Article by Laurie Barber
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Checkmate at the Russian Border: Russia-Japanese Conflict before Pearl Harbour
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Over the north country whose seas are frozen
Spring wind blows across
It is time to beat Russia
Rampant for three hundred years.
Mora Orgai, 1904.
Japan and Russia's mutual enmity was long and bitter. Since the turn of the twentieth century power vacuums in central Asia focused Japan's attention to the north, to mineral rich lands often riven by warlordism and ineffectively governed. The Czarist Russian empire's authority over its far eastern domain was often loose, and local factions were advantaged by St. Petersburg's 10,000 miles distance. In early 1904 Russia's repressive Minister of the Interior, V.K. Plehve, remarked: 'In order to hold back the revolution, we need a small victorious war'.......
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Approximate Word Count: 2328
Approximate Pages: 9 (260 words per double-spaced page) |