols. New York: Outing Publishing, 1907.
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McCormick, who wrote for the Associated Press, observed the Russian army in the second half of the war and concludes that their strategy and tactics were not proper for a war against the Japanese. These failings were felt most painfully by the troops who responded with a skeptical attitude toward all tsarist symbols of authority.
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Palmer, Frederick. With Kuroki in Manchuria. New York: Scribner’s, 1904.
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A reporter for the New York Globe, he sailed to Chemulpo in February 1904 and marched with General Kuroki’s 1st Army up to and including the battle of Liaoyang. This book was one of the first descriptions written for Western readers that portrayed the Japanese army as a powerful professional military force capable of beating any foe on the industrialized battlefield.
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Repington, Charles Court. The War in the Far East, 1904–05. London: John Murray, 1905.
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Repington was a correspondent for the London Times and a retired lieutenant colonel. The central goal of his book was to expose how a small nation like Japan could mobilize all of its national wealth to confront a more powerful foe on the battlefield. His underlying message was that Great Britain needed to invest more in its land (army) forces.
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Wright, Seppings H. C. With Togo: The Story of Seven Months’ Active Service under his Command. London: Hurst-Blackett, 1905.
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Seppings Wright was a famous early 20th century sketch artist who was credentialed by the London Illustrated News to cover the Russo-Japanese War. Besides hundreds of unique photographs, this book is notorious for concluding that the day of the big battleship had passed. Such vessels would be replaced by submarines and small, fast, maneuverable vessels that Wright referred to as mosquito boats.
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Naval Operations

Because of the significance of naval operations during this war, some outstanding operational studies have been written beginning with Corbett’s two-volume masterpiece published shortly after the war’s conclusion (Corbett and Slade 1994). Clearly commentators such as the famous Fred T. Jane understood the significance of the naval buildup that occurred in the Far East before the outbreak of the War (Jane 1983, Jane 2007). These works should be followed by a reading of Klado 1905, a presentation of Russia’s strategic position in the world. More recently, Evans and Peattie 1997 masterly utilizes Japanese sources to continue the development of the historiography of the war. Hough 2001 and Pleshakov 2002 are compelling narratives of the saga of the Baltic Fleet as it made its journey from Saint Petersburg to the straits of Tsushima.

Corbett, Julian S., and Edmond J. W. Slade. Maritime Operations in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994.
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Corbett’s study of the Russo-Japanese War was originally published as a secret document in the immediate aftermath of the war. In the 1990s the Naval Institute Press reprinted the report in its entirety. The report is encyclopedic in all phases of naval operations, covering both belligerents for the duration of the war.
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Evans, David C., and Mark R. Peattie. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.
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Kaigun, based on Japanese language sources, is the definitive history of the Japanese navy from its birth until Pearl Harbor. The chapters on the Russo-Japanese War are informative about the technological capabilities of the Japanese navy in the war. Their conclusion about the battle of Tsushima is that Togo may not have successfully crossed the T of the Russian navy.
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Hough, Richard A. The Fleet That Had to Die. 2d ed. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2001.
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A narrative account of the epic journey of the 2nd Pacific Squadron (aka the Baltic Fleet), Hough’s book exhibits the follies and results of a Byzantine chain of military command meeting an autocratic civilian chain of command. The result is aptly described by the title of this book.
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Jane, Fred T. The Imperial Russian Navy. London: Conway Maritime, 1983.
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See also Jane 2007. Fred T. Jane was the founder of Jane’s Defence Review. His book on the Russian navy contributed to the model building process for what became a standard reference for global military forces. All Imperial Russian naval assets are described and photographed in as much detail as the Russians would allow. Originally published in 1904 (London: W. Thacker).
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Jane, Fred T. The Imperial Japanese Navy. Eastbourne, UK: Gardners, 2007.
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See also Jane 1983. Fred T. Jane was the founder of Jane’s Defence Review. His book on the Japanese navy contributed to the model building process for what became a standard reference for global military forces. All Imperial Japanese naval assets are described and photographed in as much detail as the Japanese would allow. Originally published in 1904 (London: W. Thacker).
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Klado, N. The Russian Navy in the Russo-Japanese War. Translated by M. René Marchand and L. J. H. Dickinson. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1905.
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Klado, the dean of Russian naval strategic thought, provides a running account of the sage of the 2nd Pacific Squadron (aka the Baltic Fleet). Behind a basic assumption—that control of the sea will determine who will win the Russo-Japanese War—Klado intersperses a series of analytical chapters that define Russia’s global naval challenge as the Russian fleet sails around the world.
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Pleshakov, Constantine. The Tsar’s Last Armada: The Epic Voyage of the Battle of Tsushima. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
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This book offers a recent account of the events that culminated with the climactic battle of Tsushima. Claiming access to recently opened archives, Pleshakov blames Nicholas II directly for making the decisions that resulted in catastrophe for the Imperial Russian Navy in the final naval battle of the war.
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Peacemaking

