‘The warrior has always shewed himself greater than his weapons’: the Royal Navy’s interpretation of the Russo-Japanese War 1904–5

Abstract

During the Russo-Japanese War, British naval attachés serving with the Japanese produced a series of reports on both technical and cultural aspects of the conflict. In seeking to explain the Japanese successes, the attachés compared and contrasted their hosts with themselves, Royal Navy and Britain more generally. These reports offer a rare insight of the cultural preconceptions of Royal Navy officers prior to the First World War, presenting explicitly the norms and beliefs that served to unite the service. Recovering these collective understandings helps to illuminate the decision-making processes that took place within the Royal Navy both prior to and during the First World War.