Russia Against Japan:
When I first picked up J.N. Westwood's book about the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), I had very little knowledge of the conflict. I remember studying it briefly in high school, but as I recall, it was only mentioned for the simple fact that it was the first time an Asian country had taken on and defeated a major world power in a war. Beyond that point, my knowledge was no more than speculation. However, now that I have read Mr. Westwood's book, I feel that I have a much better understanding of this conflict that occurred almost a hundred years ago. In his preface, he states that he is trying to provide an account of the Russo-Japanese War that does not rely on books like the British Official History, memoirs and, "worst of all," contemporary newspaper accounts. He explains that most of these accounts were of unreliable origin and, in the case of newspaper accounts, even intentionally dishonest since "most writers accepted that unreliable sources make the most exciting nar!ratives." What he used instead was an abundance of accounts written in Russian that had previously been neglected. His hope was to use these materials to display the war from "new or long
However, Westwood's explanation of this does not end with the apprehensive of officers as mentioned earlier. With regards to the navy, however, the Russians and the Japanese were about even in strength. In fact, many of their correspondents could only speak Japanese, and the Japanese delegates would not even speak to them. " The unique characteristic of this work, then, is that it provides us with a totally different perspective than that of others on the very same topic. However, maybe Westwood could have done a more thorough job in describing how profound the impact in Russia was of their defeat? Did the Russians ever even acknowledge that they were technically speaking the losers? If so, what was said in the press, on the street corners, in schoolhouses, etc? I imagine that the idea of the Japanese being "puny yellow men" was still prevalent for many years despite the war, but I doubt that any Russian could find an account of the war that said they had defeated the Japanese. The battles described in chapters four, six, and seven are almost mirror images to those of three and five if not for two reasons: 1) the battles in these chapters were fought on land, and 2) the Russians fought quite bravely despite being overmatched, not necessarily in terms of strength however, at this point of the war. Westwood notes, however, that the "ascent of morale and competence which Makarov had achieved did not survive his death," making his death even more tragic for the Russians. Their main problem was that their navy was split three ways, in the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the East, and with this split, they were obviously not full strength. In terms of the size of these armies and the power of the weaponry, it was wi!dely believed that this war would provide a glimpse to the wars of the future. While this may make it blatantly wrong to a person already familiar with and indoctrinated with many of the "anecdotal and hitherto unchallenged material" from the abundance of other works, I think that Westwood's portrayal should be praised, and not just for his nonconformist methods. After introducing these prejudicial and immodest views, respectively, he presents the more substantial areas of conflict, with those mainly being territorial. " Westwood, although much of the material he used is in hopes dispel myths about the incompetence of the Russian Army and Navy, is also not afraid to give credit where credit is due.
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