Was it peacemaking or war termination? The events at Portsmouth in 1905 plainly caused the Japanese much angst because for the second time in ten years they had won a major conflict that they were not expected to win but did not gain everything they desired at the peace table. Dennett 1925 clearly exhibits how Roosevelt, despite disliking them, supported the Russians at Portsmouth owing to concerns about rising Japanese power. Esthus 1988, White 1964, and Morinosuke 1978 offer astute diplomatic histories of the period. Matsumura 2009 provides insight into the machination of Japanese policymaking through his biography of Baron Kaneko. Ericson and Hockley 2008 offers readers a collection of state of the art articles on the Treaty of Portsmouth.

Dennett, Tyler. Roosevelt and the Russo-Japanese War. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1925.
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Dennett demonstrates that Roosevelt approached the conflict and the peacemaking process as a global thinker. Roosevelt’s primary concern, not surprisingly, was the role of the United States in the Pacific in the 20th century, hence his decision to support Russia’s insistence on not making reparation payments, a claim based on Russian insistence that they had not lost the war.
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Ericson, Steve, and Allen Hockley, eds. The Treaty of Portsmouth and Its Legacies. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2008.
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As an edited collection, this book is noteworthy for bringing together Japanese, American, and Russian scholars to reexamine the impact of the 1905 peacemaking process. Together, the essays in this collection assert that the question of boundaries and relations in northeast Asia were complex and complicated in 1905 and remain so until this day.
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Esthus, Raymond A. Double Eagle and Rising Sun: The Russians and Japanese at Portsmouth in 1905. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988.
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Using Russian-, Japanese-, and English-based sources, Esthus provides readers with an authoritative analysis and assessment of the peacemaking process that occurred in Portsmouth in 1905. His work clearly demonstrates that the Russo-Japanese War and the peacemaking the ensued represent the dawn of a new age in relations between Asia and the Western world.
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Matsumura, Masayoshi, and Ian Ruxton, trans. Baron Kaneko and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05): A Study in Public Diplomacy. Raleigh, NC: Lulu, 2009.
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This book tells the story of the one-man diplomatic mission of Baron Kaneko that had the single goal of winning the hearts and minds of the US policymaking establishment. Kaneko did gain access to President Theodore Roosevelt and his mission is portrayed as a success in that the United States supported many Japanese claims at Portsmouth.
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Morinosuke, Kajima. The Diplomacy of Japan, 1894–1922: Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Russo-Japanese War. 3 vols. Tokyo: Kajima Institute of International Peace, 1978.
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The significance of this work is it exhibits in turgid detail the course of Japanese diplomatic encounters with the West from the Treaty of Shimonoseki until the Washington naval conferences, with specific focus on the 1902–1905 period. As a result, this is a study of how the Japanese won wars but were denied the fruits of victory by losing the peace.
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White, John Albert. The Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964.
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In many ways this book still remains significant because White seeks to contextualize the diplomacy of Russo-Japanese War as the dawning of a global age in the outlook of the diplomats engaged in international relations at the beginning of the 20th century.
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Russian Home Front

This section of the article covers the rich English-language historiography that examines the domestic history of the stumbling Russian Empire as it entered the 20th century. In this part, therefore, readers are offered guidance to the best titles on the 1905 Revolution; the history of the Military establishment before, during, and after the war; the role of the tsar in politics (The Tsar and Politics); the economic development of the empire in Economics; and the role of the Far East in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Russia’s Far East).

