History UsefulNotes / RussoJapaneseWar

* The first part of ''Diamond Chariot'' book in ErastFandorin series is set in Russia during the Russo-Japanese War.

* CurbStompBattle: The Russians find themselves on the receiving end of this trope, courtesy of the Japanese.

* MountedCombat: Both sides used cavalry, but the Russians were better fighting on horseback, as the action at Wu-chia-tun on 30 May 1904 showed. After that battle, Japanese used their cavalry forces in practice as mounted infantry. The two armies used their cavalry forces in various raids as well.

* Russian film ''Admiral'', centered around Admiral Alexander Kolchak, starts with the Battle of Chemulpo.

* YoungFutureFamousPeople: The future Admiral Yamamoto was wounded while serving onboard a cruiser as a lieutenant, which cost him a couple of fingers. The future Admiral Kolchak, who would become the head of the strongest White (anti-communist) faction during the RussianCivilWar was serving onboard Russian cruiser ''Varyag'' at the Battle of Chemulpo (Inchon) at the beginning of the war.

* Russian film ''Admiral'', a biopic of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, starts with the Battle of Chemulpo.

* YoungFutureFamousPeople: The future Admiral Yamamoto was wounded while serving onboard a cruiser as a lieutenant, which cost him a couple of fingers. The future Admiral Kolchak, who would become the head of the strongest White (anti-communist) faction during the RussianCivilWar was serving onboard Russian cruiser Rurik at the Battle of Chemulpo (Inchon) at the beginning of the war.

* In ''Literature/AnInstinctForWar'', the short story ''Human Rain'' is set during the war, focused on the Battle of Nanshan.

*** Still, they did the most badass thing of the war: while cruising the South China Sea, the sailors took the habit of ''fishing for sharks and quartering them'' out of curiosity: they wanted to see an actual man-eating shark, but couldn't be sure until they checked the stomach...

** Being attacked and almost killed while on the visit to Japan as a Heir Apparent [[ItsPersonal didn't much endear Nicolas II to the country]]. The fact that he was ''much'' lampooned in the Russian underground press for the incident didn't help either.

* DeusExMachina: Japan would have almost certainly have run out of money to maintain its war effort if not for the large unexpected loans arranged by American Jewish banker Jacob Schiff, which, eventually, covered nearly half the cost of war incurred by Japan. Schiff might inadvertently have saved lives of many Jews during World War II as the grateful Japanese government took uncharacteristically charitable view of European Jews escaping Nazi-dominated Europe and allowed tends of thousands either transit through Japanese territory or a safe refuge within Japanese Empire (the Shanghai Ghetto).

While the Japanese moved forward the Russians focused on stalling as reinforcements were slowly moved in - something made difficult by the way the line was still incomplete around Lake Baikal, and the fact that the line was a thin-gauge single-track one (meaning that the railway cars on it were thinner, and thus had less capacity, and could not go very fast lest they derail on turns. Moreover, a single engine breaking down could mean serious delays along the line). The Japanese launched an offensive with the Battle of Yalu River, but the Russians stood their ground, not moving to counter attack the repelled forces. Confrontation would continue at Port Arthur as the Japanese attempted to make entering and leaving the port impossible. They succeeded to an extent, two Russian ships returning to the port after a mission being struck by mines, the one sinking, taking Admiral Makarov, the top Russian commander and their best admiral, with it, and the other returning to port for extensive repairs. In turn, on 2 May 1905 the minelayer "Amur" made a night sally and the next morning two Japanese battleships were sunk by its mines--which was two more than the whole fleet managed to bring down at Tsushima. Then again, it was one of the most modern ships in its fleet.

While the Japanese moved forward the Russians focused on stalling as reinforcements were slowly moved in - something made difficult by the way the line was still incomplete around Lake Baikal, and the fact that the line was a thin-gauge single-track one (meaning that the railway cars on it were thinner, and thus had less capacity, and could not go very fast lest they derail on turns. Moreover, a single engine breaking down could mean serious delays along the line). The Japanese launched an offensive with the Battle of Yalu River, but the Russians stood their ground, not moving to counter attack the repelled forces. Confrontation would continue at Port Arthur as the Japanese attempted to make entering and leaving the port impossible. They succeeded to an extent, two Russian ships escaping the port being struck by mines, the one sinking and the other returning to port for extensive repairs. In turn, on 2 May 1905 the minelayer "Amur" made a night sally and the next morning two Japanese battleships were sunk by its mines--which was two more than the whole fleet managed to bring down at Tsushima. Then again, it was one of the most modern ships in its fleet.

