The Russian-Japanese war ended with a treaty brokered by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt on September 5, 1905. The war itself was rather short, lasting from 1904 to 1905. It started when Japan acquired the Laodong Peninsula from China in their fracas, but European powers forced Japan to return it. China then leased it to Russia who was interested because it is an ice-free port, which they could use for supplying good to Siberia and Vladivostok.

The history of Port Arthur.

In the second century BC Chinese colonists of the Han Dynasty settled in Northern Korea. During the 15th and 16th centuries the Ming Dynasty fortified Port Arthur for its Chinese settlements. Then in 1633, the Manchus chose it for the headquarters of coastal defense, & by 1858 it was the chief base for the Bejioang, China’s first modern naval force. Thus, it had a long history of Chinese connections.

Japan was upset that they had won the war and lost the peace and since Europe had gotten involved. They were rather angry and decided that they would take it out on Russia. The Japanese had a convincing victory over the much larger Russia, becoming the first Asian power in modern times to defeat the European entity. Part of this was because Russia was fighting an eternal war, a.k.a. the Russian Revolution of 1905. That was the first attempt to transform the Russian government from a monarchy to a constitutional monarchy much like Great Britain.

The war strain the resources of Russia and Japan, and Theodore Roosevelt seeing an opening, offered to mediate a peace settlement. Both parties agreed. So on September 5, 1905, they signed the Treaty of Portsmouth signed in Kittery, Maine, in which Russia recognized Japan as the dominant power in East Asia & President Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Russians recognized Japan is controlling Korea, and they had to turn over the leases of Port Arthur to Japan, both powers agreed to restore Manchuria to China and Russia abandoned all claims to Korea and the South Manchuria Railway, however, it could maintain its position in northern Manchuria and the control of the Chinese Eastern Railway.

Many believe that the Japanese government felt emboldened by the success of the grains, the great and mighty Russia and this was a major impetus for the later bombing Pearl Harbor, then a territory of the United States on December 7, 1941, as they felt they could take on a similar sized country & win.

Fast-forward to the Yalta conference in February 1945 when FDR broke at another piece, this time for World War II, there was talk of returning Port Arthur and that territory to the Soviet Union now part of Joe Stalin’s Marxist Empire, but the Chinese rejected that idea. The final resolution was the United States kept a naval base there for 30 years and the Soviet Union was responsible for its defense; China was shut out of the area, again.