1905 Revolution

As Japanese soldiers heroically died for their emperor on a battlefield in neutral China, Russian soldiers, while exhibiting bravery, courage, and heroism, did not offer their tsar the same level of devotion. The attitude of the Russian soldier, not surprisingly, reflected the general attitude prevalent in their society toward tsarism. As a result, no one in the world, except perhaps Nicholas II, was shocked when the 1905 revolution broke out in January in Saint Petersburg and spread throughout the political, social, and geographic landscape of the empire. As the revolution gained momentum and support, but it ultimately reached not only the troops in the hills of Manchuria, it also had a dire impact on the Imperial Navy, most famously in the Black Sea, in the fleet that had to die, that is, the Baltic fleet en route to becoming the 2nd Pacific Squadron doomed to the infamy of being defeated in the straits of Tsushima. Asher’s two volumes (Asher 1988–1992) are the starting point for any study on the revolution. Bushnell 1985 puts readings inside the world of Russian soldiers in revolt. Verner 1990 offers incisive insight into the machination of Nicholas II and Russian politics during the revolt.

Asher, Abraham. The Revolution of 1905. 2 vols. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988–1992.
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Asher’s two-volume study represents the definitive text on the 1905 revolution. He covers every aspect of the revolt from Father Gapon’s march on the Winter Palace, to the breakdown of tsarist authority that was supported by every class in Russian society, to the extreme measures taken by the autocracy to restore order to the empire.
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Bushnell, John. Mutiny Amid Repression: Russian Soldiers and the Revolution of 1905–1906. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.
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This book is a study on the impact of the revolution on the Imperial Army. Bushnell does a masterful job of revealing the conflict that confronted Russian soldiers in 1905. They were expected to suppress a rebellion that at the very least they supported.
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Verner, Andrew M. The Crisis of Russian Autocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
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Unquestionably, Verner offers the best study available on the thinking and actions of Nicholas II in the midst of the revolutionary crisis. The tsar emerges from this study as a conflicted man incapable of comprehending and making the vital decisions needed to save his regime.
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Military

Under the direction of War Minister D. A. Miliutin, the Imperial Army was completely reformed during this period. As a result, by 1904–1905, the military reforms of this era had transformed the army and it became composed of a professionally trained officer corps, mass conscripts, and an industrialized weapon inventory that composed the fundamental elements of the armed force that engaged the Japanese in Manchuria. Fuller 1992 offers an authoritative narrative on the role of strategy in the emergence of the Russian Empire. Menning 1992 writes a seminal volume that assessed the capabilities of the army. Marshall 2006 and Steinberg 2010 provide key assessments of the capabilities of the Russian General Staff.

Fuller, William C. Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600–1914. New York: Free Press, 1992.
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Fuller provides readers with a seminal survey that reveals the thinking and the activities of Russian strategic thinking from the 17th century until the outbreak of World War I.
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Marshall, Alex. The Russian General Staff and Asia, 1800–1917. London: Routledge, 2006.
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The significance of Marshall’s book is how it demonstrates that Asia was in the thinking of the highest levels of the imperial defense establishment throughout the 19th century.
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Menning, Bruce W. Bayonets Before Bullets: The Imperial Russian Army, 1861–1914. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.
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Without question, Menning provides his readers with the best overall survey of the Russian army from the defeat in the Crimean War until the outbreak of World War I. Of special note is his chapter on the Russo-Japanese War, which offers readers an outstanding operational history of the conflict.
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Steinberg, John W. All the Tsar’s Men: The Russian General Staff and the Fate of the Empire, 1898–1914. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2010.
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This book focuses on the efforts of the Russian General Staff to reform its army in the period immediately before the Russo-Japanese War and then examines how the General Staff responded and attempted to reform the army in the aftermath of the Manchurian disaster. This book’s chapter on the war focuses on the performance of the General Staff in Manchuria.
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The Tsar and Politics

