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- [00:00]
Ben Bowlin
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous historians. Let's hear it for the czar of Ridiculous history, podcasting super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
- [00:36]
Noel Brown
Huzar Bazaar.
- [00:39]
Ben Bowlin
That's Noel Brown.
- [00:41]
Noel Brown
That's me, Ben. You're Ben? Ben, where did the term when. When they talk about a something.
- [00:46]
Ben Bowlin
Czar.
- [00:47]
Noel Brown
Right, yeah. Like a border czar or a drug czar or whatever. Where does that. Is that the same word or is it a different word entirely?
- [00:57]
Ben Bowlin
It's spelled czar. When we're talking about the US Version. When we're talking about Russian version, Russian royalty, it's czar. T, S A, R. Yeah, yeah.
- [01:09]
Noel Brown
But they are the same in spirit. It's the idea of being like overseeing something. It's just. I just wonder what the history of that term being used for political posts came from. And also, it seems like kind of like a symbolic position in many ways. Like the idea of being a border czar and getting blamed for problems with the border almost seems like a little bit cruel. Like, is it really. Like, what is that person even responsible for?
- [01:34]
Ben Bowlin
It's usually. Yeah. Taking ownership and therefore responsibility over a specific kind of policy or policy area. Etymologically and. Yes. Max, you know this too. Max, hit us up on the chat. Etymologically, it comes from Julius Caesar. That's where czar comes from.
- [01:53]
Noel Brown
It's like calling Pizza czar. You know, there it is. Czar. Good old czar.
- [01:59]
Ben Bowlin
It's funny, in the US up until this year, actually, czar was an informal term. The first person in a US Government office with the formal title czar didn't come about until this year. All the other times before, it was like it might as well have been a corporate buzzword.
- [02:21]
Noel Brown
Almost seems sort of ceremonial in so many ways. So essentially, the current administration is formalizing that term?
- [02:28]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah, yeah, the current administration is formalizing it. It dates back to, I want to say, the days of Franklin Roosevelt. Think of it like a governmental n. Nickname. Right.
- [02:41]
Noel Brown
Makes sense. Sorry for that aside, it was just something I wanted to sort out for my own edification here. We're talking about a different kind of czar, Cesar. Indeed.
- [02:49]
Ben Bowlin
We're sorry for that one, but. But no valuable information. And it's something that. It's one of those questions that I think a lot of us in the US Are kind of afraid to ask. And the last point I want to make there is, whenever I have heard the term czar applied in the nomenclature of US Government, I always think, oh, you mean scapegoat you mean this is.
- [03:14]
Noel Brown
That's what I was getting at. Yes. Yes, 100%.
- [03:18]
Ben Bowlin
Who gets in trouble? Yes. As you said. Well, speaking of getting in trouble, this is part two of the time that Japan absolutely walloped. Or as our pal Dr. Z says, rinsed the lambasted. Yes. Yeah. Previously on Ridiculous History. We explored what led up to the Russo Japanese War and how Japan outmaneuvered Russia as both empires raced to control the region known as Manchuria. And we ended part one on a up note for Japan and a very down note for Russia.
- [04:05]
Noel Brown
That's right. And that conflict set the stage for the aforementioned rinsing.
- [04:18]
Ben Bowlin
We know that a lot of the battle hinged on an area called Port Arthur. At the time when we left you with hopefully still a dope beat to step to, the Japanese Empire had an encircled Port Arthur via land and via sea. And now we return to our tale. With Port Arthur well in hand, the Japanese Empire can now put even more energy toward conquering Manchuria. However, no matter where you're fighting, no matter what your theater of conflict is in this wide world, you will always have a second potential enemy on the field. And that enemy is the weather. The winter of 1905 absolutely sucks for everyone, man.
- [05:12]
Noel Brown
The weather is the greatest villain of history in many ways. We've got. We've done so many stories about the weather being an absolute pill and changing the course of history.
- [05:23]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah, yeah, it's. It's like how the real villain of adult life is scheduling and everybody's fighting against that. So the weather is incredibly harsh in winter of 1905, which means without any official agreement, both the Russian and the Japanese sides of this conflict decide not to directly fight each other. They're just going to try to stay alive through winter. And then it's exactly like calling a long time out in a sports game.
- [06:01]
Noel Brown
Exactly. Thing you do with the T, the T shape with your hands. I'm doing it right now, podcast listeners.
