(Source: here)
I was reading a little about the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. It is one of those wars starting with the Crimean War and the US Civil War that are labelled as early industrial or modern wars. It has come to be seen as a harbinger for the wars of the 20th century with massed armies, ironclads, rapid fire artillery, etc. During my meanderings around the net I came across this paper from 1985 for a Masters Thesis on what lessens could have been drawn from the Russo-Japanese War that may have helped senior military officers fight the First World War more effectively.
This paper still has relevance now as experts debate what lessons we should be drawing from current conflicts to prepare militaries for future threats. Mind you, it is always easier to look back and wonder why military leaders did not adopt new technologies and methods that appear so clear in hindsight to our generation. That statement is obviously not an excuse for some blind senior leaders who were slow to learn but more a comment on the problems of taking events out of historical context. I do not think that this paper is guilty of that mistake. It is a well argued paper that makes good reading for those who want to understand how war evolved. A good quote is:
The catastrophic events of 1914-1918 seem to indicate that the majority of military thinkers learned nothing from the war in Manchuria. Despite the staggering casualties which offensive tactics cost the Japanese, whom the Europeans had praised, the German, French, and Russian armies all put great faith in their offensive strategies; each believed that its respective recipe for victory-- Schlieffen Plan, Plan 17, or Plan 20--would enable it to achieve quick and decisive victory when the inevitable clash came.
From an Australian perspective, it is worth noting that one of the British observers was General Sir Ian Hamilton who was later in overall command of the Gallipoli Campaign.
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