Above all else, Nicholas II found himself woefully unprepared to be tsar of Russia. Even worse, he was a weak-willed man supremely overwhelmed with the challenges that confronted him on all levels: politically, socially, economically, and militarily. The literature on late imperial society is rich with innuendo and insinuation because of what was lost in 1917. Yet there are some models of the historiographic art to be found in this work. Lieven 1989 remains a classic study of the people and the political process they controlled in late Imperial Russia. McDonald 1992 offers readers the best analysis of the struggle between foreign and domestic policy as late imperial politicians sought to unify their foreign policy. Warth 1997 presents an authoritative biography of Nicholas II.

Lieven, Dominic. Russia’s Rulers Under the Old Regime. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989.
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Lieven offers his readers a carefully researched study of Russia’s ruling elite in the waning days of the autocracy. Besides learning much about the Russian aristocracy, the value of this book rests in its description of the political process in late Imperial Russia.
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McDonald, David M. United Government and Foreign Policy in Russia 1900–1914. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
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A masterpiece of the historiographic art, McDonald exhibits how the Russian autocracy sought to create a unified foreign policy in the late imperial period.
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Warth, Robert. Nicholas II: The Life and Reign of Russia’s Last Monarch. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.
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This book is the most comprehensive biography of a very complicated and under qualified ruler. Through extensive documentation Warth demonstrates that Nicholas II had neither the proper education nor the intellect to take on the challenge of ruling Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.
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Economics

Peter Gatrell’s works on the economic history of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century offer careful assessments of the progress Imperial Russia had made in its effort to modernize the empire. Gatrell 1986 is a survey that measures economic development in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Gatrell 1994 surveys the impact of an emerging military industrial complex on the ability of Russia to remain a great European power.

Gatrell, Peter. The Tsarist Economy. New York: St. Martin’s, 1986.
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Gatrell provides the best available one-volume economic history of the late imperial period.
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Gatrell, Peter. Government, Industry, and Rearmament in Russia, 1900–1914: The Last Argument of Tsarism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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Gatrell’s thesis posits that building a military industrial complex was the last and best chance for the imperial regime to survive into the 20th century.
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Russia’s Far East

Without Russia’s push to the Far East, a process that arguably started during the reign of Ivan IV (the Terrible), there would not have been a Russo-Japanese War. The historiography of this topic is rich and in depth. Marks 1991 is an essential read as it is the best study in English on the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, a transportation link vital to the construction of the empire and to the ability of the Russians to wage war in the Far East. Wolff 1999 offers a clear depiction of the how the Russians governed in the Far East. A seminal study, Stephan 1994 provides the deep background of Russia’s Far Eastern empire in masterful fashion.

Marks, Steven G. Road to Power: The Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Colonization of Asian Russia, 1850–1917. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.
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An essential book to understanding how Russian power spread across the Asiatic part of the empire through the magnificent engineering achievement of building what became known as the Trans-Siberian railway.
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Stephan, John J. The Russian Far East: A History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.
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A masterpiece of the historian’s craft, Stephan spent a lifetime of research to write this comprehensive history of the Russian Far East.
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Wolff, David. To the Harbin Station: The Liberal Alternative in Russian Manchuria, 1898–1914. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
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The brilliance of this book rests in Wolff’s masterful description of relations between military and civilian administrators as they struggled to bring the Far East under ever increasing control from Saint Petersburg.
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Japanese Home Front