-->--''' [[FourStarBadass Marshal-Admiral Marquis]] Tōgō Heihachirō, [[KnightFever OM, GCVO]]

* AwesomeYetPractical: The Wireless Telegraph, a relatively new invention (both navies had just recently introduced it, and it was new enough that the Russians were not yet sufficiently familiar with their equipment). Patrol ships could now report on enemy sightings immediately rather than having to get back within visual range of their fleet. Also, Tōgō was able to pull his main force back to rest and regroup while his light units shadowed and harassed the Russians through the night and kept him updated with their locations before he sortied again the next day.

[[caption-width-right:325:The last 19th century war and the first 20th century war!]]

While the Japanese moved forward the Russians focused on stalling as reinforcements were slowly moved in - something made difficult by the way the line was still incomplete around Lake Baikal, and the fact that the line was a thin-gauge single-track one (meaning that the railway cars on it were thinner, and thus had less capacity, and could not go very fast lest they derail on turns. Moreover, a single engine breaking down could mean serious delays along the line). The Japanese launched an offensive with the Battle of Yalu River, but the Russians stood their ground, not moving to counter attack the repelled forces. Confrontation would continue at Port Arthur as the Japanese attempted to make entering and leaving the port impossible. They succeeded to an extent, two Russian ships escaping the port being struck by mines, the one sinking and the other returning to port for extensive repairs. In turn, 2 May 1905 the minelayer "Amur" made a night sally and the next morning two Japanese battleships were sunk by its mines--which was two more that the whole fleet managed to bring down at Tsushima. Then again, it was one of the most modern ships in its fleet.

Eventually the siege of Port Arthur came to a head as Russian ships were moved out to face the Japanese. The ships exchanged fire, eventually a direct hit on the Russian flagship resulted in the death of the fleet commander, and though no ships were sunk the Russians retreated back into Port Arthur. The Japanese eventually captured the outward land fortifications of the port, using them to launch an attack on the Russian from which they could not retaliate; five Russian ships were lost as a result.

With Port Arthur captured the Japanese 3rd Army progressed northward instigating the Battle of Sandepu and Battle of Mukden. Both victories for Japan, the Russians made a continued retreat. With news of the defeat at Port Arthur reaching the reinforcements sailing past Madagascar en route, the Japanese prepared to intercept the demoralized Russian force. 27 May 1905 the Second Pacific Squadron (formerly Baltic Fleet) attempted to sneak through the Tsushima Straits under cover of darkness but was detected by the Japanese... and mostly demolished -- only three vessels made it to Vladivistok. The battle of Tsushima is the single most decisive naval victory of the 20th century, almost completely destroying the Russian navy. It was to be decades before Russia was taken seriously as a sea power again (though in practice, by the time the Anglo-German arms race ended in 1912-13 the Russian Navy was stronger than it had ever been).

With the utter defeat of the Russians, Tsar Nicholas II [[KnowWhenToFoldEm elected to negotiate peace]] and focus on internal conflicts. The American President Theodore Roosevelt volunteered to act as a mediator (winning a Nobel peace prize for his efforts). The Treaty of Portsmouth was soon signed to signify peace. Ironically, in its bid to cut their losses and avoid the SunkCostFallacy the Russian government effectively decided not to win the war. The war was extremely heavy on the fledgling Japanese economy, to the point that they had hardly any bargaining power during the peace talks, and the top Russian negotiator, [[MagnificentBastard Count Sergey Vitte]], was able to obtain such favorable peace terms that the Japanese envoy, Baron Komura, quipped: [[PyrrhicVictory "I don't know who's really lost here!"]] (the spiralling costs, barely-favourable peace, and unrealistic expectations were the reasons for the riots mentioned below). In short, mosts analysts speculate that war was economically unsustainable for Japan[[note]] More than 90% of all the money in all the banks in the country had been spent on the war effort, and despite the doubling of taxation the government's regular income was barely enough to cover the interest on its existing loans - Japan's debts to foreign banks were at least five times larger than those to its domestic ones and growing rapidly. Worse still, new foreign loans would be (drastically) harder to find, and the interest/repayment rates on them higher, the moment Russia declared her intent to win the war at whatever cost. Russia's fiscal situation wasn't pretty either, but her economy was ''much'' less reliant on trade and exports (meaning that Japan would be much worse off it it got to the point where one or both sides needed to print money) and had an economy, population, and reserve of trained manpower more than three times larger than that of Japan's to boot.[[/note]] and even in the wake of the horrific military disasters that were Tsushima, Mukden and Port Arthur, Russia could still win, [[TheDeterminator had they persisted just a couple of months more]].

