The Russo-Japanese War: The War that Made Imperial Japan

I REFUSE to believe ANY Russian leader would EVER catastrophically underestimate an opponent!

"Only, the Tsar had misjudged things" Nicholas II's reign in a nutshell.

2 of the ships from the Battle of Tsushima still exist. Admiral Togo’s flagship, Mikasa, is retired as a museum ship in Yokosuka. Mikasa is the only pre-dreadnaught battleship still in existence, the only surviving battleship outside the USA, and the oldest metallic warship still in existence built in the UK. The Russian cruiser «Аврора» (Aurora) is retired as a museum ship in St. Petersburg mostly in remembrance of its role in the October Revolution of 1917.

It’s crazy that in a war with 200,000 casualties and a total Russian defeat they were basically just given what they had already won as well as half an island with nothing on it

Great video as always, but I do hope you guys can include more maps when talking about the geopolitics in the prelude. Even though I am vaguely familiar with Chinese geography, I did have to look up the location of port Arthur and Liaodong peninsula to understand it fully. I suspect this is true for most fellow viewers as well.

The real fun part of the history here is the journey of the Baltic fleet from the Baltic sea to off the Asiatic seas was a hilarious series of international incidents , friendly fire ,and vodka drinking snakes. A certain blue jay did a video on it a while back i highly recommend it great video.

1:15 - Chapter 1 - Once upon a time, in the east 5:45 - Chapter 2 - The bear awakes 10:10 - Chapter 3 - The 1st pearl harbor 14:10 - Chapter 4 - WW0 18:20 - Chapter 5 - Unthinkable defeat 21:45 - Chapter 6 - Consolation prizes

Would love to see a warographics on the Boxer Rebellion of 1901. This video has perfectly set the stage of China’s final act. The European powers making their stand against the last vestiges of the Qing Dynasty. Seeing the world unknowingly prepare itself for a conflict that would span the globe.

Born & raised in Portsmouth NH, this is one of the few foreign wars we were taught about growing up. Our little town having a treaty named for it, Roosevelt knew what a gem this town is! Awesome video, very detailed

Anyone else notice the jojo references? The writer must've had a lot of fun writing this.

It is such a shame that you didn't go into the bumbling adventure of the Imperial Russian fleet. Like when they thought Danish fishing vessels in the Baltic sea were Japanese torpedo boats for instance and only drunkenness and poor aim stopped an international incident. The whole journey is hilarious and certainly require it's own episode.

I would love a Brain Blaze episode on the Baltic Fleet’s 3 Stoogies style journey.

The most interesting story about this war is the the journey the 2nd pacific squadron took to get to the pacific. Voyage of the damned is a fitting term.

That was excellent, Thank you, Simon.

i LOVE it when you guys add so many chapters, if only others would start doing that Keep going man, love all your channels

The Russo-Japanese war in 1904-1905, with the high-profile Battle of Tsushima resulting in Japanese naval victory over Russian Baltic Fleet, gave Japan the confidence to beat a much larger empire. A major consequence of this war was that Japan's much celebrated victory fueled its nationalistic pride, imperial and territorial ambitions. A tragic lesson that Japan drew from its victory over Russia was that it could gamble on an opportunity to defeat the world's largest (British) empire and its US ally; who enjoyed much more natural resources and industrial-military capacity. Japan had placed too faith in its people's Bushido and Samurai spirit. By doing so, it underestimated the latent Yankee spirit of the American public, who had become largely isolationist and pacifist, to be against participation in others' war after WWI, until Pearl Harbor ignited the Americans' thirst for revenge and justice. Japan's ambitions led to its military buildup and conquests of Manchuria in 1931, mainland China in 1937 and occupation of French Indochina during 1940-1941. These conquests triggered US President Roosevelt to impose an oil and economic embargo on Japan, which in turn led Japan to launch the Pacific War, resulting in much greater consequences than the Russo-Jap war. Have all powers learnt from the true lessons of WWI and WWII? Judging by Russia's current invasion of Ukraine, I'm afraid not. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Lest we forget.

I literally laughed out loud at the monty python lumberjack reference. it's a song that's always in my head, not a day goes by I'm not humming or whistling that tune, thanks Simon for making my day 👍

I'm currently trying to write a historic fiction about the voyage of the Second Pacific Squadron, and this video came at a good time, thanks Simon

"The battle of Tsushima had ended the Russo Japanese war" And as we in the future know, it's naval doctrine about fighting a larger foe. Decisive battles are great if you can force them, if you can't you better have a backup plan

So glad to see a.new video on this channel!