All-In [29954]
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Military Pron - The Pacific War (4 of ?)
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Sep 15, 2023, 1:39 PM
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The Turn of the Century doesn’t come around very often, so in 1900 America was feeling extra patriotic with its new Pacific possessions, Hawaii and the Philippines.
1900 was also the year that China got tired of taking sh** from the West.
Well, they might have been Ok with sh**, but they still didn’t like opium or abuse, so they rose up and fought against those.
Out with those drug-pushing foreigners! China for the Chinese, and all that.
Three inseparable allies, the British and the French and the Japanese, fight together against the Chinese rebellion. The French (see flags in the background) helping out their Japanese friends storm the gates of Peking. Nice.
Back then, 120 years ago, there was a real fear that the “Yellow Peril” (China), was overwhelming America with cheap labor and becoming a powerful economic and military adversary. But that was 120 years ago.
And, would get our wimmen.
And in China, there was a real fear that the West would trap them in unequal trade agreements and keep a permanent miliary presence in their country. Oh, that sweet Chinese market…
The Chinese rebels called themselves The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, or SRHF, which is impossible to say. So instead they became known as the Boxers, since they fought with that crazy Martial Arts shizz.
Since the Boxers were a grassroots nationalist movement, they roamed all over the countryside killing Christians and foreigners wherever they found them. But what got everyone’s attention was when they surrounded and besieged the embassies of all the “great” nations, in Beijing. In the CITY.
Imperial City Embassies – 1900. Everybody who was anybody had a presence in China.
They even made a movie about it.
Ultimately, the Eight Nation Alliance of Western powers marched to Beijing and rescued the embassies. The peace agreement stipulated that China had to pay the Alliance just under a half a billion ounces of silver by 1940, rounded up to a neat billion ounces with interest.
On the plus side though, the Boxer peasants got to choose their method of death. A quick chop…
A quick shot…
Or hanging yourself with your own body weight.
The victors were tough on China. And the newspapers noticed.
Even Confucious and Jesus were upset.
Here’s the peace negotiation table. Looks pretty lonely on the right-hand side of the table.
The Boxer Rebellion was put down by 1901. But as a teacher once told me, there’s always ONE in every class. That guy. The troublemaker. It’s different every year, but in 1901 it was Russia.
The class troublemaker, 1901. Czar Nicholas II.
The Eight Nation Alliance was formed to put down the Boxer Rebellion, not as another land grab club. But Nicholas figured that, “Well, as long as Russia has to march through Manchuria to get to the China rebellion, we might as well keep Manchuria. China didn’t like that, nor did Japan, and surprisingly, neither did Britain.
Back off, Grabby Bear!
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All that purple with “Russ Occ.” was Chinese land, till Nicholas II just decided to keep in 1901.
The West (and Japan) had killed a lot of Chinese to gain a peace they could all live with, till Russia mucked it all up. Why? Why is there always “The One?”
And so, th every next year in 1902, Britain and Japan signed a mutual-defense treaty against Russia. Predictably, Russia then signed a treaty with France. Oh boy. Battle lines are forming.
The best of friends.
Japan, now with the security of Big Brother Britain, decided to settle some old business with Russia. Both countries wanted Manchuria, and both countries wanted Korea.
Japan told Russia “You can have Manchuria if you just let us have Korea.” It sounds like a fair deal. Well, not to the Czar. He wanted ALL of Manchuria AND half of Korea.
So, sensing a coming fight, Japan threw the first punch, without warning, and demolished the Russian Pacific Fleet over in Port Arthur.
That was naughty of the Japanese, because the Hague had just said in 1899, “No attacks without a declaration of war.” That’s illegal!
 
Having been caught red-handed in a dastardly sneak attack, there’s no way the Japanese could ever get away with such a thing again. The whole world was watching them like a hawk now.
Back in 1904, since we were so close, America was expected to look after Japanese interests when the Japanese embassy in Russia closed due to the war. That’s what friends are for.
 
