The Russo-Japanese War was a major armed conflict fought between Imperial Russia and Japan from February of 1904 to September 1905. The war was fought between the two empires over the control of Korea, Manchuria, and the Chinese Liaodong Peninsula. A successful Japanese land and sea campaign resulted in the destruction of the Russian Pacific Fleet and a complete Japanese victory. The belligerents signed the Treaty of Portsmouth on September 5th, 1905, which gave Japan complete control of Russia’s possessions in the region. The decisive Japanese victory shocked observers around the world, as it represented the first defeat of a European power by a non-European country in the Modern Era. It fundamentally altered the balance of power in the Far …show more content…
In accordance with the New Imperialism which was sweeping the globe at the in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Both Russia and Japan sought to expand their Empires by establishing spheres of influence in the area where the war would be fought. A conflict between Japan and China in the late 19th century over control of Korea resulted in the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, which Japan won handily. Following their victory in 1895, the Japanese seized control of Korea and the Liaodong Peninsula, including its strategically vital Port Arthur, from the Chinese. In order to protect their own influence in the region, Germany and Russia persuaded Japan to relinquish control of the Liaodong Peninsula back to China in the so-called “triple intervention” (Westwood, 22). Russia, meanwhile, had sought to establish a warm-water port in the Pacific, since all of their ports on the Pacific Coast iced over in the wintertime and they needed a permanent outpost for their Pacific Naval Fleet. (Ashmead-Bartlett, 4). Japan’s uneasiness about Russian expansion into Manchuria, and the threat it would pose to its interests in Korea, turned into anger when the Chinese agreed to lease Port Arthur to the Russians in 1898 (Clements,131). This was seen by the Japanese as a