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Rozhestvensky. A rear admiral and the chief of staff of the Russian Navy, and with a killer hook he would use on undisciplined sailors.

** Also, the Russian Pacific Fleet, that, under admirals Stark, Makarov and Vitgeft, gave the IJN a desperate run for its money: after being caught by surprise by Togo attacking Port Arthur with torpedo boats before the declaration of war, admiral Stark managed to kick him back to the sea when he showed up with the fleet, and would have defeated him then and there if not for [[ExecutiveMeddling the viceroy of Port Arthur not overruled his orders to leave the port]] before [[TheScapeGoat blaming him for failing to destroy the Japanese fleet]]; assigned to replace Stark, Stepan Makarov (the best Russian admiral) defeated the IJN in two skirmishes, and was returning at Port Arthur after a third victory when his ship hit a mine; as soon as he assumed command, Vitigeft (the second best with Rozhestvensky) managed to sink ''two Japanese battleships in the same day'' with a minefield, and when he sortied in the Battle of the Yellow Sea he nearly defeated Togo (even temporarily disabling his flagship) before his second in command managed to hit Vitigeft's ship in such a way that the Russians didn't realize he was dead for a while.
** Also, the Second Pacific Squadron. Formerly the Baltic Fleet and mostly composed by either ships so old that without the war they would have been scrapped or so new they had been just launched, and crewed by the worst of the Russian Navy (as all the competent crews had been already sent to the front), under the lead of Rozhestvensky (the second best admiral of the Russian Navy before the war, and with a stubborn streak and practicality sufficient to compensate with Makarov superior talent) they did an impossible voyage from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean (having to go all the way around Africa after Great Britain and France prohibited them from traveling through the Suez Canal), something that even the Royal Navy (the greatest navy of the era) considered impossible, and by then Rozhestvensky had whipped his crew into shape to the point they were a match for the pre-war Pacific Fleet. Too bad that the Japanese fleet outgunned and outnumbered them by a ridiculous margin and, thanks to the experience against Stark, Makarov and Vitigeft, had [[TookALevelInBadass largely improved their skills]]. It also did not help that the long voyage took its toll on the Russian ships, many of which were due for a period of repair and refit in port that they would [[OneWayTrip ultimately never get]].
*** Still, they did the most badass thing of the battle: while cruising the South China Sea, the sailors took the habit to ''fish sharks and quarter them'' out of curiosity: they wanted to see an actual man-eating shark, but couldn't be sure until they checked the stomach...

** Additionally, the Japanese and Russian battleships both mounted 12 inch (305mm) guns in their main batteries (capable of launching 750-850 pound shells at 2,600 feet per second) The naval battles of this war featured both side scoring hits with these guns at unheard of ranges, ranging up to 8 miles, meaning that combatants could suffer substantial damage long before the smaller secondary batteries could get within range. Newer battleship designs would exchange the smaller guns for more big guns, leading to the Dreadnoughts of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.
* ColonelBadass: Colonel Nikolai Tret'yakov. He the main Russian commander at Nanshan and Port Arthur's western defenses, and was one of the few Russian commanders who came out with a better reputation.
* CurbStompBattle: The Russians find themselves on the receiving end of this trope. Courtesy of the Japanese.

*** Also, Tsushima was a rather close thing: had Rozhestvensky been given enough ammunition to train his gunners during the voyage, he would have sunk the Japanese flagship ''Mikasa'' in the first five minutes of the battle (instead of missing her by just few meters with every shell), inflicting a materially and morally decisive blow to the Japanese fleet.

