How did Russia lose the Russo-Japanese War?

How did Russia lose the Russo-Japanese War?

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Underestimation of the enemy, poor to non-existent intelligence, confusion and rivalries within the chain of command, the shitshow that was Tsushima, the comparative discipline, training, organisation and intelligence of the Japanese forces and a reliance by the Russians on obsolete equipment and units (e.g. Cossack cavalry units).

All of this.

It's worth being said however, that by the end of the conflict Japan itself was strained to its limits. The peace that concluded the war was not one of the victor dictating terms to the defeated, Japan (somewhat begrudgingly) forfeited a fair amount of the concessions they had hoped to gain from the war for the purpose of reaching a hasty conclusion. They were aware that the full weight of Russian manpower was never brought to bear.

They had their fleet in the Baltic when the enemy was in the pacific

Horrible logistics added to that too.

It's also worth bearing in mind that there was significant public resentment in Japan over the terms of the peace treaty, but it's highly unlikely that the public knew the full extent of the cost of the war until after the unrest had died down. At the time both general nationalist sentiment and the Japanese media massively playing up Japan's tactical victories made the public almost entirely convinced of Japan's overwhelming superiority, and they felt that the Treaty of Portsmouth was nowhere near enough in terms of Japanese gains.

Admittedly the costs of the war were relatively short term in terms of rearming and restoring the military to its pre-war strength. It also allowed Japan to reduce Korea to a protectorate (paving the way for full annexation in 1910) and removed Russia as a threat in the Far East until after the fall of Tsarism.

Yeah, also the voyage of that fleet (which was already highly antiquated and had numerous logistical weaknesses) was a complete disaster and pushed morale to rock bottom, Tsushima was effectively won by the Japanese before the Russians even entered Chinese waters.

Their swords were only folded 999 times

requesting western fleet greentext

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Russia never had much ability to fight a major war in the far east, at least with a power that could match other European powers in technology and organization.

The biggest factor was time and distance, orders from St. Petersburg to Port Arthur/Vladivostok took months to receive an send, troops and reinforcements again took months between the request for more troops and actually sending them.

Next was infrastructure. Russia JUST completed the trans-Siberian railway and it still wasn't properly attached to the Far Eastern cities, let alone Manchuria/Korea. The Supplies and troops could only make it so far on train before having to complete the journey on foot.

The standing Pacific Fleet of the Russian Empire was never meant to fight a major war. It only maintained a presence and could fight small scale defensive operations. Against the full might of the Japanese Navy? it was hopeless, hence why the Baltic fleet had to make the journey only to be destroyed when they were sighted when crossing Japanese waters at night.

It wasn't to say the Russians were completely crushed with no effort, The Japanese land armies were hard pressed and stretched to their limits when fighting the Russian Army in Manchuria/Northern Korea. The Russians placed enough pressure for Japan to relinquish a number of their demands at the peace talks. But in the end, the war was enough for the people to lose faith in the Tsar and set up the political turmoil for the next 25 years.

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I think a lot of people don't realize how truly remote Siberia and the Russian Far East is even today. It's a miracle they were able to get any substantial military forces there at all.

is it true that the jap fleet used radio?
If so, was this the first time?

Britain blockaded Russia to weaken them from a defeat. Russians basically had to sail all the way around the bottom of Africa and up the Japan to send reinforcements.

Why didn't they just carry the ships over land like the vikings?

inb4 'glorious yamato folding' vs 'shitty japanese pig-iron' shitfit

> Russians basically had to sail all the way around the bottom of Africa and up the Japan to send reinforcements.

I doubt being able to use the Suez canal would have helped them much, when you consider what a clusterfuck the Baltic Fleet's journey was. In fact the Brits were smart not to let them use the canal, dumbshits would have probably somehow managed to park one of their battleships sideways in it.

>CHELLO BRITYAN, AM MUCH SORRY BUT HAVE CLOGGED YOUR CANAL CYKA BLYAT

Sounds about right.

The Baltic fleet makes the entire service period of the William D Porter look good, and that one ship tried to assassinate FDR by accident.

>fucks up leaving port and nearly destroys a warship because her crew forgot to pull up her anchor
>fucks up all the practice shit while on mission (TO ESCORT FDR TO THE YALTA CONFERENCE)
>lets loose live fucking ammo during training (depth charges)
>launches a fucking torpedo at the ship FDR was in, which was only only averted at the very last minute (though i know some of you would have loved it if it did hit)
>is literally exiled to the Aleutians/Alaska, still manages to friendly fire (the CO's house/garden)
>finally sunk by a fucking kamikaze... that was shot down by her AA gunners

Can we get like an animated movie about "Willie Porter the fuck-up Destroyer"? Or at least like a scale model with an embarrassed expression painted on it?

My favorite part is that those still aren't all hilarious facts.