- [06:08]
Ben Bowlin
And doing it well. And in Russian held territory, there's this massive repression of all the native people living in this area of Manchuria that they control. Right. That the Russians still control. So the Manchu population, the Chinese population is looking around, they're saying, man, these Russian guys are super harshing my vibe. I do not like these people. They're violent, they're brutal. Maybe the Japanese Empire isn't that bad. So locals would go to Japanese intelligence forces and they would say, okay, we don't agree with everything Japanese Empire, but we do agree on this. The Russians are not cool. So Here is where they're going to be positioned. Here's some information about their troop movements. Help us out.
- [07:08]
Noel Brown
And there is this pervasive, pretty nasty strain of anti East Asian racism sentiment, whatever you want to call it, it was gross. Collectively referred to as the Yellow Peril, which is awful, and gave onlookers, collectively, in the greater something to sort of support Russia over, since they were attempting to defeat what was seen as a part of this, you know, maligned community. Right, yeah.
- [07:45]
Ben Bowlin
The idea that was very common in European circles or in Western circles at the time was, was a specific type of weaponized racism. And all racism can be weaponized. Right. And they said the existence of any Asiatic community, any East Asian nation, it fundamentally is an existential threat to the West. They want to destroy us. Therefore, whatever we do to them is not a war crime. It's not an act of horror. It is a preemptive protective measure for us, the whites of the West. And I'm laughing because this is very dark stuff. This allowed Russian soldiers the psychological parkour, the rationalization to commit so many atrocities. Imagine a bad thing that a soldier could do to a civilian. And Cossack cavalry divisions were doing this. They would just rock up into, you know, a sleepy Manchu village and they would kill as many people as they can and burn as many buildings as they could reach. So, of course, the local populations thought the Japanese were better.
- [09:09]
Noel Brown
Well, if I'm not mistaken, just in general, historically speaking, the Cossacks are remembered kind of for their war criminess, for their viciousness in the field of battle. Right?
- [09:21]
Ben Bowlin
Yes. Yeah. And we don't have to get too into the weeds on the different back and forth conflicts that Russian and Japanese forces had. But we can tell you they began when the weather lifted up. So around February of 1905. Heavy casualties on both sides. We're talking tens of thousands, almost 100,000 people. And ultimately, the Japanese Empire is unable to consummate its conquest or to fully complete the control of Manchuria. So they launch in July an invasion of a place called Sakhalin Island. And this is a victory for them. This is the end of land operations. During the war, the Russian army and navy lost every significant battle, but the Japanese still had to wait for an official decision on Russia's end.
- [10:29]
Noel Brown
From the Tsar, right?
- [10:30]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah, from the Tsar. Tsar. Tsar. Was he going to surrender? What was Nikki going to do? We have to remember, all this time, Nikki has a. I love calling him Nikki. Nikki has a Nicky too. Nikki too. Electric boogaloo. Russian boogaloo.
- [10:51]
Noel Brown
He has almost did a spit take.
- [10:55]
Ben Bowlin
He still has that fleet, right, that got cut off from the Suez Canal, had to go around the Cape of Good Hope fighting to get every piece of coal they can. They're still sailing to the Far East. They get there in May of 1905 to reinforce Nikki's armies. Now, at this point, you might say reasonably well, what about the great Trans Siberian Railway? Why couldn't they just.
- [11:21]
Noel Brown
What about it, Ben?
- [11:22]
Ben Bowlin
What about it, Noel? Why couldn't they just ship soldiers by rail? Unfortunately, there were some hard limitations on how that railway could operate at the time. Still, eventually that second fleet gets there. The railway brings what it can. So it came to pass that by Spring of 1905, Imperial Russian forces had the numbers. They had the numerical advantage over Japanese forces in Manchuria. But then There was the 1905 revolution. How loyal was the Russian army? And how many members of the Russian army were going, man, is Nikki cool? I don't know. If he's cool, why'd he send us all the way out here to fight for a cause that doesn't really affect us? You know what I mean? War. What is it good for other than absolutely nothing? Electric boogaloo Electric boogaloo. So this dissent is spreading through the Russian army and Nikki is waiting to see how the dice roll out when his second Fleet tangles with the Japanese Navy. This brings us to the Battle of Tsushima. And I'm going to be honest, for a lot of us in the west, folks, please don't judge us too harshly. A lot of us only know about Tsushima as a place, as a concept, because of the excellent video game Ghost of Tsushima.
- [13:03]
Noel Brown
Yeah, that's like the Wandering Samurai game, right?
- [13:06]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah, and it's a awesome game, if you like games. Yeah, it's wonderful. It's one you can replay. The Battle of Tsushima is a very different thing and it shows us as we get into it, we'll see that there's a lot of strategy at play. We mentioned Admiral Togo in Part one. He is aware that this Baltic Fleet is coming because as you so beautifully put it earlier, Noel, the clock is ticking for that Baltic Fleet, but the clock's also ticking for Admiral Togo.
