The Russo-Japanese War Changed History Forever
World War I and World War II so transformed the maps of both Europe and Asia that discerning the influence of antecedent conflicts like the Russo-Japanese War can be hard.
Here’s What You Need to Remember: The Russo-Japanese War commenced 110 years ago this February, lasting eighteen months before a US-brokered truce mercifully put it to rest. The war killed upwards of 125,000 people, and sharply limited Russian influence in Northeast Asia. Japan gained control of Korea, and gained a long-term foothold for influencing events in Manchuria and China.
Writers have ascribed many legacies to the conflict, some of which we can set aside. Victory against Japan probably would not have prevented the collapse of Imperial Russia and the founding of the Soviet Union; the Revolution happened for other reasons. Moreover, the conflict did not give the Central Powers a “window of opportunity” for defeating Russia in Europe; we now know that Vienna and Berlin over-estimated, rather than under-estimated, Russian power in 1914. Defeat might conceivably have broken Japanese militarism for a time, but the weakness of China and of the European colonial empires would likely have proven too tempting for Tokyo in any case.