The Price of the Russo-Japanese War — What the Victory Left Behind

In 1905, Japan defeated the great nation of Russia. The textbooks record it so, and we too remember it that way. An emerging Asian nation had defeated a great European power — that was indeed an event that astonished the world. Yet when we peer inside the single word ‘victory,’ a complex reality that textbooks tend to omit for want of space spreads out before us. Japan’s was a hard-won victory that nearly exhausted its national strength, the people were bitterly disappointed by what the peace yielded, and a riot even broke out. And this war, precisely because it was won, left a side effect that pushed later Japan in a dangerous direction. In Episode 2, we look at the ‘price’ the victory left behind.

The Substance of ‘Victory’ — A Hard-Won Victory That Exhausted the Nation’s Strength

The first thing to confirm is the fact that the Russo-Japanese War was by no means a comfortable victory.

War expenditures rose to an enormous sum amounting to several years of the national budget of the time. Much of it Japan covered through domestic tax increases and foreign loans from Britain, the United States, and others — that is, through borrowing. The human sacrifice was also grievous. According to various tallies, it is said that Japanese military dead numbered roughly eighty-four thousand and the wounded exceeded one hundred forty thousand. In the capture of the Port Arthur fortress, which took nearly a year, a cumulative total of over a hundred thousand troops was committed, and both sides produced casualties on the scale of tens of thousands. At the Battle of Mukden, where some six hundred thousand officers and men clashed, Japan achieved victory, but it is reported that the forces and ammunition to pursue the retreating Russian army were nearly spent.

What was decisive was that the very power to continue the war was nearing its limit. In May 1905, at the Battle of Tsushima, Russia’s Baltic Fleet was destroyed and the war situation tilted greatly in Japan’s favor. Yet behind that glittering victory, Japan’s national finances and its forces were in a state that could not fight much longer. Russia, for its part, was beset by revolutionary upheaval at home, and continuing the war had become difficult. It was precisely because both nations carried circumstances of ‘we cannot continue beyond this’ that the momentum for peace arose.

In other words, the victory of the Russo-Japanese War was not an overwhelming triumph that completely subjugated the opponent, but a hard-won victory that ended while barely holding the advantage at the point where both sides were exhausted. Grasping this reality is the key to understanding the discontent over the peace that followed.

No Indemnity, and the Flames of Hibiya

In September 1905, through the mediation of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, a peace treaty was concluded at Portsmouth in the United States. The Treaty of Portsmouth. Japan obtained a preeminent position over Korea, the leasehold of the southern Liaodong Peninsula, the management rights of the South Manchuria Railway, and the cession of the southern half of Sakhalin, among other things. As a foothold for advancing onto the continent, these were by no means small gains.

However, this treaty lacked something the people had strongly sought: an indemnity. The people, who had endured great tax increases and sacrifice, had firmly believed that since they had won, a huge indemnity could be extracted from Russia. But the government’s negotiating team, which knew the reality of the hard-won victory, judged that since there was no power to continue the war, pressing the demand for an indemnity might cause the negotiations to collapse, and they gave it up. It was an agonizing choice made in the face of the reality of the limit of their capacity to continue the war.

Yet that inner reality was not sufficiently conveyed to the people. ‘We won, so why can we take nothing?’ When the contents of the treaty became known, the discontent of people who had endured tax increases and privation turned into anger. In September 1905, a rally against the peace held in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park developed into a riot. The Hibiya Incendiary Incident. Pro-government newspaper offices, police boxes, government organs, and the like were attacked and set ablaze, and the government finally quelled the situation by declaring martial law.

Here appears another price of the Russo-Japanese War. It is the gap between the ‘expectation’ the people held and ‘reality.’ Had the government been able to share the true hardship of the war with the people, the riot might have been avoided. But the fact that it fanned the elation of victory while not telling the reality of the hard-won victory produced a backlash of enormous disappointment. Information asymmetry detonating public opinion — this structure would appear repeatedly in the history that lay ahead.

The Military’s Say, Nurtured by Victory

The heaviest price the Russo-Japanese War left lay even deeper than the indemnity problem. It was that the victory greatly raised the military’s say.

The fact of having defeated the great nation of Russia gave Japan’s military great prestige. The atmosphere of ‘it was thanks to the military that we could beat that strong nation’ spread among the people. The pride of having stood shoulder to shoulder with the world’s powers strengthened the conviction that military strength was the very power that protected the state and raised Japan’s standing in international society. Thus the military was positioned not as a mere organ of the state but as a special being united with the people’s pride.

This change harbored danger. The more the military’s prestige rose, the harder it became for the government to object to its judgments or demands. As touched on last time, Japan of that time had the institution of the supreme command authority, which made the military half-independent from politics. Upon that institution piled the great prestige of victory in the Russo-Japanese War. The institutional independence, and the prestige supported by public opinion. When these two combined, the military gradually grew into a being over which the government’s control struggled to reach.

What we want to be careful of is not to oversimplify this as ‘the military seized power out of malice.’ Rather, the fact that the people were euphoric over the victory, praised the military, and wished for a strong Japan also did much to raise the military’s say. Public opinion and the military expanded while elevating each other. The price of victory was not territory or indemnity, but that the balance of the nation’s decision-making slowly tilted toward the military — that was the quietest and heaviest change that set the direction of the road ahead.

When Euphoria and Disappointment Coexisted in the Same Nation

Looking back at the Russo-Japanese War, we notice that within a single nation two opposing emotions coexisted. The euphoria of having beaten a great power, and the disappointment of not even obtaining an indemnity. It was this very contradictory emotion that made the psychology of postwar Japan peculiar.

The euphoria nurtured trust in the military and in a ‘strong Japan.’ The disappointment nurtured a distrust that regarded the government’s diplomacy as ‘weak-kneed.’ Pride in being strong, and a public opinion that would not allow concessions. When these two joined, compromise and withdrawal in diplomacy became ever harder to voice. The memory that in a winnable war they had not been able to take enough could turn into an excessive hard-line stance of ‘next time we will not yield.’

The Russo-Japanese War brought Japan a foothold on the continent and an international standing. That is a certain achievement. But at the same time it left hard-to-see prices: a victory narrative that concealed the limit of national strength, a balance of power tilting toward the military, and a public opinion that would not allow concessions. The memory of glory becomes a weight binding later judgments — this war quietly shows the paradox that victory does not necessarily make a nation happy.

And then the military, having thus increased its say, gradually grew into a being the government could not handle. Without waiting for central permission, local forces would launch large military actions on their own. The first full-scale instance of that runaway course would occur on the soil of Manchuria. Next time, we delve into the structure of the Manchurian Incident to see why no one could stop that runaway course.