Russo-Japanese War

• Nicholas considered the Japanese to be an inferior race and was highly racist towards them following an experience he had when visiting the Far East in 1891 when one of the Japanese police escorts tried to kill him with a sabre which left him a scar on his forehead.
• Plehve convinced Nicholas to go to war with Japan following the Japanese shelling of Port Arthur in Manchuria.
• It was hoped that anti-Japanese patriotism would distract from internal opposition but this failed.
• The running of a war 6,000 miles from the capital was a disaster.

  
  

  At one point, soldiers who were desperate for ammunition, weapons and food received a cargo of icons from the Tsar instead.
• The Russians were beaten on land at Mukden, Liaoyang and Port Arthur.
• The most decisive battle came at sea when the Russian fleet, having sailed halfway around the world from the Baltic Sea to Japan, was blown out of the water in just a few hours by the Japanese at Tsushima.
• Russia's hopes of an easy and popular victory were in tatters.
• The Russians had underestimated the strength of the Japanese military both on land and sea.
• The Russians had to move and supply their army via the new Trans-Siberian Railway which was single track for most of its length and not wholly complete.