The Russian Armada 1904-5

David Woodward recounts how, after a voyage from the Baltic of 11,000 miles, the Russian Second Pacific Fleet was dramatically destroyed off the coast of Korea by the Japanese.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, neither China nor Korea had adapted itself to the realities of modern politics or warfare. Russia and Japan, on the other hand, had successfully done so, and both countries were trying to increase their power in the Far East at the expense of the Chinese and Koreans, either by means of annexation or through acquiring economic concessions.

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