* DavidVersusGoliath: Little Japan [[note]] okay, at the time it was an empire that also owned Taiwan and other territories. Still tiny.[[/note]] against the second largest nation in the entire world. Japan won, startling everyone. Except TheodoreRoosevelt, who admired them as "the plucky little guy".
** Russia had an enormous teritory, but economically and politically it was [[NotSoDifferent not much better developed than Japan]], and the size of its territory itself made the fighting all the more difficult, as it happened in the most remote and undeveloped corner of the country.
* TheDeterminator: The Second Pacific Squadron. No matter the breaking of parts, the living conditions, the scarce supplies and the bad health on the ships, they had orders to reach Port Arthur first and Vladivostok later and only Togo's battlefleet stopped ''some'' of them from succeeding (yes, some of the ships did arrive in Vladivostok). The most determinator of all was rear admiral Dmitry Gustavovich von Fölkersam[[note]][[InTheBlood grandfather of the future]] UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo [[NazisWithGnarlyWeapons SS commando officer]] Adrian von Fölkersam[[/note]], Rozhestvensky's second in command and most trusted subordinate: he was terminally ill with cancer, yet he commanded the 2nd Battleship Division until cancer killed him the day before the battle, and, due Rozhestvensky keeping his death secret to keep morale up, ''continued until Japanese fire destroyed his corpse''.
* DidntSeeThatComing: Rozhestvensky was infamous for being imprevedible, at least regarding his route. The reason the battle against him happened at Tsushima was that Togo [[GenreSavvy caught on this and decided to wait him in the one place where he could anticipate his route for Vladivostok]] (the Korea Strait, where Tsushima is, was the fastest way, and from there he could either block Rozhestvensky or quickly determinate if he had taken the Kanmon Strait, the Tsugaru Strait or the La Perouse Strait, and redeploy accordingly).
* DoABarrelRoll: Inverted with the "Togo Turn". When a line of warships needed to reverse directions, they could either "Turn in Sequence", with the entire line snaking around behind the leader, or "Turn Together", with all of the ships executing their turn at the same time, effectively reversing the entire line. The former maintained the order of battle (ships at the front remained at the front), but exposed the entire fleet to fire as it required every ship to pass through the same spot for their turn, giving enemy gunners a chance to concentrate their fire on a single unmoving spot while the fleet obligingly sailed through it. The latter avoided this, but would result in the ships at the tail end of the formation now being at the head. As this would have resulted in Togo's cruisers engaging Rozhestvensky's battleships, he decided to bet on poor Russian gunnery to keep his strategy intact.

* EnemyMine: Makarov and Rozhestvensky had this relationship: Makarov hated Rozhestvensky for his BrutalHonesty getting in the way of politics and [[ItsPersonal sleeping with Makarov's wife]], Rozhestvensky despised Makarov for being too politicized and being unable to keep his wife in his bed, but they had the utmost respect for each other's skills as sailors and commanders, and when the situation required it before the war they helped each other.
* EpicFail: The Russian Navy, on ''wrong side of the world'', found a fleet of British fishing boats, and thought they were Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo boats (in the ''North Sea''--apparently they thought the Japanese had developed teleportation). So they opened fire on it with all their guns [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy and missed nearly every single shot.]] One battleship literally fired 500 shots without hitting a thing. Three fishermen and two Russians died (from friendly fire), including a ''priest''. Then, after losing a battle against a fishing flotilla (and nearly provoking a war with [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Great Britain]]), the Russian fleet steamed around the rest of the world and confronted the enemy at Tsushima... and then got utterly annihilated by the ''actual'' IJN.
** The attack on the fishing ships had a good reason: not only the presence of two Japanese torpedo boats in the area was a known fact (they had just been completed in British shipyards when the war was declared, and they then disappeared), but Japanese intelligence had done ''everything'' to make the Russians believe they were laying in ambush. While [[FourStarBadass admiral Rozhestvensky]] could recognize a torpedo boat, everyone else was nervous, and when the two torpedo boats apparently did show up the entire fleet started firing on anything emerging from the night and the mist, including the fishing ships and other Russian ships.

