The Battle of Nanshan - Research Paper Example

? A Battle Study: The Battle of Nanshan Number of School, I. Introduction The ambitious objectives of two powerful nations, Russia and Japan, spawned enough conflict in 1904 that war appeared to be the single and most appropriate solution. Japan, emerging from the Meiji Restoration with a Westernized military preparation and inundated with dreams of expansion, and Russia, trying to spread out their supremacy in the East, eventually staged the historical Russo-Japanese War (Sakurai 1999). The two imperial nations engaged in fierce diplomatic attempts over matters concerning Manchuria and Korea, both aiming to grab hold of those territories to expand their kingdoms. Widespread expectation in the Western hemisphere was that Russia would wipe out the military forces of Japan with her large defense forces (Steinberg et al. 2005), but most Japanese government officials were convinced that their highly trained and specialized armed forces will give them military advantage over Russia. The overconfidence and conceit of Nicholas II, the Russian Tsar, hampered concessions between the two superpowers; Japan attacked, then Russia, immediately after, received a Declaration of War (Steinberg et al. 2005). Nonetheless, after the battle at Tsushima, Russia was forced to surrender. It surrendered Manchuria, Port Arthur, and any efforts to occupy Korea, and had damaged irreparably the repute of several admirals and generals (Steinberg et al. 2005). The unfavorable outcomes for Russia are not possible to overstate, with the defeat of trained and veteran admirals and generals, the complete annihilation of the Pacific and Baltic fleets (Warner 2004), the defeat of the defense forces against a perceived lesser opponent. Although the Battle of Nanshan was a remarkable triumph for the Japanese Empire, it enabled for Japan the contagion of the most deceitful of all maladies: triumph malady. Overly assured in the methods and strategies used and taking for granted most of the lessons to be gained from the attacks, Japan went on being overconfident with its impregnability, assured that the willpower of its armed forces were sufficient to seize what the Empire wanted (Warner 2004). This essay will discuss the battle strategies and tactics of Russia and Japan at the Battle of Nanshan, as well as the political climate at the time, the military leaders, and the final outcome of the battle. II. Russian and Japanese Battle Strategies at the Battle of Nanshan To start with, the general power and strength of the Russian naval forces was more superior to those of Japan, but the flotilla of the latter was in home waters, whereas the Russian fleet was separated between the Pacific and Europe. Evidently, the Russian military manpower surpassed that of Japan, but the former was battling thousands of miles from home and the opponent was fighting within hundred miles from home (Steinberg et al. 2005). The Japanese were highly trained in Western military tactics and strategies, and were painfully disciplined and capably supervised. The Russians were undisciplined, incompetent, and were hindered by ill-equipped officers and obsolete military strategies (Steinberg et al. 2005). The resources of Japan were far more inadequate than those of Russia and the former had to achieve an immediate victory before the entire force and power of Russia emerged. Thus, Japan embraced the enormous risk of initiating armed forces movements at once, before the flotilla of Russian at Port Arthur had been obliterated (Warner 2004). The strategy of Russia was to postpone and deter final response until it had mustered its strength. Basically, the Battle of Nanshan was fought between a developing Asian superpower and a European imperialist. After the triumph of the Japanese at the Yalu River, General Yasukata Oku’s Second Army arrived at the Liaotung cape, quite near to Port Arthur (Steinberg et al. 2005). The Second Army was composed of roughly 39,000 combatants. Arrival was finalized by May 1904 (Steinberg et al. 2005, 144). The purpose of Japan was to infiltrate the defensive position of Russia, seized the Dalny harbor, and attack Port Arthur. The Russian General, Stoessel, had approximately 17,000 soldiers from which 3,000 combatants of Colonel Nikolai Tretyakov’s 5th East Siberian Rifles were positioned in Nanshan Hill (Steinberg et al. 2005, 145), where they prepared to stand firm in spite of the knowledge that they were quite outnumbered. In a more confined military point of view, the Battle of Nanshan or, in general, the Russo-Japanese War, signified the occurrence of the 1914 Great War in ways that were immature, unfamiliar, or indefinite in its newer American and European forerunners (Warner 2004). By the advent of the 20th century, the subsequent period of industrial revolution had created the possibility of extensive military use of advanced strategies, methods, and technologies, the total of which revealed bigger pools of manpower to more and more fatal ways in ever more isolated areas (Steinberg et al. 2005). In 1904, Nogi Maresuke, a Japanese General, sacrificed 10,000 lives to take over Meter Hill, a distinction that allowed him to exercise blockade artillery attack against the First Russian Pacific Squadron positioned in Port Arthur (ibid, p. 146). Likewise, in May 1905 at Tsushima, the strengthened Second Russian Pacific Squadron of Vice Admiral Zinovii Rozhestvenskii would lose thousands of men and a major flotilla during an almost 2-day encounter (Steinberg et al. 2005, 146). The utter drama of these encounters concealed the effect of different managerial and scientific developments that both facilitated them and that were industriously modernizing the features of modern warfare. Japan and Russia mustered recruited soldiers and mass support; steamship and infrastructures, such as railroads, brought them to the stage of operations and, where doable, provided them with artilleries and military gadgets (Warner 2004). The recruitment and use of field armies that later on reached millions in number demanded a highly competent management and planning abilities, a lot of which were adopted with differing levels of success from the industrial revolution that was creatively revolutionizing the features of warfare (Warner 2004). In the meantime, advanced powder artillery and crowds of men implied expanded flanks and broad systems of trenches (Steinberg et al. 2005). In relation to the battle strategies displayed by the two opposing forces at the Battle of Nanshan, the crucial importance of machine guns is to be recognized, and the fact that the weaponry of Japanese troops, even though they particularly aimed to do so, did not find and crush them (Warner 2004). The 3rd Army’s 198 guns were maneuvered by the leading artillery official positioned in a squat but imposing hill, near the control center (Steinberg et al. 2005, 38). The position of the opponents had been vigilantly scouted, and outlines out of it and of the places to be taken up by the guns. These outlines were circulated to the batteries. It is known that this command structure did not have the intended outcome (Sakurai 1999). Regardless, the focus of the artillery attack of Japan on battery after battery consequently appears to have been the way by which the units of Russia were defeated. Russian Howitzer’s position on the hill’s summit looks nosy (Sakurai 1999). The telephones’ air lines in the position of Russia which linked the batteries were demolished prematurely in the battle, making intercommunication inaccessible (Steinberg et al. 2005) and victory impossible. III. Conclusions The Battle of Nanshan bears distinctive lessons for scholars and policymakers. It was an unparalleled episode in the history of humankind that showed two entirely distinct strategies of warfare, one the direct opposite of the other. One is fascinated by the mainly human component and individual feature of negotiation and tactic throughout the battle. Japan was successful in activating their mostly extra-constitutional and unofficial government system since it was made up of committed and experienced individuals who willingly internalized their goal and were eager to give up their personal interests to carry out the mission. Their task, although the details were not exposed in the process of democracy, reverberated within the walls of the parliament and all over their population. They waged their war with skills, experience, and prudence one would not have imagined of a quite immature developed nation. References Sakurai, T. Human Bullets: A Soldier’s Story of Port Arthur. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. Steinberg, J., B. Menning, D. Van Der Oye, Wolff, D. & Yokote, S. The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero. Boston: Brill, 2005. Warner, P. The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05. UK: Routledge, 2004. Read More