Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War
Pictures of the war 1904-1905
Date 8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905 1 March 1932-16 September 1939 (Soviet-Japanese Border War : 1932-1939) 9 August-3 September 1945 (Soviet-Japanese War : 1945) Location Manchuria, Yellow Sea Result Japanese victory; Treaty of Portsmouth
Belligerents
Russian Empire	Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
Tsar Nicholas II Aleksey Kuropatkin Stepan Makarov † Zinovy Rozhestvensky	Emperor Meiji Ōyama Iwao Nogi Maresuke Tōgō Heihachirō
Strength
1,365,000 [source?]	1,200,000 [source?]
Casualties and losses
34,000 – 52,623 killed and died of wounds 9,300 – 18,830 died of disease overall 43,300 – 71,453[1][2]	47,400 – 47,152 killed 11,424 – 11,500 died of wounds 21,802 – 27,200 died of disease overall 80,378 – 86,100[1][2]

The Russo-Japanese War was a war between the Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire. It started in 1904 and ended in 1905. The Japanese won the war, and the Russians lost.

The war happened because the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire disagreed over who should get parts of Manchuria and Korea. It was fought mostly on the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden, the seas around Korea, Japan, and the Yellow Sea. The politics of the two countries in the war were very complicated, but both wanted to gain land and economic benefits.

The Chinese Empire of the Qing Dynasty was large but weak, and it was Qing land and possessions they fought over. For example Korea was under Qing rule, but was seized by Japan. The Russians wanted a 'warm-water port' on the Pacific Ocean for their navy and trade. The harbour at Vladivostok freezes over in the winter, but Port Arthur (now part of Dalian on the Liaodong Peninsula in China) can be used all the time. Russia had already rented the port from the Qing and had got their permission to build a Trans-Siberian railway from St Petersburg to Port Arthur.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Samuel Dumas, Losses of Life Caused By War (1923)
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Erols.com, Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls and Casualty Statistics for Wars, Dictatorships and Genocides.