Sarah Paine: evaluation

Transcript context

…anese Navy is busy laying mines. A lot of ships go down to mines. This is an interesting story. Nicholas II, tsar of Russia, doesn't like it that his fleet is just sitting in port, not doing anything. So he sends Admiral Makarov out there to assume command. I've had the misfortune to read Makarov's major literary contribution, which is all about naval strategy. He's a real hero in Russia. But then I read his book. It's unbelievable. He said, “If you face a big ship, what do you do? A more powerful ship, you attack. If it's a smaller ship, what do you do? You attack.” It's one size fits all. I mean, how unanalytical. Here's what happens to him. He comes into the theater and within the month, another spoiler alert, he's dead. How did that happen? He followed his strategy. That's how it happened. What he does, he arrives, everyone's really excited because he's getting the guys out and thinking they're going to be doing things. But on April 12, the evening before he dies, there are a bunch of Japanese ships laying mines out at the harbor's entrance. He mistakes them for Russian ships and tells his people not to fire on them. Oops. The next morning, when he sorties with the whole fleet to take the offensive… Well, they didn't sweep the harbor entrance for mines. His ship hits a mine and he goes down with a ship. Alright, that is a tactical error and he's a dead man because of it. However, there's a much more important strategic error that follows. Two weeks later, Nicholas II decides to send his Baltic Fleet, named for the Baltic where it is, all the way around to come and relieve the siege at Port Arthur in order to avenge all of this thing. Okay, what's the problem with that plan? Well, that's the problem with that plan, right? It's a long way to go. There is no air conditioning for the sailors. They come from northern climes. By the time they arrive, they're mutinous. Their ships are covered with barnacles, which means they don't move very fast. Meanwhile, once Port Arthur has fallen, the Japanese immediately refit their navy so they were good to go. So the way this blunder plays out… Well, if you think about Britain, Britain will do these worldwide adventures, but they had a complete basing system across the globe so that their ships had coaling stations, they could refit, put more water on, give people some R&R time, relaxation and things. Also the British were very careful to fight on their own terms as ever possible. You don't want to fight on the enemy's terms. Well guess what, you're going to be fighting right next to Japan with barnacle ships and mutinous crews. That's not going to go well for you. The Japanese know because…Port Arthur falls while this expedition is taking place. So then the purpose of the expedition is no longer there. They should have taken a U-turn and gone home. But no, no, no, they're going to keep on going. There is only one other possible location for them which is a far inferior base up in Vladivostok. The Japanese know there are three ways to get to Vladivostok. no, no, they're going to keep on going. There is only one other possible location for them which is a far inferior base up in Vladivostok. The Japanese know there are three ways to get to Vladivostok. If you're coming up from the south, you're either going to go the long, long way around through La Pérouse Strait and it's awfully narrow and it's a long way around. You can go through the Tsugaru Strait which is a little wider, but it goes by a bunch of big Japanese army bases and also a very large port of Hakodate. You want to do that? That's kind of risky. So the short way is to go through the Korea Strait which is broken in the middle by the Tsushima Islands and the Tsushima Strait is to the east. It's 20-25 miles wide at its narrowest point. That's the short way which is what the Russians take. Guess what? They have a welcoming party there of all these newly refitted Japanese ships that know exactly what they're up to. The Battle of Tsushima is one of the most lopsided naval battles in human history. The Japanese just either sink or commandeer basically the entire fleet, proving the Russians had no idea of how to do naval strategy. The navy had been a product of a bunch of aristocrats. The one who ran it was a guy who was known for, what was it, fast women and slow ships? It did not work out well for them. While the negotiations are being held on whether to hold negotiations, President Roosevelt suggested to the Japanese that they try to take Sakhalin Island. You can see the tip end of the Japanese home island, Hokkaido and then there's Sakhalin. Why? Because it's much more valuable to the Russians than the Japanese and it'd be a good tradeback item in the peace negotiations. Because for Japan it's a nice fishing ground. But for Russia it's sovereign Russian territory. Horror ceding that sovereign Russian territory to anyone, let alone an Asian power given the prejudices of the day. To sum up what Japan got out of this war, it got its immediate war objective, Russian troop withdrawal from Manchuria. That's what they wanted. They get this Japanese sphere of influence in Korea. That's what they wanted. But remember at the very beginning they wanted to trade Japanese predominance in Korea for Russian predominance in Manchuria? Let's look at what they really got. They got the southern half of Sakhalin Island, Russian territory. They got southern Manchuria. It's actually arguably the valuable half, the southern half, because it has Port Arthur and Dalny and all the railways that Russians had invested there. Then it confirms the outcome of the First Sino-Japanese war that Japan is indeed the dominant power of Asia. So I rest my case. Japan did it. Smart decisions in Japan are what overturn the balance of power in Asia. ms the outcome of the First Sino-Japanese war that Japan is indeed the dominant power of Asia. So I rest my case. Japan did it. Smart decisions in Japan are what overturn the balance of power in Asia. Okay, but I promised you a counterargument. What would a smart person say who disagrees with me? Here's a perfectly good counter argument. It's great you think the Japanese are so clever, but actually China faced a perfect storm of catastrophes. Because China imploded, that's why it leaves Japan on top in Asia. The primary factor is that China's falling apart and this perfect storm of problems. I'll go through three. It's always a good number. People can remember three things. You have the civil wars afflicting China, in an age of accelerating European imperialism. Also the Manchus who ran China, they're only 2% of the population, were suffering from all kinds of dynastic decline, which I will get into. China had reached its preindustrial limits to growth. Its population kept on going up and up, but its agricultural productivity just could not feed people. So people are trying to farm really marginal lands. Either they're too vertical or they don't have reliable rainfall. You're getting massive soil erosion doing these things. You're also getting a lot of famines. Famines are both the cause and the effect of civil wars. On this map you can just see, I've named some of the big rebellions on this one. It's to give you a sense that these rebellions affect all of China. It’s not just a little here and there, but a lot everywhere. Now I'm going to give you a table. This is a simplified table which only goes 1845-1895. It's part of a much bigger table that would cover the entire 19th century. And that table is an oversimplification. So the point is this is not business as usual. In the red box, that is the height of these rebellions, 1851-1878. The biggest rebellion there is the Taiping. It's estimated that 20 million people died in the Taiping Rebellion. To put that figure in perspective… People don't know how many people died in all these things. China didn't know how many people they had, much less how many people they lost. But to give you a sense of it, in World War II it's estimated that 55 million people died. So you're talking 20 million just in the Taiping. I have no idea how all this adds up, but it's huge. The Chinese like to talk about these as being rebellions or uprisings. Give me a break. They're civil wars. A whole bunch of them want to overthrow the dynasty in Beijing. A whole other set of them want to secede from the empire. Often these minority people who just want the Han, the predominant people, to go away, or the Manchus in this era. Some of these provinces are devastated for generations. So that's point one, these civil wars. Point two is that this coincided with an era of accelerating European imperialism, where Europeans and also the Japanese are carving out massive spheres of influence for themselves. The Chinese are not going to have full sovereignty over their country for a very, very long time. The story gets even worse. This happens to China because China loses a succession of regional wars.…

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