- [13:40]
Noel Brown
That's right. And Ben, I gotta admit here, completely come clean. I didn't know that the Maru as the suffix was existed historically outside of the Star Trek universe. We've got a couple of converted cruisers that were dispatched by Togo called the Hong Kong Maru and the Nippon Maru. And if I'm not Mistaken. Nippon just means Japan, right?
- [14:05]
Ben Bowlin
Yes. Yeah, you're correct.
- [14:07]
Noel Brown
And what does Maru mean in this concept? What's the one for the Star Trek one that represents a conundrum.
- [14:12]
Ben Bowlin
Kobayashi Maru, the unsolvable problem.
- [14:15]
Noel Brown
And is that a ship in Star Trek?
- [14:17]
Ben Bowlin
I'd have to defer to our friend Max there. I just know what it was.
- [14:21]
Noel Brown
Give us the BG on that one, Max.
- [14:24]
Max Williams
Maru, I do not believe is a ship or. No, actually, I can't think of one by the name of that, but that appears in Star Trek. The Wrath of Khan, which is the second movie is. They're one of the most famous ones, but it is actually very central to the plots. Beginning of the movie. It's actually Christie Alley, who's in a training se. Like training, trying to do the thing. The joke is there's only been one person who's ever passed that test. Kobayashi Maru. It was Kirk, and he cheated.
- [14:51]
Ben Bowlin
That's Captain James T. Kirk. Admiral James T. Kirk, actually, by that point, yes. But he's best known as Captain in the original Star Trek series.
- [15:01]
Noel Brown
Oh, no, no. It says it's a spacecraft. It says here it is a fictional spacecraft in the Star Trek continuity.
- [15:09]
Max Williams
So in the exercise, the Kobayashi Maru is a civilian ship that is marooned on the wrong side of the Neutral Zone with the Klingons. So. And they're being attacked by the Klingons. So you either have to go into space, go into the Klingon space, and rescue the Kobayashi Maru, destroying your own ship, or abandon them. There's a lose lose situation.
- [15:30]
Ben Bowlin
Right. An unwinnable scenario. And let's get that instrumental Max with the facts on that one.
- [15:56]
Noel Brown
Oh, we must. And let's also just say I think we answered my question here. It would seem that that is a reference to the way the Japanese named their war vessels.
- [16:06]
Ben Bowlin
Yes. Maru means circle, essentially. Okay. And this. So we have. We've solved that one, folks.
- [16:18]
David Eagleman
This is David Eagleman, host of the science podcast Inner Cosmos. For Valentine's Day. We're diving into the question, what is love from the brain's point of view? What does love have to do with how you were raised? Or the symmetry of someone's face or the smell of their underarms? Why does the character of love change throughout our lives? Why is heartbreak like drug withdrawal? And what does any of this have to do with sweaty T shirts or rom coms or monogamous animals and the future of love and AI? Join me for this week's Inner Cosmos for a deep dive into the neurobiology of love. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:13]
Ben Bowlin
We know that Togo is figuring. He. It's important to remember, right. He's aware of this ticking clock as well. He needs to figure out where this Baltic Fleet is at and when they will arrive in the theatre, which we cannot pronounce any other way than the altar. And so he's got all these intel operations, all this spooky stuff going on as far as he can reach. And he also dispatches two cruisers, as you mentioned, and they get all the way out to, I want to say, the Indian Ocean, and there's another one that gets to the Philippines, and then he sends even more cruisers patrolling areas around Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Singapore from February to April of 05. And this is all to sort of build, you know, the way we could say it. And Alex, Tijuana Williams would agree with me here. If you've ever been camping and you want to set up some kind of security perimeter, you guys remember the thing where you take, like, cans and string and sort of tie them around trees that encircle your campsite? Have you ever heard of that?
- [18:30]
Noel Brown
No. Is this a way of defending yourself against bears or wildlife?
- [18:35]
Ben Bowlin
It lets you know when something is coming because the cans will make a noise.
- [18:38]
Noel Brown
Of course. Of course. Of course. Of course. Makes a jingle jangle. There you go.
- [18:41]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah. So he's sort of doing a maritime version of that on a much more expensive and dangerous scale. And one of the patrol ships that were converted for the job, a lot of these were merchant ships in peacetime. One of the patrol ships south of the Korean Strait sights the enemy on May 27, early in the morning, the wee hours. But they still have no information about what the Baltic Fleet is planning to do, where they're going to go. And Togo is incredibly confused about this, because bad information is still better than no information. And the admiralty in Tokyo, the ultimate controlling force of the Navy, they get a telegram that is supposedly from Togo. But here's the thing. Admiral Togo never sent it. And the telegram. Yeah, a little bit of conspiracy subterfuge afoot.