The Japanese process of modernization started with the 1868 Meiji restoration. Their post-1868 domestic history reveals a story of learning about the West, adapting Western ideas to Japanese capabilities, and constructing a productive industrial economy. While engaging in all of this activity, the Japanese consistently demonstrated steady unshakable support for their emperor, his advisors, and their design to make Japan an Asian power. The process of nation building is best exhibited by Ericson 1996 and Shimazu 2009. The question of building an empire is best handled by Matsusaka 2001 and to a lesser extent by Okamoto 1970. The economics of the Russo-Japanese War itself are well presented in the dated but still useful Oyama 1923. A useful survey on the Japanese army throughout its imperial period is Harries and Harries 1991. Towle, et al. 2000, a collection of essays on the treatment of prisoners, is important for demonstrating the level of civility exercised toward captives by the Japanese at the time of the Russo-Japanese War.

Ericson, Steven J. The Sound of the Whistle: Railroads and the State in Meiji Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.
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Ericson provides his readers with an authoritative survey on how railroads connected all parts of Japan after the Meiji restoration and thereby contributed to the formation of a united nation.
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Harries, Meirion, and Susie Harries. Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. London: Heinemann, 1991.
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The Harries provide English-language readers with a comprehensive overview of the history of the Japanese military from the Mejii restoration until their catastrophic demise at the end of World War II.
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Matsusaka, Yoshihisa Tak. The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904–1932. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001.
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This book is a seminal study on Japanese imperial practice in Manchuria from the time of the war until the beginning of World War II in Asia. Through his authoritative use of Japanese sources, Matsusaka exhibits the soul of Japanese imperialism as the militarist took control of politics in Tokyo
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Okamoto, Shumpei. The Japanese Oligarchy and the Russo-Japanese War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
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Okamoto offers a study of high politics during the war and concludes that the main Japanese goal in engaging in this conflict was to prevent the spread of Russian power to Korea and to enhance Japanese power on the Asian continent.
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Oyama, Hisashi. Expenditures of the Russo-Japanese War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1923.
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The main focus of this study is on how much the war cost Japan, not how Japan financed the war. This book is a publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a prestigious series published in World War I’s aftermath.
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Shimazu, Naoko. Japanese Society at War: Death, Memory, and the Russo-Japanese War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
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Shimazu offers readers a challenging revision to the standard interpretation of Japanese soldiers and civilians mindlessly supporting their emperor. She presents authoritative research that demonstrates how Japanese civilians and recruits valued their lives, their children, and their property despite the wartime image of soldiers unquestionably sacrificing their lives.
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Towle, Philip A., Margaret Kosuge, and Yoichi Kibata, eds. Japanese Prisoners of War. London: Hambledon and London, 2000.
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The essays in this volume make a compelling case demonstrating that the Japanese treated their Russian prisoners of war as honored guests.
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Cultural History

The early 20th century witnessed a renaissance of sorts in the realm of art and culture. While both Russian and Japanese empires sought to use literary and image outlets for their propagandistic purposes, the artists and intellectuals composing the materials used by media outlets often had a different agenda, one designed to exhibit the horror, cruelties, and senselessness of modern conflict. Moreover, the Russo-Japanese War, as exhibited in the work by Sharf and Ulak 2000, offered an outlet for more mass-produced art forms ranging from Japanese wood block prints that revealed Japanese heroism and emperor worship on the battlefield to the Russian satiric press that stereotyped the Japanese as something inferior to their own troops and tsar. The edited collections by Rimer 1995 and Wells and Wilson 1999 study traditional literary forms ranging from prose to poetry and help define the cultural contours of their respective societies, bringing into sharp relief the differences between a rising and falling empire. The MIT Visualizing Cultures website offers readers the best glimpse of the type of visual images produces during the war.

