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If one accepts the idea, expounded previously, that the Battle of Manila Bay was the last battle of the Age of Sail, then it would follow that the RussoJapanese War represented the first naval war of the modern era. This conflict did not witness the employment of aircraft,1 but it obviously embraced a series of actions that marked out the road to Jutland. In terms of war at sea, there are a number of matters that should command attention and careful consideration, not least the fact that this war was the first in which electronic counter-measures made their appearance: Russian wireless operators first jammed the radio signals of Japanese destroyers operating off Port Arthur in February 1904. It was, moreover, the first war in which mines were of very real significance for the conduct of operations. Both defensively and offensively, mines were to be important in two world wars, as Japan found to its cost in 1945 when American mining and Operation Starvation formed part of the process that completed Japan’s defeat. But, and with exception , probably neither war saw mines afforded the strategic significance registered in the Russo-Japanese War. The mine had claimed its first victim in the course of the American Civil War, and if it had not played any real role for the remainder of the nineteenth century, it emerged as a formidable weapon that wrought immense strategic consequence in terms of denial of sea areas and the infliction of losses. Arguably the “moment of the mine” was 18 March 1915, in the Dardanelles, and in a sense the strategic significance of the mine in the First World War as a chapter five the Russo-Japanese War: The First Phases the first phases of the russo-japanese war 75 check upon British sea power represented the peak of the strategic achievement of the mine. But the fact was in the Russo-Japanese War the only Japanese battleship losses were to mines, and the impact of the events of 15 May 1904 when the Hatsuse and Yashima were lost can hardly be understated. Overall the mine was the main cause of Japanese naval losses, and this latter situation, mutatis mutandis, never repeated itself in any subsequent conflict. More significant for the history of war at sea, the actions between major units in this war were fought, or at least were opened, at ranges that were unprecedented ,2 and most certainly the experience of battle seemed to point to the crucial advantage of superior speed in the conduct of fleet operations. These matters , plus the fact that the Japanese ships generally had more medium and secondary guns than Russian ships, provided the basis for much of the subsequent argument about the dreadnought concept, but in real terms this war was important in what was not present. There were no aircraft or airships, there was no real contribution on the part of submarines, and in real terms there was no guerre de course. In these aspects of naval warfare this conflict did not point in the direction of the First World War. The war on land most definitely did so in two respects, namely the protracted battle conducted over extended fronts and the first, very tentative moves toward the concept of the operational—as distinct from the strategic and tactical—level in the conduct of war. Moreover, there were certain curious similarities between the origins of this conflict and those of the First World War. What was at stake was security and status with so much tied to the single issue of Port Arthur. In truth, however, Port Arthur was more symptom than cause, and in many ways there was a curious similarity in Russian policy with reference to the real issue— China and the relative position of the powers—and Russian policy through much of the first half of the nineteenth century with reference to the Ottoman Empire. In both cases Russia hesitated between seeking to exploit the weakness of its neighbor in order to exact major concessions for itself and playing the role of protector—albeit at a price to the protected—against the demands of third parties . The Sino-Russian treaty of 3 June 1896 was very blunt in this matter, and it was primarily directed against one country, Japan.3 At stake was the position of Japan and Russia relative to China and Korea, the immediate conflict of interest being Korea—and Japan’s concerns for its security were obvious given the...

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