ABSTRACT
The experience of the Russo-Japanese War should have resulted in a revolutionary change in the conduct of war; and the failure to learn from that experience brought severe penalties when change did come 10 years later. The War had novelties: indirect artillery fire, machine guns, barbed wire, hand-grenades, searchlights, wireless1 and motor vehicles were in common use in Manchuria for the first time. Less obviously, the War was fought on the world’s financial markets and on the streets of Russia’s Empire. The War was scrutinized minutely, many believing that in it they were glimpsing the future and others that, armed with new insights, they could craft something different. Many of their visions were quite shocking, and many of the ideas about mankind and societies which the War appeared to endorse were to be as significant as any tactical or technological innovation.