* ForWantOfANail: Had the shell hitting the main flagship not been a dud, both Heihachiro Togo and Isoroku Yamamoto may have been killed.
** Also, had the [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Russian admiralty]] given Rozhestvensky enough ammunitions to train his gunners, the Second Pacific Squadron might have won at Tsushima.
** Had Port Arthur been taken in the summer of 1904 and General Nogi's army was present at Liaoyang, the Russian army might not have escaped the Japanese envelopment to fight another day.
** This war meant the Annexation of Korea and acquisition of the Manchurian railway lines, [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors which paved the way for a seizure of Manchuria itself by an Imperial Army which believed itself to be acting in Japan's economic interests]], [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar which led to the Imperial Army dragging Japan into a war with China proper to further Japan's interests before China could grow strong enough to resist a Japanese invasion]] ([[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors which prevented the Chinese Communist Party from being exterminated and allowed them to win the later Chinese Civil War]]), [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo which led to the Imperial Navy dragging Japan into a war with pretty much everyone to avoid losing Japan's economic interests in China]], which led to Japan losing everything everywhere except within Japan itself and the division of Korea into Soviet and Allied occupation zones, which paved the way for UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar. All of this made for RedChina and UsefulNotes/NorthKorea possible. If this war had gone differently or not happened it's hard to say whether the peoples of East Asia would be better or worse off than they are now, but it couldn't fail to be very different.
* FourStarBadass: Admiral Togo, definitely. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima Let the numbers speak for themselves.]]
** Also, admiral Zinovi Rozhestvensky, his opponent at Tsushima, for a simple reason: he took a fleet of ships that were either too old to sail or so new they had just been launched, crewed and commanded by the worst of the Russian navy (the best having already been defeated at Port Arthur and crewing the ships trapped in Vladivostok), whipped the crews into shape and ''took the fleet in an unprecedented voyage around the world without losing a single ship''. Granted, he still lost at Tsushima, but he gave better than anyone but the Tzar expected from them, ''managed to break through the Japanese fleet'' with some of his ships, and it took multiple head wounds to finally knock him out, and was still unconscious when he was captured. Even after Tsushima, Rozhestvensky's fame was so great that, while returning to Moscow after the war, every single bandit and rebel who stopped his train bowed to him and apologized for making him wasting time before resupplying and letting him go.
** Russian admirals Oskar Stark, Stepan Makarov and Wilgelm Vitgeft also qualified. Togo first established his credentials as FourStarBadass by kicking the ass of the first and killing the other two in battle, but all of them gave as good as they got: Stark, in spite of sabotage from the viceroy of Port Arthur, managed to thwart Togo's attempt at sinking the Russian Pacific Fleet in harbour (before being sacked for political reasons), Makarov gave Togo a desperate run for his money before his ship was hit by a mine, and Vitgeft ''nearly defeated Togo'' before being killed.
** Eduard Schensnov earned a promotion to rear admiral rank at the Yellow Sea by [[LeeroyJenkins charging the whole IJN with a single battleship]] to [[YouShallNotPass cover the retreat of the Pacific Fleet]] and [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome not only surviving but managing to return home]]'. The charge of the battleship ''Retvizan'' saved the Pacific Fleet: with Vitigeft dead and most of the fleet following his crippled flagship because they hadn't realized he was dead yet, the IJN would have easily annihilated the Russians had Schensnov not realized that the admiral was at least incapacitated and decided to earn Vitigeft's second enough time to take command.

* GenghisGambit: The Russians attempted to use the war as a way to draw attention away from their domestic problems. It backfired, mostly because they lost, and as a direct result of the troops being away from European Russia peasant uprisings erupted across the the country that would take two years to stamp out.

* KillItWithFire: Japanese ammunitions used [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimose_powder Shimose powder]] as explosive, a variant of picric acid that was more stable than normal picric acid (that would later be replaced with the more expensive and less powerful TNT precisely because it wouldn't explode if kept just a little improperly) and had an incendiary effect, the latter resulting in the Russian battleships being burned down before sinking.