MIT Visualizing Cultures.
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The section of this website devoted to the Russo-Japanese War provides excellent examples of period wood-block prints. The Russo-Japanese War section was compiled by Professor John Dower with support from National Endowment for the Humanities grant that created this digital archive which provides content to the concept of ”Visualizing Cultures” (co-directed by Professor Shigeru Miyagawa).
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Rimer, J. Thomas, ed. A Hidden Fire: Russian and Japanese Cultural Encounters 1868–1926. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995.
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This volume attempts to study the cultural encounters and artistic relations that existed between Japan and Russia from the Meiji restoration until the rise of Emperor Hirohito.
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Sharf, Frederic A., and James T. Ulak. A Well Watched War: Images from the Russo-Japanese Front, 1904–1905. Newbury, MA: Newburyport, 2000.
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Sharf, a private collector, and Ulak, then curator of Japanese art at the Smithsonian Institute, combine to present an art catalogue that presents the assortment of images (primarily wood block prints) that were used to portray the Far Eastern conflict in vivid realism.
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Wells, David, and Sandra Wilson. The Russo-Japanese War in Cultural Perspective, 1904–05. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1999.
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The first collection of edited essays to appear at the approach of the centennial of the war consists primarily of Australian contributors whose main concern is literature and memory.
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Illustrated Histories

The same technologies that enhanced the lethality of the early 20th century battlefield also encumbered greater capabilities in the hands of artists. Most notably, the science of photography had reached the point where the Russo-Japanese War became the first war that was photographed extensively. By the time of the war the process of taking and developing photos had reached the point at which numerous pictures of soldiers in action could be taken with the result being the multivolume photo albums. Regardless of the propagandistic or artistic aim of the photographer, the thousands of photographs of the war that circulated around the world during and after the conflict delivered a level of realism that should have sounded a stern warning about the brutality of 20th-century conflict. Cassell’s History of the Russo-Japanese War was a popular magazine of the period that had wide circulation. The collection compiled in Davis 1905 consisted of the work by journalists working for Collier’s Weekly magazine. Hare 1905 is a notable collection because of the essay written by A. T. Mahan. Wilson 1904–1906 offers readers text written by a single author. Westwood 1973 complements Westwood 1986 (cited under General Overviews).

Cassell’s History of the Russo-Japanese War. 4 vols. London: Cassell, 1905.
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Given this collection’s availability even to this day, it should be considered the most widely circulated set of books that seeks to tell the history of the war through photographs.
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Davis, Richard Harding. The Russo-Japanese War; A Photographic and Descriptive Review of the Great Conflict in the Far East, Gathered from the Reports, Records, Cable Dispatches, Photographs, etc., etc., of Collier’s War Correspondents: Richard Harding Davis, Frederick Palmer, James F. J. Archibald, Robert L. Dunn, Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, James H. Hare, Henry James Whigham, Victor K. Bulla. New York: P. F. Collier, 1905.
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This is the work compiled by the journalists who were reporting for Collier’s Weekly during the war. In addition to the photographs, this work is noteworthy because of the document collection, consisting largely of the cables sent from the battlefield, included within the contents of this book.
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Hare, James H., ed. A Photographic Record of the Russo-Japanese War, with Photographs by Victor K. Bulla, Robert L. Dunn, James F. J. Archibald, Richard Barry, Ashmead Bartlett, James Ricalton, Together with an Account of the Battle of the Sea of Japan by Captain A. T. Mahan. New York: P. F. Collier, 1905.
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This collection consists of the work of more journalists who were covering the war with both their pens and their cameras. The inclusion of an essay by A. T. Mahan, one of the world’s foremost naval strategists, puts the war at sea in its historic context.
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Westwood, J. N. The Illustrated History of the Russo-Japanese War. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1973.
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Although another illustrated book, Westwood’s is noteworthy because, with hindsight, his book offers readers a cohesive photo history of the war.
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Wilson, H. W. Japan’s Fight for Freedom: The Story of the War between Russia and Japan; Illustrated with Many Photographs Taken on the Field of Battle and Authentic Sketches by Famous Artists. 3 vols. London: Amalgamated, 1904–1906.
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Noted for being a multivolume photograph/illustrated work in which the text was written by a single author. The photos in these are often cited as the photos used in other books and websites about the War.
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Lessons and Impact

