ABSTRACT
Ian Nish perfectly identified the reason for the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War: it had its origins in two weak countries - China and Korea. It was nothing more than an imperialist war par excellence, as it were mainly expansionist aims that led to the clash between the two powers in East Asia. In the first land battle, the army of General Kuroki Tamemoto, numbering 42,000 men, met around 19,000 Russians at the Yalu river. This battle ended in shocking defeat for the Russian army and it was immediately clear that the Japanese army was unlike any enemy faced by a Western great power in past colonial campaigns. The Japanese navy had secured incredibly fast victories over the Chinese fleet during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, something even the government and the commanders of the modernized Japanese fleet had not expected.
