The Russian Army and the Japanese War
Being Historical and Critical Comments on the Military Policy and Power of Russia and on the Campaign in the Far East (Complete)
9781465635693
211 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
An historical résumé of the problems which confronted the Russian War Department during the past two centuries. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the chief work accomplished by our armed forces was that necessitated by the expansion of our Empire towards the north, west, and south, in her struggle to reach the shores of the Baltic and Black Seas. During the first years of the twentieth century our forces have been similarly engaged in an approach towards the ocean, for, some years before the recent war with Japan—but after she had defeated China—we occupied Manchuria and pushed forward our advanced troops into the Kuan-tung Peninsula and on to the shores of the Pacific. During the war we had to repel Japan’s advance while we maintained the position taken up by us as far back as 1897. In the event we have lost both Kuan-tung and Southern Manchuria, and have been driven back in the Far East, with the result that we are now in immediate contact on the mainland with Japan, who is in military occupation of Korea, Kuan-tung, and Southern Manchuria. For Russia this has been more than a surprise. It has been a disaster. But now that the first outburst of natural grief has subsided, there is some possibility of being able to trace the various causes to which our military misfortunes are due, of drawing attention to the most important, and of appreciating at their correct value the many hasty judgments pronounced upon military events by the Press. The complexity of the chain of circumstances which led up to hostilities, and the intricacy of the military operations which followed, demand some detailed investigation into the nature of the peculiar conditions which denied success to our arms in Manchuria. A proper understanding of the difficulties will, I think, be materially assisted by a review of certain events in our past military history. It was only after a severe struggle and a violent upheaval that Russia became one united Empire in the seventeenth century. At the commencement of the eighteenth there were, in our immense expanse of territory amounting to some 265,000 square miles (of which 79,000 were in Europe), only 12,000,000 inhabitants; and our frontiers, though only partially defined, were already 9,333 miles in length. Our army was about 150,000 to 200,000 strong, but was unreliable as a fighting force owing to inferior organization and training. Of the total State Budget—some £1,200,000—half was taken up for the maintenance of this force. The proper defence of our long frontier necessitated an immense army, for our boundaries were not strengthened by any natural features, while our neighbours were powerful kingdoms, such as Sweden, Poland, and Turkey, nomad Tartars, Caucasian mountaineers, and the Chinese, about whom little was known. In the eighteenth century, besides creating a regular army, we had to carry on the following work, handed to us as a legacy from the preceding hundred years: In the north-west we had to continue the efforts of Tsars John III. and IV. to drive Sweden from the Baltic littoral, and so push forward our frontier to the coast-line. In the west, to proceed with the work of Tsar Alexie-Michaelovitch, and wrest White Russia and Little Russia from Poland. In the south, to follow the course indicated by the Grand Dukes Sviatosloff and Oleg, of advancing to the Black Sea coast and creating unrest in Turkey, as a preparation for our further move forward. In the south-east, to carry on the struggles of Tsar Theodore-Ivanovitch and Boris Godunoff to convert the Caspian into a Russian inland sea, and obtain a firm foothold on the ridge of the Caucasus. In Asia, to extend the Empire in two directions—towards Central Asia, for protection against raids, and towards Russia’s natural outlet in the East, the Pacific Ocean.
