The Russo-Japanese War on the shelves of New College Library

The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 2007

Scarecrow Press (Rowman & Littlefield), 2006

Every war leaves an imprint in history, but few have had such a pervasive impact in so many respects as the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Politically, it fatally weakened the Russian Empire while allowing Japan to follow more dangerous paths. Diplomatically, it shook the power balance in Europe and reshaped it in the form of two coalitions, leading to World War I. With regard to the art of warfare, it emphasized the use of trench warfare and machine guns on land and the deployment of battleships and the use of torpedoes at sea. Yet, despite its importance at the time, it has become very much a forgotten war. So now, about a century after it took place, is a very appropriate time to remind us with a Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War that provides considerable breadth and depth of coverage based on Japanese, Russian and Western sources. The breadth is accomplished through a wide-ranging introduction, a detailed chronology and an extensive bibliography. The depth comes in the hundreds of entries on military and political leaders, major battles and lesser encounters, tactics and strategy as well as the weaponry and of course the causes and consequences. The result is the first major reference work on the Russo-Japanese War in English and the largest in any language. REVIEWS “… as a standard reference, Kowner’s dictionary does an admirable job of providing readers with balanced readable reference work on the Russo-Japanese War.” John W. Steinberg, Journal of Military History 70 (2006), 1149. “… Kowner provides what must be the most thorough reference account of the Russo-Japanese War produced in the English language. … The Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War will be the reference source of choice for any library where the conflict is the subject of study or research. It also belongs in libraries specializing in military history or East Asian or Russian/Slavic studies.” Tony Chalcraft, Reference Reviews 20, no. 7 (2006), 52. “An effort is made to cover the historical significance of the war in terms of both the causes and effects. Not only people, battleships, weapons, and events, but also special topics such as “prisoners of war,” “propaganda,” “military intelligence, and “medical treatment” are found among the entries. Recommended for college and research libraries.” Junko Stuveras, College and Research Libraries 67 (2006), 474. “One of the great merits of this book is the editor’s ability to extract and define these current [that will profoundly impact later events], which suddenly places the war in a new, more meaningful context. … The Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War will be an indispensable addition to libraries of colleges, universities, and communities seeking to expand their titles in military history. It is especially important because, as noted above, the work is the first such reference volume in English.” John B. Romeiser, ARBA (2007), 271. “Kowner has worked prodigiously over the past decade to mark the conflict’s centenary by organizing an international conference, writing a 600-page history and several articles, as well as editing two volumes on the topic, and he is therefore well suited to the task. … Kowner’s dictionary provides balanced and accurate coverage. He is also careful to point out questions that remain contentious among historians. … It is also unfortunate that the dictionary was unavailable 15 years ago, when I began my own research on the topic. It would have saved me a lot of work.” David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Journal of Slavic Military Studies 20 (2007), 775-776. “Among the [fourteen] works reviewed, R. Kowner's Dictionary treats the events of 1904-05 most extensively. Based on Western, Russian and Japanese sources, the author approaches the topic very widely. … Such an extensive work from the pen of a single author, even if this could be based on the advice of numerous colleagues, is an almost a superhuman accomplishment.” Gerhard Krebs, Nachrichten der Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens/Hamburg (OAG) 183-184 (2008), 193.

Brill-Global Oriental, 2007

Despite the growing number of publications on the Russo-Japanese War, an abundance of questions and issues related to this topic remain unsolved, or call for a reexamination. This 30-chapter volume, the first in the two-volume project Rethinking the Russo-Japanese War, provides a comprehensive reexamination of the origins of the conflict, the various dimensions of the nineteen-month conflagration, the legacy of the war, and its place in the history of the twentieth century. Such an enterprise is not only timely but unique. It has benefited from a multinational team of thirty-two scholars from twelve nations representing a broad disciplinary background. The majority of them focus on topics never researched before and without exception provide a novel and critical view of the war. This reexamination is, of course, facilitated by a century-long perspective as well as an impressive assortment of primary and secondary sources, many of them unexplored and, in a number of cases, unavailable earlier. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements; List of Contributors; List of Maps, Tables, Figures; List of Illustrations; Conventions; Introduction; 1 The Memory and Significance of the Russo-Japanese War from a Centennial Perspective; PART I: ORIGINS; I. Geopolitical, Economic, and Intellectual Background; 2 Guarding the Gates of Our East Asia: Japanese Reactions to the Far Eastern Crisis (1897–98) as a Prelude to the War; 3 An Invitation to the Aquarium: Sergei Witte and the Origins of Russia’s War with Japan; 4 “The Unknown Enemy”: The Siberian Frontier and the Russo-Japanese Rivalry, 1890s–1920s; PART II: THE WAR; II. The Military Dimension; 5 The Clash of Two Continental Empires: The Land War Reconsidered; 6. The Secret Factor: Japanese Network of Intelligence gathering on Russia during the War; 7 Chaos versus Cruelty: Sakhalin as a Secondary Theater of Operations; III. The Economic Dimension; 8 The War and the Perception of Japan by British Investors; 9 Realpolitik or Jewish Solidarity? Jacob Schiff’s Financial Support for Japan Revisited; 10 The War, Military Expenditures and Postbellum Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Japan; IV. The Cultural Dimension; 11 The Widow’s Tears and the Soldier’s Dream: Gender and Japanese Wartime Visual Culture; 12 School Songs, the War and Nationalist Indoctrination in Japan; 13 Forgotten Heroes: Russian Women in the War; 14 The Dress Rehearsal? Russian Realism and Modernism through War and Revolution; 15 The Scepter of the Far East and the Crown of the Third Rome: The War in the Mirror of Russian Poetry; ; PART III: REACTIONS AND POSTWAR REPERCUSSIONS; V. The Belligerents: Consequences in Japan and Russia; 16 The Impact of the War on the Constitutional Government in Japan; 17 The Legacy of the War and the World of Islam in Japanese Pan-Asian Discourse: Wakabayashi Han’s Kaikyo Sekai to Nihon ; 18 Soldiers’ Unrest Behind the Front after the End of the War; 19 Imperial Russian War Planning for the Eurasian Space and the Impact of the War; VI. Divided Onlookers: Europe and the War; 20 The War and British Strategic Foreign Policy; 21 British War Correspondents and the War; 22 Participant Observation: Germany, the War, and the Road to a European Clash; 23 Perceptions of Russia in German Military Leadership during the War; 24 A Different View: The War in Austro-Hungarian Political Cartoons; 25 A Reinterpretation of the Ottoman Neutrality during the War; 26 The Jewish Response to the War; VII. Rude Awakening? Asia and the Colonial World; 27 Russo-Japanese Negotiations and the Japanese Annexation of Korea; 28 Japan’s Victory in Philippine, Vietnamese, and Burmese Perspectives; 29 The War and the British Invasion of Tibet, 1904; 30 Distant Echoes: The Reflection of the War in the Middle East; Bibliography; Index

