In the years of 1904 and 1905, there was a war between Russia and Japan due to conflicts over land rights to Manchuria. Several thousand of soldiers were killed on both sides. Many nations were scared to bring a peaceful end to this war. In this essay, you will find out that one man was not afraid to help stop this war and in helping to bring an end. This man was awarded the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. His name is Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt.
Back in the start of the 20th century, the United States was expanding its claims on the islands such of Hawaii and the Philippines. The U.S. was already precarious over foreign lands taking over lands not far from these U.S. lands. So even at this early time we were keeping a close eye on other imperialist countries invading smaller and/or weak countries, especially the country of China.
Teddy Roosevelt became president in 1901 with the assassination of President McKinley. At this time, our country was already heavily committed to Eastern Asia. Our exports to China and Japan were double those of South America. Two of our biggest traders and investors over in eastern Asia was Standard Oil and a railroad construction syndicate ran by J.P. Morgan. These 2 companies held a lot of power in the U.S. back then.
The problem started when the Manchu dynasty, which ran the political system in China for many years, was dying off and this left China vulnerable for a hostile takeover. The country of Russia saw this as an opportunity to grab the weakest parts of China, which was Manchuria.
Manchuria was a large buyer of goods and was a valuable shipping point to the east. Russia did take control of Manchuria in 1902 and almost immediately stopped trade with Europe, the United States and Japan. This infuriated Roosevelt and he felt like something needs to be done with the Russians. A lot of people were on Roosevelt’s side, but nobody really wanted to go to war with Russia based on just the Manchurian takeover.
This made Teddy think long and hard. Who else could help the U.S. with the problem over in Manchuria? He talked with German, a major power back then. They didn’t want to get involved. He also asked France and Great Britain for help, but they refused. The last country he asked for help was Japan. Japan was happy to get our backing over Russia, so they signed a treaty with the U.S. called the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. This pretty much stated that if one country got into a war, the other country would protect it from other hostile countries.
1902 and 1903 went by and Russia kept Manchuria’s ports blocked off. By the time 1904 rolled around, specifically February, Japan did what Roosevelt wanted to do and that was attack Russia. Japan torpedoed the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. After this action, both Russia and Japan were at war and they had many battles, especially naval. Over the course of a year, Japan had crushed the Russian navy in the Pacific and had also beaten them at Port Arthur and Mukden.
Many people around the world were now worried that Japan would have a strangle-hold over Manchuria and might try to be imperialistic like Russia. Roosevelt was not too worried about Japan, and actually was thankful they had booted Russia out of China! It was even stated that he liked Japan enough that if any other country would interfere with Japan’s battle with Russia that he would bring in the U.S. to fight, too. With the world wanting to bring an end to this war, Roosevelt felt the pressure to bring on a compromise to stop the fighting.
Starting in late 1904, he was having talks to both ambassadors about coming to a truce. Stunning his cabinet, Roosevelt skipped the regular protocol of secretaries doing the work and actually talked personally to both sides involved. This led to a much quicker response from both sides. Also helping matters was the fact both sides were seriously close to financial collapse due to the fighting.
So both sides were ready to work out peace. In the summer of 1905, both sides and Roosevelt met at Portsmouth, NH for the peace settlement. Russia had to give up its entire railroad system in Manchuria to Japan and they had to also give up Port Arthur, which was the largest shipping point in Manchuria. Japan was not allowed control over Manchuria itself. Manchuria was actually given back to China to rule.
Russia was happy, because they didn’t have to give up any other land and Japan was happy because they were able to trade and run the railroads in Manchuria. The U.S. was happy because we didn’t have to go to war to get what we needed done, which was to kick Russia out of Manchuria. We also had it set up that both countries were still close enough to keep the other in line in case something would happen like this in the future and we got our eastern China trade back. Manchuria would be freely trading to all countries as it had done in the past.
As a result of his roll to resolve the war, Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.
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