When the firing began, Japan blockaded the Russian Pacific fleet in Port Arthur, walked an army over by land, and bombarded it. It might be the only time in history that an entire fleet was sunk by land artillery.
Nicholas II was stunned by the surprise attack. The Russians had 21 battleships total in the Baltic Fleet, the Black Sea fleet, and the Pacific, compared to Japan’s 7. And once Japan neutralized Russia’s Pacific fleet, those odds became 14 to 7.
Japan patrols the Yellow Sea outside of Port Arthur.
But Nicholas was undaunted. To get revenge, Russia next sailed their Baltic Fleet around the world. It was an enormous undertaking at the time, and it almost broke the Russian piggy bank to do it.
And, having traveled half way around the globe, it was promptly and completely destroyed by the Japanese fleet, too.
The Battle of Tsushima
Remember that wipeout that Admiral Dewey had against the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in 1898? Tsushima was that caliber of wipe out.
If you go into a battle with almost 40 ships, you expect more than 10 to survive. Japan, by contrast, lost three tiny torpedo boats. Tsushima was the kind of wipeout that causes people to lose faith in their government. And it did.
The 1905 Russian Revolution
Nicolas survived the 1905 revolution, and was about ready to throw in the towel on the war with Japan. His country was collapsing, he had lost 2/3 of his navy, and armed mobs were storming his palace.
But the big secret behind the peace treaty of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 was that it was actually the Japanese who asked for peace.
Because as complete, and public, as the Russian defeats were, what was hidden from everyone was the strain on the Japanese economy. Remember when I said Japan was just an island with rocks and rice? They still were, and they needed the war to end, and fast. Japan had to win their wars with quick knockout blows. Long wars meant doom. They simply didn’t have the economy.
The Japanese battleship Mikasa, flagship of the fleet at Tsushima, with her 12” guns. One of the finest ships in the world in 1905. Built, of course, by the British.
Mikasa today, as a museum in Japan, with a statue of the victorious Admiral Togo in front
Togo (not to be confused with Tojo) on deck, kicking Russian axx at Tsushima
The Japanese asked their good buddies, us, to negotiate a peace. Since the Brits were rivals to the Russians at the time, they weren’t viewed as a fair arbiter. But the Americans seemed like a fair, impartial choice to everyone.
Not such good friends anymore
So, Teddy Roosevelt got a chance to be in the limelight.
It’s hard to appreciate just how earth-shaking the outcome of the Russo-Japanese war was. Today it’s about as forgotten as the Philippine War of 1899. But in 1905, it was all anyone in military and diplomatic circles could talk about.
A virtual nobody had taken down a great European power. And not just “got a fluke win.” I mean demolished. Two crushing naval victories, and almost a dozen land victories. Japan woke the world up when they defeated China in 1895 and got Korea in the deal. But now, to defeat Russia too, was nothing short of alarming.
It changed US war planning. There was no Panama Canal in 1905, so the problem of combining the US Atlantic and Pacific fleets was a real issue. Port Arthur and Tsushima showed what happened when one went to war with Japan with separated fleets, like the Russians did. You lost.
And so while Roosevelt might have been on the friendly side with Japan before the war, he was on the cautious side after it. Because with no Russian navy in the Pacific now, they weren’t going to be a future adversary to America.
But these guys might be…
And it was at the Treaty of Portsmouth, in the wake of that unbelievable Japanese victory, where things started to turn south in US-Japanese relations. The Japanese government expected a big payoff in the peace. They had won every single land battle in the war AND destroyed 2/3 of the Russian navy.
The Russians lost 10 battleships and the Japanese only two. For Russia, 10 battleships would take 10 years, at least, to rebuild.
Working it all out. The Japanese and the Russians in New Hampshire? 1905.
But Teddy went easy on the Russians, and the Japanese got almost none of their demands. The Russians were relieved. But the Japanese government was livid. And the Japanese people (who had no idea how unstable their government was, and who had heard nothing but good news for the entire war) were livid. They actually revolted over a peace agreement. How often does that happen?
 
In the end, Japan got to keep Korea but got no reparations, Russia had to give Manchuria back to China, and there was Peace in the Pacific, for a few more years.
And Teddy got a medal; a peace prize. Over another war, that again, traced its roots back to China. All about China.
In time things simmered back down, and by 1912, Japan sent us these lovely cherry trees for the National Mall. But Japan still felt cheated by the West, and that feeling wasn’t going away any time soon. And that’s where we’ll pick up next time, before the start of the next war, just a few years later…
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