A Brief Account of the Causes and Outcome of the War of 1904-05.

Routledge, 2007

This book is the first endeavor devoted solely to providing a broad comprehensive assessment of the international impact of the war. From a centennial perspective, It is evident how far reaching and pervasive have been the ramifications of the Russo-Japanese War. Some of its repercussions lasted only a decade, as in the case of the European balance of power, although they led indirectly to the outbreak of a still more pivotal event — World War I. Other repercussions of the war lasted four decades, as in the case of the continental grip of the Japanese empire; whereas some resonate even now, as in the case of the divided Korean peninsula. REVIEWS “There has been a flood of books dealing with the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 published since the centenary. The distinctive feature of the book edited by Professor Kowner is that is deals with the impact the war had on Japan and Russia and on practically all the countries worldwide. … It is not possible to make individual comments on the many insights in the book except for one general observation …. War and navies are still with us; and [this volume] covering the first half of the twentieth century still have much relevance.” — Ian Nish, Japan Society: Japan-UK Review 2 (2007), 5. “[The book] proceeds to emphasize the war’s world-wide implications and impact, foreshadowing in many ways the “great” one that would follow in less than ten years. The focus of the book is on the impact of the war on subsequent military strategy and tactics and on political, social, and economic affairs in various world areas. … The scholarship is on the whole of a very high level, and the editor kept most of the contributions focused and brief. There is little overlap and the editing is excellent ...” — Saul E. Norman, The Russian Review 67 (2008), 137-138. “Two related things distinguish this conference volume: its specific attempt to assess the repercussions of the conflict and the span of the papers presented. … the book as a whole does make a useful attempt to come to grips with the war’s complicated effects. … What is fresh in this book is a real sense of how far afield the repercussions of the conflict were felt and of the extent to which it was enmeshed with the major global trends of the time. … [T]his book provides a good foundation for further inquiry into the significance of the Russo- Japanese War.” — Sandra Wilson, The Journal of Japanese Studies 34 (2008), 513. “The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War asks, and answers, the question, "Why, more than a century after its end, should we care about the Russo-Japanese War?" … All of the essays are thought-provoking, and some break new ground, notably the war’s effect the rise of Asian nationalism, and the rise of Japanese-American rivalry… A volume in the Routledge series, “Studies in the Modern History of Asia,” The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War is a valuable read for anyone with an interest in the era of the First World War or the history of East Asia.” — A.A. Nofi, Strategy Page (2009) The NYMAS Review, The New York Military Affairs Symposium TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Between a colonial clash and World War Zero : The impact of the Russo-Japanese War in a global perspective / Rotem Kowner 2. The war as a turning point in modern Japanese history / Rotem Kowner 3. If Japan had lost the war ... / Peter Duus 4. The war and the fate of the tsarist autocracy / Jonathan Frankel 5. From enemies to allies : the war and Russo-Japanese relations / Peter Berton 6. The fragmenting of the old world order : Britain, the Great Powers, and the war / T.G. Otte 7. Germany, the Russo-Japanese War and the road to the Great War / Matthew S. Seligman 8. The impact of the war on the French political scene / Patrick Beillevaire 9. America's first cold war : the emergence of a new rivalry / Tal Tovy and Sharon Halevi 10. White Mongols? : the war and American discourses on race and religion / Joseph M. Henning 11. The impact of the war on China / Harold Z. Schiffrin 12. On the confluence of history and memory : the significance of the war for Korea / Guy Podoler and Michael Robinson 13. Ironies of history : the war and the origins of East Asian radicalism / Yitzhak Shichor 14. Tokyo as a shared Mecca of modernity : war echoes in the colonial Malay world / Michael Laffan 15. India and the war / T.R. Sareen 16. A model not to follow : the European armies and the lessons of the war / Yigal Sheffy 17. The impact of the war on naval warfare / Rotem Kowner 18. The road to Jutland? : the war and the Imperial German Navy / Cord Eberspaecher