- [19:45]
Noel Brown
What's happening here, Ben?
- [19:46]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah, yeah. Well, as you and I know, the telegram says, to leadership, the fleet is not going to move unless the enemy is sighted within a specific time. And Tokyo said, okay, this means that our guy, our boy Togo, is going to move to the north, and he's going to wait for the enemy to come through the Northern Strait and then smack him. And they Reply back. And they say, no, don't move north. Just stay at Masampo, which is your base for the battle we all think is going to take place in Tsushima. I don't know. It seems like a lot of later historians and analysts are pretty sure that was a misstep.
- [20:32]
Noel Brown
But who sent the telegram?
- [20:34]
Ben Bowlin
That's the thing. Was it someone working for him? And everybody was just nervous and in the fog of war and trying to move quickly. Was it an act, a very clever act of espionage? The latter is more interesting, but the former is more plausible. Maybe it's true.
- [20:53]
Noel Brown
It's true. Togo, however, remained relatively calm in the face of this unfortunate move. When he got news that the enemy had been sighted, he and his fleet sailed out from Masampo toward Okinoshima, which was east of Tsushima. This was meant to be the likely site of a naval battle.
- [21:21]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah, yeah. And Togo decided it's time to rally the troops. And he said, the fate of the Empire depends on the issue of this battle. Let every man do his utmost. The Russians are coming, essentially, and the Russian fleet is approaching Tsushima. And as they're approaching, Togo changes course and he looks like he's trying to pass the Russians by. Then all of a sudden, he makes a sharp turn and his number one and number two striking forces follow his main ship. This is now known as the Togo Turn, and it is famous in military history.
- [22:12]
Noel Brown
Yeah, and it's not really a term that's meant to be taken positively. If I'm not mistaken, this was considered a bit of a brash, borderline dumb maneuver, right?
- [22:24]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah. At first it was. Yeah. Now it's one of those things that's considered like a legendary chess move. It looked so dumb at first, and then people realized what Togo was actually planning. It allowed him to have the position of his striking forces at full broadside firing position, and it put his fleet in front of the Baltic Fleet. This is something that the Japanese Navy would later study in depth. Again, we'll skip over the firing of this, but ridiculous historians. We have to realize that this is such a power move in maritime history that historians are still studying the minute that someone fired on someone else.
- [23:15]
Noel Brown
Yeah. And speaking of historians, there is an incredibly in depth, I guess you could call it like an academic paper from Naval Historical Society of Australia, specifically about the Battle of Tsushima of 1905 by Kubata K. Which you can find in Navyhistory AU and. And speaking of down to the minute, this article uses like military time down to the minute to talk about and analyze some of these very tricksy moves by General Admiral Rather Togo.
- [23:47]
Ben Bowlin
Yes. So do check that out. It is available for free online. We are going to just tell you, as Noel said, that it is very thorough. It is an exhaustive study. It's one of the best of its kind. About this pivotal moment. It's maritime war. And the result of the battle of Tsushima was by all measures decisive.
- [24:12]
Noel Brown
That's right, yeah. There was no question as to who the Victor was here. 38 Russian ships were involved in the battle and only a single transport and two battleship destroyers Rather reached their final positions in where they were headed. Vladivostok, of course, which was that seasonal port, which I'm gonna keep referring to it as One of the converted cruisers that was steam powered managed to kind of limp its way back to Kronstadt. And the remaining 34 ships were absolutely obliterated, either sunken or captured by Japanese forces or they were interned in other ports that were neutral to the conflict.
- [24:58]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah, yeah. And this is due to Togo's brilliance as a tactician. That one ship that escapes converted cruiser. Just so you know, Kronstadt is a port adjacent to St. Petersburg. So they limped all the way back home. And yeah, you can arrest ships. They interned the ships they didn't destroy on the other side. Togo only lost three torpedo boats while literally annihilating two entire fleets of Russian Navy. That's why it's regarded as the greatest naval victory in modern history.
- [25:41]
Noel Brown
That's right. Dr. Z points out that this incredibly decisive victory by Japan in the Battle of Tsushima more or less ushered in a brand new style era really, of geopolitical maneuvering and set the stage for a lot of future conflicts and mediation.
