Hello there, listeners of the History of the 20th century podcast. My name is Zach Twomily from When Diplomacy Fails

podcast, and today I would like to give you a special introduction to something that your humble host,

Mark Painter, has been working on for quite some time, the Russo-Japanese War.

You may remember the Russian-Japanese War. It was that war I attempted

to cover a good time ago, episode three I think it was. It was the episode which featured

wonderful imitations of Russian accents by yours truly, but it was also an episode that I had been

really looking forward to doing

for some time, and in fact its contents and its events are still things that fascinate

me to this day, and were I to redo an episode, that would come in a close second to the

Franco-Prussian War, of course, because Bismarck.

But yeah, the Russo-Japanese War is an incredible event. It's a really important

one for what's to follow because it seriously weakens Russia, it empowers Japan, it empowers

Germany, and it makes Britain act a little bit more free in the international system.

This series of events that Mark Painter is about to paint for you

guys could be described as the fertiliser of the First World War, but don't take it from me. Take it from

Mark Painter himself and enjoy the first of a multi-parter series on the Russo-Japanese War. Thanks for stopping by,

and if you haven't already, cheap plug, I hope you check out When Diplomacy Fails podcast. Thanks very

much for listening to me, and I'm sure Mark Painter is very happy that you're listening to him as well.

Now, let's put our feet up and relax as we listen to the world getting a little bit more dangerous

in 1904. Enjoy. Imperial Russia's Eastward Expansion, which has been going on for centuries, reached all

the way to the Pacific Ocean and beyond into North America by the 18th century.

But these Russian territories in the Far East were distant, barren, and of little economic value.

...