Russo-Japanese War

[Paul Hederer]

Morning,

I picked up Richard Connaughton's "Rising Sun, Tumbling Bear," about the Russo-Japanese war, a few weekends ago in London.

I'm absolutely fascinated. I've read very little about the topic before.

Anyone else out there read much about this?

Paul

[truthergw]

Morning,

  I picked up Richard Connaughton's "Rising Sun, Tumbling Bear," about the Russo-Japanese war, a few weekends ago in London.

  I'm absolutely fascinated.  I've read very little about the topic before.

  Anyone else out there read much about this?

Paul

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No, but I have had my eye on this one for a while, I'm eager to hear your thoughts on it.

[armourersergeant]

me too, keep looking at it and then putting it back down etc in shops or on Amazon!

One day maybe.

Arm

[Anthony Pigott]

There's a fairly extensive web site on the subject at:

http://www.russojapanesewar.com/

It's interesting that this war is relatively unknown, even to many who are very familiar with the Great War. However, it was very well known to the military at the time who assumed that there were many lessons to be learnt for a future European war.

Anthony

[tintin1689]

I reviewed this book on here once - it is worth reading, very well written

[historydavid]

I seem to recall, from a long time ago, that the war was in two distinct parts, land and sea.

Don't remember much about the land involvement but the Russians got a good shellacking at sea.

The Russian fleet had to sail from the Baltic all the way around to the far east, without any support from any of the European nations because they were held to have broken their word over withdrawal from Manchuria.

The fleet was obviously in bad shape when it arrived and could not stand up to the Japanese fleet, which was well led by Admiral Togo.

Incidently, the Russian navy still hadn't recovered by 1914 when the big one started.

Best wishes

David

[Borden Battery]

This war also had an important impact on the use and adaptation of tactics for machine guns and the start of indirect fire. I have included three quotations regarding this influence.

Borden Battery

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"The effect of the Manchurian campaign was to open a whole new field of tactics to the machine gun, and of all the nations, Germany was the first to realize it and to reap the most valuable harvest.

Practically every phase of later tactics and even fire direction and control had their foundation in Manchuria and no role was more emphasized than the value of the machine gun in the offensive. In the last stage of the Battle of Mukden, it has been pointed out, no less than four batteries were used to beat down the fire of a Russian detachment holding the buildings and enclosures of a Chinese farm and under this 24-gun storm the garrison hastily abandoned the position. It was the climax to a growing tendency to the use of massed machine guns.

There in that incident might have been the cradle of machine gun barrage fire to come later - much later.

The general effect of the war in the Far East was an immense stimulation of thought directed to machine gun and a vast output of literature and resulting study, out of which tactical doctrines began to be formulated in most armies.

Perhaps reports drifting back from the Manchurian battlefields on machine guns interested no German more than the Kaiser himself. Soon after Sir Hiram Maxim invented his gun the Kaiser, then Crown Prince, saw it in Berlin. His immediate enthusiasm, temporarily at least, found itself cooled off against the cold, implacable conviction of the German General Staff that the machine gun was useless for a European war. They were sticking stolidly to the post-war convictions of 1870. In 1887 at Queen Victoria's Jubilee, accompanied by a group of German cavalry officers, Crown Prinz Wilhem paid a visit to the 10th Hussars at Hounslow and so intrigued was he by their machine gun equipment that, on his return, he ordered a gun to be sent over to Germany.

Due in no small measure to the Kaiser's personal enthusiasm and interest for and in machine guns, Maxim batteries of four guns were introduced at the German manoeuvres two years later. Out of his own personal pocket Emperor William provided a machine gun of the same type for each of the Dragoon Regiments of the Guard.

German army Field Service Regulations of 1908 indicate to what a high peak of specialization machine gunnery had been brought in the German army.

Special regulations as late as 1912 indicate that machine gunners had become a sort of Corps d'Elite. The Germans then possessed two different kinds of machine gun batteries - the Machine Gun Company and the Detachment. Companies had been attached to each Regi-ment, corresponding roughly to a British Brigade. A six-gun com-pany, it was to work with the Regiment normally or be detached, in pairs, to battalions.

The Detachment was non-regimental and an independent unit usually attached to Cavalry Brigades. Motorcar detachments had also been formed."

Source: A History of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps by Lt.-Col. C.S. Grafton, 1938

pp 20-21

"I had been a close student of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and had been struck with the great fire power of the Machine Gun when employed in sufficient numbers by resolute men, well trained. I deplored the systematic ignorance of the qualities of these weapons shown by the French General Staff and also by the British General Staff, although with the light Vickers machine gun the British had the best machine gun available at the time - and, as far as I knows, still unsurpassed."

Source: Tape 1 Raymond Brutinel Manuscript - Motor Machine Gun Brigade, Interview - Oct 1962

"I would like to remark here that the doctrine developed in the Canadian Machine Gun Corps is substantially the rediscovery of methods employed by the Japanese in their war against Russia in 1904, and these in turn appear to have inspired the organisation of the Marksman Machine Gun Companies of the German Army. The Battery of eight machine guns was adopted by the Japanese for the same reasons which in turn lead to their selection by the Canadian Machine Gun Corps."

Source: Tape 17 Raymond Brutinel Manuscript - Motor Machine Gun Brigade, Interview - Oct 1962

[awakefield]

Have not read much on this war but I have visited some of the Russian forts at Vladivostok, which were besieged by the Japanese after the fall of Port Arthur. Two of the forts are open to the public. In the first you can get a tour around the underground galleries and the exterior of the fort bears much damage from Japanese gunfire - plus bullet marks from the era of Stalin's purges when it was used as a political prison. The other fort, near the entrance to the main harbour of Vladivostok is now a museum covering the history of the ciuty as a fortified naval base. It is a good 'old fashioned' museum with stacks of interesting exhibits, photos, maps etc - and most of the text is translated into English. This fort also houses a collection of artillery pieces and has all its naval defence guns in place. Very little in the way of health and saefty as all the guns can still be elevated and traversed as one of my Russian friends found out when she started quickly turning the handle of a WWII anti aircraft gun - talk about a wartime merry-go-round!!!

I also found the British, canadian, French and Czech Legion graves from the Allied intervention force of 1918-22. These are in the large Russian Naval Cemetery outside the city. When I visited there was a Russian naval funeral in progess - probably another poor conscript who died in an accident!

ALAN

[Paul Hederer]

Hello,

Well, I just finished ""Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear," last week, and I was so fascinated by the subject I also bought and read "The Tide at Sunrise," by Denis and Peggy Warner.

Of the two books I found "The Tide at Sunrise," to be by far the best account of the war, in my opinion.

I posted a short review of both books under book reviews.

Reading both books made me realize how many events prior to the Great War are all connected. The Russo-Japanese war bears some study in many aspects to better understand what followed.

Paul