* NeverLiveItDown: After the incident at Dogger Bank, a British consul took care of warning Rozhestvensky that he was about to reach a fleet of fishing ships. Rozhestvensky was not amused, and told them to stay the hell away for he'd sink anything that could be a torpedo boat.
* [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Obstructive Bureaucrats]]: Rozhestvensky's bane, who forced him to go at war with insufficient ammunition and wait in Madagascar and Indochina for 'reinforcements' of ships so old it was a miracle they arrived at all, didn't get him a number of British and Italian-built ships from Chile and Argentina that he ''did want'' as reinforcements, and were unable or unwilling to get him support from France (an ally, but too scared by Britain and Japan to let Rozhestvensky supply his ships and clean their hulls in the waters of their colonies) or to get the German coal ships to follow his orders.
** The ammunition bit was the one that gave Togo the victory at Tsushima: had Rozhestvensky had enough ammunitions to train his gunners, Togo's flagship ''Mikasa'' would have been sunk in the first five minutes of the battle, as the Japanese fleet was preparing to 'cross the T' (a dangerous but devastating tactic that allows the fleet in the horizontal line of the virtual T to shell the enemy with all their guns while the vertical line can reply with only the forward guns of the leading ships) and could not fight back the battleships ''Knyaz Suvorov'' (Russian flagship), ''Borodino'' and ''Imperator Alexander III'' yet.
* ParanoiaFuel: The self-propelled torpedo. A new invention at the time, it could sink a battleship and could be carried by ''any'' ship, from dedicated torpedo boats to cruisers and modified merchantmen. Quite a scare for Rozhestvensky's Second Pacific Squadron...
** Also, the reports on the Japanese moves in the North Sea: two of their torpedo boats had disappeared in the area at the start of the war (and, according to Russian accounts, they had actually tried to attack the Russians at Dogger Bank, only to retreat when the Russians spotted them and started firing on anything); Japanese nationals and suspected Japanese spies signaling to unknown ships in the mist; mysterious ships sighted in the area; ''coal bars for ships engines found having a cavity in which you could place explosive to wreck a battleship from the inside''.
* PintSizedPowerhouse: Japan. Also Admiral Togo himself, who was short even by Japanese standards of the time.
* PoorCommunicationKills: Can start wars too, as the Russian emperor not responding to the Japanese emperor's request to speak peacefully about Korea prompted Japan to attack.

** Less well-known is that by the time the war ended, Japan was literally bankrupt and seriously indebted; the country was entirely reliant on gigantic loans from overseas that it was only getting because people believed that Jaapn would win... and would have dried up as the war turned against her. As it was, Korea's relative natural and mineral wealth meant nothing to a country that now had zero domestic capital (9/10 of all the money in all the banks in the country had been spent as war-loans) with which to develop it and it took them a decade to surpass pre-war levels of prosperity. Even without Manchuria+Korea, Russia was experiencing an economic boom within just five years or so thanks to a flourishing domestic banking sector and a renewed influx of foreign (chiefly French) investment in railways (e.g. the new double-tracked, wide-gauge, high-speed Trans-Siberian railway) in particular.
* ShaggyDogStory: The cruise of the Second Pacific Squadron. They set sail on a voyage never attempted by such a big fleet because believed impossible (especially in time of war, when all neutral ports are closed) to try and relieve Port Arthur, [[TookALevelInBadass the crews became much more competent than at the start]], but not only they received news that Port Arthur had fallen when they were almost there, but when they tried to at least reinforce Vladivostok the fleet was destroyed at Tsushima.

* WorthyOpponent: Togo regarded Rozhestvensky as this for bringing an untested and badly crewed fleet around the world in an unprecedented voyage and whipped the crews into shape. Also, Rozhestvensky already deemed Togo as this before their confrontation for personally defeating and killing every other capable admiral Russia had, and after Tsushima personally congratulated him for beating him with a better performance than in the previous battles.

* Several Valentin Pikul's novels are set in this period, most notably ''Cruisers'', starring Russian naval officers, and ''Wealth'', where an idealistic journalist is appointed the governor of Kamchatka, which is barely settled, full of {{Corrupt Hick}}s and dangerously close to Japan. A Japanese landing ensues and is repelled by [[BreakOutTheMuseumPiece breaking out some old rifles from an disused depot]], but the hero is booted from Kamchatka nevertheless by said hicks.

* Italian writer Emilio Salgari (better known for the ''Literature/{{Sandokan}}'' novels) wrote the novel ''L'Eroina di Port Arthur'' ("The Heroin of Port Arthur") about the initial battles of the war (until the death of admiral Makarov). Differently from other examples on this page, Salgari was a contemporary and published his novel during the war, and, [[AuthorAppeal due his opposition to European colonialism]], took the Japanese side.