With the exception of Kowner 2007, the best, most useful studies of the impact of the war were written in the brief window between the end of the war in 1905 and the 1914 outbreak of World War I. There was a bias toward examining the Russian situation because all participants and observers had their own theories about what went wrong, followed by reform suggestions. Nonetheless, any book from the period offered concrete suggestions about what went right and what went wrong for both sides during the conflict. Of these types of books the most significant is Martynov 1907 because it consists of strong warnings for the future of Russia if sweeping reforms, such as those instituted by Miliutin after the Crimean War, were not immediately enacted upon. Bird 1911, Ross 1912, and Sedgwick 1912 understood that they were witnessing the birth of a new form, or the evolution of the ancient idea of conflict into a new, highly lethal type of conflict, yet they all conclude that morale would prevail on a technologically sophisticated battlefield. De Negrier 1906 clearly comprehends the power of modern weaponry but concludes as well that higher élan prevails regardless of the power of weapons. Of all this literature, perhaps the most useful to the modern reader is Glasfurd 1910, which rises above the controversies of the war and presents a comprehensive topographical study of the theater of operations.

Bird, W. D. Lectures on the Strategy of the Russo-Japanese War. London: H. Rees, 1911.
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As a professor of the Indian Staff College, Bird writes an informative strategic survey of the war. Major Bird uses this book to endorse war fighting based on the principle of continuous offensive maneuver, which was the main principle of early 20th century military thinking; offensive operations rooted in high morale will prevail on any battlefield regardless of the presence of highly lethal weapons.
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De Negrier, General. The Lessons of the Russo-Japanese War. London: H. Rees, 1906.
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One of the first books on the war to be widely read, DeNegrier warns readers that he seeks to teach lessons learned from the war based on tactical engagements. Ironically, the authors last conclusion––that soldiers with higher élan could always win––provided world military establishments with justification to ignore the more practical suggestions and warnings.
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Glasfurd, A. I. R. Sketches of Manchurian Battle-Fields, with a Verbal Description of Southern Manchuria: An Aid to the Study of Russo-Japanese War. London: H. Rees, 1910.
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Glasford, a major in the Indian Army, writes what should be considered a most useful book on the war. The title of the book sums up its content. Glasfurd led an expedition of staff officers to the theater of operation in 1907 where they wrote descriptions and drew scale maps of all major Russo-Japanese War battlefields.
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Kowner, Rotem, ed. The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War. New York: Routledge, 2007.
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This collection of eighteen essays offers the most current assessment of the Russo-Japanese War’s impact on world history. While Kowner rejects the notion that the conflict should be called World War Zero, his authors provide much evidence to the contrary. The evidence presented in these essays contributes to the discussion that the Russo-Japanese War can lay claim to being World War Zero.
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Martynov, E. I. Iz pechal’nago opyta Russko-Iaponskoi voiny. Saint Petersburg, Russia: n.p., 1907.
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Martynov, a longtime professor of strategy at the Nicholas Academy of the General Staff who commanded a regiment in Manchuria, writes the most poignant of this genre of literature. In this book he concludes that the Imperial Army needed to engage in series of reforms as far reaching as the Miliutin reforms that followed the Crimean War.
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Ross, Charles. An Outline of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905. London: Macmillan, 1912.
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Ross rose to the rank of major-general in the British Army. As an instructor at the Royal Staff College, Ross wrote a succinct one-volume history of the war that became a standard book for British officers to read while attending professional military schools. The book is rich in assessment of military conduct and devoid of critiquing civilian leaders for military failings.
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Sedgwick, Francis R. The Campaign in Manchuria. London: G. Allen, 1912.
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A Canadian major serving in the Royal Artillery, Sedgwick a professor of strategy, tactics, and artillery at Canada’s Royal Military College wrote a series of books, pamphlets, and articles that culminated in the publication of this book. Focusing on the battles of Liaoyang (August/September 1904) and Mukden (February/March 1905) Sedgwick concludes that the question of national morale determined the outcome of this conflict.