THE RUSSIAN FRONT

Nice to have John Steinberg as one of our frontoviki.  Welcome aboard, John.

On the issue Steinberg raises of World War Zero–it seems to me it happens quite often in history that  one historian argues “We think of X as the first example of category X; in actuality, earlier event Y is the first example of category X.”  The historian’s natural instinct in response to this (or at least MY natural instinct) is to go back to a still earlier event Z.

Let me throw out one of my favorites: the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War.

How does it measure up against Steinberg’s ten criteria?

1.  Imperialist competition.  Check.
2.  Began in a neutral country .  Check–here I have in mind the war’s origins in the Orthodox states of the Balkans, slowly moving towards autonomy / full independence from the Ottoman Empire.
3. Breakdown of government and humanitarian crisis.  Check–especially the latter.  Atrocities in the Balkans are one of the things that kept British public opinion somewhat more sympathetic to Russia.
4. Lethality of industrial warfare.  Check.  Bruce Menning’s Bayonets before Bullets is particularly good on the impact of breech-loading rifles and improved artillery on the battlefield.
5.  Mass casualties.  Check.
6.  Long battles.  Half-check–field engagements are relatively quick and localized, but sieges draw out at Plevna because of the lethality of modern firepower.
7.  Cost and financial difficulty.  Check, I think.  I don’t happen to know a great deal on the financial side of the war, but the Russian Ministry of Finance was always upset about the state of the ruble.
8. Widespread reporting.  Check.  The Pan-Slavs stir up Russian opinion and get Russian volunteers to the Balkans well before official Russian entry, and reporting of Ottoman atrocities in Western Europe gives Russia useful diplomatic cover.
9.  Peace of exhaustion and seeds of future conflict and 10. Future destabliization.  Emphatically check and check.

AND you can throw in as well that the Russo-Turkish War and World War I started over, to use Bismarck’s phrase, “some damn fool thing in the Balkans,” and even more specifically Serbian nationalism.

To be sure, my argument for the Russo-Japanese War as World War Zero, making the Russo-Japanese War World War Point Five, could easily be overturned by precisely the same method.   I’ll leave it as an exercise for the student to make a case for the Crimean War as the REAL World War Zero.

On May 15^th 2009 I had the opportunity to give a lecture to a group of about 100 members of the History faculty and students at Huazhong Normal University in Wuhan, China. The lecture was based on new archival research conducted in support of a recently published two-volume set The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero which I edited along with several colleagues.

After briefly summarizing the operational history of the War, I offered ten reasons why new research findings justify the conclusion that the Russo-Japanese War should be considered World War Zero.

1. Like World War I, the origins of the Russo-Japanese War were rooted in imperialistic competition between world powers

2. As in August 1914, when the Russo-Japanese conflict began, it was fought in a neutral country(s) (China and Korea)

3. In the midst of the conflict and in the area where combat occurred, governmental structures broke down and the emergency was greeted with a response by non-governmental agencies such as the Red Cross

4. The conflict was marked by the use of sophisticated, complicated, and (above all else) lethal industrial weapons such as machine guns, rapid fire infantry assault weapons, rapid fire artillery, mines, and torpedoes. These were accompanied by the logistical infrastructure needed to keep ammunition and other essential supplies flowing to modern fielded armies

5. The natural product of the War’s deadly battlefields — mass casualties — required levels of aid which no medical corps of the period had the ability to help. The sheer numbers of men in need of aid overwhelmed these units.

6. The duration of battles at the beginning of the War lasted two or three days (The Yalu and Nanshan) and were contained to relatively small areas.  By the end of the war the battles of Liaoyang and Mukden lasted weeks and featured battlefields that extended for kilometers.  [NB: In terms of duration and brutality, the six to seven-month siege of Port Arthur foreshadowed what later happened at Verdun in 1916.]

7. The cost of fighting such a technologically demanding war required the formation of international syndicates of bankers simply to derive the credit needed for both the Japanese and Russians to keep purchasing and producing weapons and munitions.

8. Like WWI, the Russo-Japanese War was widely reported on and represented in all forms of visual presentations, from photographs to wood block prints.

9. Like Versailles, the Treaty of Portsmouth occurred only after one belligerent (Japan) ran out of men, materials and credit, and the Russians found themselves in the midst of a Revolution.  Perhaps more to the point, the treaty itself resolved little beyond ending hostilities and, worse, created circumstances that fueled grievances that culminated in future conflict.

10.  When the war concluded and the peace was signed the strengthening of the pan-Asian movement continued to fuel animosities that further destabilized the world.

How well did my Chinese audience accept the logic of the Russo-Japanese War as World War Zero?  While the faculty liked the idea, they accepted it with much circumspection.  More surprising were the questions I received from the students which suggested that they had little knowledge of the conflict in general.  Whatever the case, the students were far more interested in discussing Japan’s role in the Asian world during the first half of the 20^th century.  The students were particularly curious to know my thoughts on to possible re-emergence of Japan as a world power in the 21^st century.

As for the concept of World War Zero, most western military historians continue to view the Russo-Japanese War as a regional conflict rooted in the age of imperialism. Historians in Asia, appear much more respective.  I remain a World War Zero advocate. And I look forward to continuing public discussion of the War’s legacy, especially when that discussion is conducted within a new international frame of reference.

Late last week I went back home to deliver a couple of talks at the University of Kansas.

While there, I took a side trip to downtown Kansas City, MO in order to spend a couple of hours at the National World War One Museum.

As it has only been open since December 2006, many folks may not yet be aware of its existence.

The museum has state-of-the-art facilities, extremely well done displays, and what may well be the world’s second largest collection of WWI artifacts (after the Imperial War Museum in Great Britain) all housed in a fantastic complex built beneath Kansas City’s Liberty Memorial. (The museum was designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the same firm responsible for the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC)

Given that it’s America’s official museum to the Great War, it shouldn’t some as a surprise that the collection leans toward the USA’s role in the conflict. Still, there’s plenty material for those interested in the Western Front. For the time being, the museum’s holdings on Russia and Eastern Europe are slim, but if you live near Kansas City (or will be coming through sometime in the future) you really should plan to visit. It’s an important, though still unheralded, American treasure.

P.S.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!