* TheDeterminator: The Second Pacific Squadron. No matter the breaking of parts, the living conditions, the scarce supplies and the bad health on the ships, they had orders to reach Port Arthur first and Vladivostok later and only Togo's battlefleet stopped ''some'' of them from succeeding (yes, some of the ships did arrive in Vladivostok). The most determinator of all was rear admiral Dmitry Gustavovich von Fölkersam[[note]][[InTheBlood grandfather of the future]] WorldWarTwo [[NazisWithGnarlyWeapons SS commando officer]] Adrian von Fölkersam[[/note]], Rozhestvensky's second in command and most trusted subordinate: he was terminally ill with cancer, yet he commanded the 2nd Battleship Division until cancer killed him the day before the battle, and, due Rozhestvensky keeping his death secret to keep morale up, ''continued until Japanese fire destroyed his corpse''.

** This war meant the Annexation of Korea and acquisition of the Manchurian railway lines, [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors which paved the way for a seizure of Manchuria itself by an Imperial Army which believed itself to be acting in Japan's economic interests]], [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar which led to the Imperial Army dragging Japan into a war with China proper to further Japan's interests before China could grow strong enough to resist a Japanese invasion]] ([[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors which prevented the Chinese Communist Party from being exterminated and allowed them to win the later Chinese Civil War]]), [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo which led to the Imperial Navy dragging Japan into a war with pretty much everyone to avoid losing Japan's economic interests in China]], which led to Japan losing everything everywhere except within Japan itself and the division of Korea into Soviet and Allied occupation zones, which paved the way for TheKoreanWar. All of this made for RedChina and UsefulNotes/NorthKorea possible. If this war had gone differently or not happened it's hard to say whether the peoples of East Asia would be better or worse off than they are now, but it couldn't fail to be very different.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The war foreshadowed later developments in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and WorldWar2 on land (the supremacy of defensive warfare, the need for extremely close artillery-infantry co-ordination to overcome said supremacy, and the need for effective General Staffs with the authority and power to enforce overall and methodical plans for both campaigns and individual battles) and at sea (the importance of inter-ship communications, the need to stick to main and cut down on secondary guns to simplify gunnery [leading to the 'Dreadnaught Revolution'], the incredible effectiveness of mines and torpedoes).

* UnderestimatingBadassery: The Russians made this mistake with regards to the Japanese. They weren't the [[WorldWar2 last]]. The Japanese themselves also underestimated the ''Russians'' later, when they tried to invade the Soviet Union in 1939.

* WeHaveReserves: Both sides used this tactic on land, with WorldWarI style trenches, artillery barrages, and machine gun nests. Ultimately the Japanese won most of these battles, but would lose more troops. They made up for it by capturing large amounts of Russians after winning battles, taking them out of the fight.

* ''Saka no Ue no Kumo'''s third season focuses on the Akiyama brothers during the war; it covers the Port Arthur naval battle and siege; the Liaoyang and Mukden land campaigns; and the Tsushima battle.

* PintSizedPowerhouse: Japan.

* TheDeterminator: The Second Pacific Squadron. No matter the breaking of parts, the living conditions, the scarce supplies and the bad health on the ships, they had orders to reach Port Arthur first and Vladivostok later and only Togo's battlefleet stopped ''some'' of them from succeeding (yes, some of the ships did arrive in Vladivostok). The most determinator of all was rear admiral Dmitry Gustavovich von Fölkersam[[note]][[InTheBlood grandfather of the future]] WorldWarTwo [[NazisWithGnarlyWeapons SS commando officer]] Adrian von Fölkersam[[/note], Rozhestvensky's second in command and most trusted subordinate: he was terminally ill with cancer, yet he commanded the 2nd Battleship Division until cancer killed him the day before the battle, and, due Rozhestvensky keeping his death secret to keep morale up, ''continued until Japanese fire destroyed his corpse''.

* TheDeterminator: The Second Pacific Squadron. No matter the breaking of parts, the living conditions, the scarce supplies and the bad health on the ships, they had orders to reach Port Arthur first and Vladivostok later and only Togo's battlefleet stopped ''some'' of them from succeeding (yes, some of the ships did arrive in Vladivostok). The most determinator of all was rear admiral Dmitry Gustavovich von Fölkersam, Rozhestvensky's second in command and most trusted subordinate: he was terminally ill with cancer, yet he commanded the 2nd Battleship Division until cancer killed him the day before the battle, and, due Rozhestvensky keeping his death secret to keep morale up, ''continued until Japanese fire destroyed his corpse''.

* The first part of ''Diamond Chariot'' book in ErastFandorin series is set in Russia during RussoJapaneseWar.