Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear

People rarely learn from history. The events illustrated in 'Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear' is indicative of the Russian inability to learn. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Japanese army utilised similar approaches to that taken in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.

The same routes used were literally the same ones used in the earlier capture of Port Arthur then.


Divided Russian leadership with widely political diverse goals coupled with incompetence in some quarters were contributory factors to the military failure as well.

Japanese military success was due to a large variety of factors including that of a simple aggressive plan with improvision.

Another observation is that artillery preparation and counter battery fire were instrumental in the individual struggle for positions. The primitive logistics train of both sides were a brake on operations at times.

Given the current tensions in North-East Asia, I think the study of this campaign is becoming increasingly relevant.


"The beauty of science is that it allows us to transcend our intuitions about the world, and it provides us with methods by which we can determine which of our intuitions are right and which are not. Common sense tell us that the earth is flat, that the sun moves around it, and that the people who know the least often speak the loudest." Daniel Gilbert, Psychologist, Harvard University