End of First Year
At this point it may be well to pause long enough to review briefly and summarize what had been accomplished in a year of the most tremendous fighting the world has ever known. One year of the Japan-Russia War had gone into history. On February 5, 1904, diplomatic relations between the two nations came suddenly to an end. On February 7, Japan seized Masanpho, Korea, as a military base, and on February 8 and 9 were delivered Togo's memorable blows to the Russian Asiatic fleet at Port Arthur. Thus the curtain went up on what since has proved one of the world's greatest war dramas.
The record had been one of uninterrupted triumph for Japan. The year had yielded a score of battles, of greater or less importance. The story of each had been defeat for Russia. Judged by the objects for which Japan entered the struggle, her task was practically complete. But Russia, humbled again and again, remained obdurate. The war was not ended and could not be ended, declared those who seemed to speak with authority, until the tide had turned and Russia was mistress of the East, as she believed herself a year before.
What changes had followed Japan's victories, Russia's defeats?
Changes of a Year
A year before Russia in addition to her own vast Siberian territory across all of Asia to the Pacific, was lessee of Port Arthur and the extremity of the Liaotung promontory. Port Arthur had been rebuilt and fortified, and the investments plus the value of the fleet in its harbor was fully $270,000,000. Dalny had been built and fortified as an auxiliary harbor to accommodate developing commerce. Here $100,000,000 had been expended. From these vantage points Russia looked out over China and Japan and claimed dominance over the Orient. Her fleet stood sponsor for the claim. For the defenses of Port Arthur impregnability was claimed. It seemed that the Slav had completed a peaceable conquest and was immovably intrenched, invulnerable against war, irresistible for commercial gain.
Further eastward her agents had penetrated to the northern boundaries of Korea. Slowly the Slav with his land-thirst was learning to covet the Hermit Kingdom. Commercial domination, political preponderance, each spreading in force and effectiveness, marked the first steps in this direction.
Year of Disaster for Russia
This was a year before. A year later Japan's flag was flying over Port Arthur and Dalny. Russia's fleet was destroyed. Her armies had been driven step by step northward 250 miles to the Sha-ho River. Japan was master in Korea. A protectorate had been firmly established, and Russia's dream of predominance there had probably been dissipated for all time. Japan's fleet was supreme in the Orient. With Russia's covetous eyes no longer looking out from Golden Hill toward Pekin, toward Seoul, toward Tokio, Japan had come into her own again.
This was the situation as the first year of the war drew to a close. Japan's task, on the face of it, seemed accomplished.