After Japan's victory, certain blacks in the United States were "happily dreaming of color" (p. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey came to regard Japan as a potential leader of a worldwide liberation movement for colored people. If Japan could defeat a European imperialist power, then there was hope that people of color everywhere, including in the United States, might some day overpower white oppression. If Japan could defeat Russia, then there was hope for the rest of the non-white world. Since the Japanese were regarded as people of color, their wartime exploits had racial implications. The "Negro reaction" to Japan's defeat of Russia was one of amazement and hope. In Marc Gallicchio's book, The African American Encounter with Japan and China, the Russo-Japanese War is a starting point for exploring the rise of "black internationalism" in the African-American community. After the peace settlement, riots broke out in Japan, so bitter and disappointed were its people who after so much sacrifice had gained so little. The Tsar kept his Pacific port at Vladivostock. After all was said and done, Russia did indeed have to relinquish territory but at the same time it was hardly driven out of the area.
(From Moscow to Vladivostok the distance is 5,500 miles or 8,800 kilometers.) Not coincidentally, Japan initiated its attack in wintertime, when it would be most difficult for Russia to execute an effective response. For Russia, this conflict was on the extreme periphery of a vast empire. Many commentators do not emphasize enough the advantages Japan had in waging a war in its own backyard. (Over half of Japan's annual revenue went into the war effort.) Russia, although slow and plodding, was capable of indefinitely adding to its reinforcements in the Far East. If the war had continued, Japan most likely would have faced eventual defeat because its resources were being stretched too thin. Japan was fortunate Theodore Roosevelt intervened and encouraged both parties to negotiate a peace settlement. Even so, the Russo-Japanese War is not the first time white supremacy was discredited on the field of battle.Īlthough Japan won a tremendous victory, the details are typically blurred. Excluding the successes of Tartars/Mongols of a bygone era, Tsar Nicholas II is the first European ruler to lose a war against Asians. And then in May the biggest blow came with the defeat of Russia's Baltic fleet (eight battleships, three cruisers, five minelayers, and four other ships destroyed) in the Tsushima Straits that separate Japan and Korea. After a 156-day siege and bombardment, Port Arthur was surrendered by Russia in January of 1905.
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There were a series of battles in which both sides grew weary, but Japan clearly gained the upper hand. At stake was what country would dominate China and extract its vast mineral wealth in the Liaotung Peninsula and Manchuria. On February 9, 1904, the Japanese navy boldly and successfully attacked the Russian Pacific fleet during nighttime raids at Chemulpo and Port Arthur. Black Internationalism and Colored Imperialism
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