By the end of the 19th century, the Russian Empire seemed to be at the zenith of its power and reach. It was the largest country in the world, stretching from the Black Sea on the eastern edge of Europe to the Bering Strait in the extreme east of Asia. Even by rail, it took over 10 days to travel from one side of the country to the other. Its standing army of over 1.3 million men was the largest in the world, and the “Russian steamroller” was regarded as one of the most potent military forces available to any ruler.

At that point, Russia even seemed close to attaining one of its longest-held and most significant ambitions: control over a warm-water port in the Pacific. Russia had controlled the city of Vladivostok since 1860, and this had become its major port in the Pacific, but Vladivostok was bound by ice for much of the year, so Russia sought an ice-free port in the region. The collapse of the Manchu dynasty in China seemed to offer an opportunity, but it also brought Russia into conflict with an emerging power in the region: Japan.

The overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the restoration of the rule of the Meiji emperor in 1868 had brought swift and fundamental change to Japan. Before 1868, Japan was largely agrarian and with a society run on traditional, feudal lines. Under the new emperor, a process of industrialization began that used ideas from the West to transform Japan by the early 1890s into a significant military power in the region. The Japanese Empire sought control over natural resources in the Korean peninsula, which brought them into conflict with China. This conflict erupted into war between China and Japan in 1894.

The sudden and unexpected rise of Japanese influence in the region was opposed by Russia, Germany, and France, who threatened war with Japan unless the terms that ended the war were changed. Reluctantly, the Japanese agreed to withdraw from Manchuria, but they never forgot or forgave what they saw as the way in which the unwarranted European influence was used against them.

Japanese suspicions were reinforced when Russia subsequently concluded a treaty of alliance with China and forced the tottering regime to grant a lease of the Liaodong peninsula to Russia. Russian troops occupied Port Arthur and began to build massive fortifications around the city. The port was linked to Russia by a new railroad that connected to the Trans-Siberian Railroad at the Chinese city of Harbin. Russia also insisted on the right to use its troops to defend the new railroad throughout its length in China. Although the terms by which Russia leased the port from China were temporary, it was clear that Port Arthur was intended to become Russia’s new warm-water port on the Pacific.

To most observers, it seemed clear that Japan and Russia were destined to come into conflict in Korea and Manchuria. Both empires were set on expansion, and both saw these areas as important. However, Russia’s vastly larger population, army, and navy seemed to make it inevitable that Japan would lose if the conflict escalated into war. Few could have foreseen that when war came, it would reveal that Russian power was largely an illusion. That would be underscored by one of the war’s most famous events, a bizarre battle that involved a makeshift Russian fleet under the command of an irascible and unstable admiral sailing around the world to meet its fate.