One year into the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese have achieved their objectives and are ready to talk peace.

Russia still has many resources to draw upon, but the combination of massive political unrest and a disengaged emperor makes it doubtful Russia has the will to fight on.

Meanwhile, the ships of the Baltic fleet remain

Russia's wildcard as they press forward on their unprecedented redeployment into the Pacific

Theater. Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music of the 20th century. Episode 35, Mighty Good for Me Too.

This is the fifth episode in our series on the Russo-Japanese War, and there's a couple

threads I want to pick up on from last week.

One of them is the second Pacific Squadron, which you may recall we have left languishing at

Madagascar. When we left Admiral Roj Desvinsky, he was cooling his heels waiting for the

third Pacific Squadron. While the Russian ships were languishing in Madagascar,

they received news of the fall of Port Arthur, the Bloody Sunday killings in St. Petersburg,

and in February the Russian defeat at Mukden. And they're still waiting.

Another threat I want to pick up on is back in the Russian heartland, the follow-up to the events of Bloody Sunday.

Workers in other Russian cities began to protest and strike in sympathy with the strikers in St. Petersburg.

Unrest was greatest in the ethnic minority regions of the Empire, no surprise there.

On January 26th, the Thursday after Bloody Sunday,

Latvian socialist protesters were shot and killed in the city of Riga.

Socialist organizations in Finland and Poland organized strikes,

and strikers were being gunned down on the streets of

Warsaw soon afterward. The Russian government appointed a commission in St. Petersburg to investigate

the complaints of the striking workers. The commission was supposed to be made up of government

...