- [26:00]
Ben Bowlin
Yes, yeah, exactly. The Battle of Tsushima does not automatically end the war, but it inspires Japan to push for peace negotiations. Right. We're in a good position. We just did some bonkers, crazy successful stuff. So while we're at an advantageous position, let's negotiate. Let's get that surrender. And we have to remember that war is hell and war is also expensive. So the country of Japan is exhausted. It militarily, financially, it swung above its weight class, arguably. And that high risk led to a high reward. They created in the peace negotiations a permanence to their control of Manchuria. And they said, look, St. Petersburg, let's just. Let's hash this up.
- [27:04]
Noel Brown
Let's hug it out.
- [27:06]
Ben Bowlin
Gigi. Easy. Good gaming, guys. So on June 1, 1905, the Japanese representative to The United States came to President Teddy Roosevelt and said, hey, can you come in? Will you smooth over this and will you talk to the Russians for us? Because they're kind of mad at us.
- [27:29]
Noel Brown
A little cranky, those Cossacks, their fiery tempers. Yeah.
- [27:33]
Ben Bowlin
And Russia was originally not going to play ball. They were not going to go to a negotiation table. But thanks to Teddy's intervention, thanks to Roosevelt's support, the Japanese did decide they're going to occupy the large island that we mentioned earlier, Sakhalin, which is the nearest Russian territory. And the fighting still continues until August, when the last Russian garrison there surrenders.
- [28:09]
David Eagleman
This is David Eagleman, host of the science podcast Inner Cosmos. For Valentine's Day, we're diving into the question, what is love from the brain's point of view? What does love have to do with how you were raised or. Or the symmetry of someone's face or the smell of their underarms? Why does the character of love change throughout our lives? Why is heartbreak like drug withdrawal? And what does any of this have to do with sweaty T shirts or Rom coms or monogamous animals and the future of love and AI? Join me for this week's Inner Cosmos. For a deep dive into the neurobiology of love, listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [29:03]
Ben Bowlin
At this point, Japan's image has improved. This is crazy branding, right? The United States in particular is like, look at these guys, you know, look how crazy awesome they are. And because the eyes of the world are on them, the great Western powers are finally in Japan's mind, seeing them as a possible great power. They gotta worry about the optics.
- [29:30]
Noel Brown
That's right. They showed some benevolence, didn't they? They were kind, more or less considering conditions to their captives, right?
- [29:38]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah. Yeah. They wanted the rest of the world to say, look, this is how we treat POWs. We're not necessarily beheading people. The war's over. We're not having a big to do with parades and victory marches and all this stuff. We're playing nice.
- [29:56]
Noel Brown
Didn't Togo even go to see his convalescing rival in hospital?
- [30:01]
Ben Bowlin
Yes. Yeah, he sure did. And Noel, we have a great quote from their conversation.
- [30:08]
Noel Brown
Indeed. Defeat is an accident to the lot of all fighting men, and there is no occasion to be cast down by it if we have done our duty. I can only express my admiration for the courage with which your sailors fought during the recent battle and my personal admiration of Yourself, who carried out your heavy task until you were seriously wounded.
- [30:32]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah. Which is a very classy thing to say.
- [30:34]
Noel Brown
It's magnanimous. Yeah. Is that the right word? I mean, it, at the very least, shows empathy and is a very human way of speaking to one's enemy.
- [30:43]
Ben Bowlin
And he's speaking to the wounded Russian Vice Admiral Zinovi Ruzhestvinsky.
- [30:49]
Noel Brown
Well done, Ben. I couldn't have even attempted that.
- [30:51]
Ben Bowlin
Thank you. I did mispronounce it, so this.
- [30:54]
Noel Brown
That's okay. You mispronounced it with aplomb.
- [30:58]
Ben Bowlin
Thank you. So this is yet more propaganda. Even though Togo. Honestly, from what we know about Togo, he probably did mean it sincerely. He probably was saying this from a place of great regard and respect. And he meant it to be private. It sounds like he really meant it to be private. You know, a shake of the hand, I acknowledge you as an equal. And things could have turned out completely differently. Who will know? But it is valuable PR. Cause this happens 6 days after the immortal battle, and it becomes. It becomes a talking point, a lightning rod. You see all these visual records and text about this and then.
- [31:51]
Noel Brown
That's right.
- [31:52]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah.
- [31:53]
Noel Brown
Isn't this essentially like an example of kind of like the way more modern wars are fought on multiple fronts? There's like sort of the coverage angle, the idea of embedded journalists, and sort of the, like, PR side of a war. This seems to be sort of like a approaching that more modern, you know, style of warfare. Right.
- [32:13]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah. And then they also release a hospital. They also release one of the hospital ships that have been captured. And they say, hey, go check on your folks. Collect any wounded Russian soldiers that are still in the area. And to your point, this is another aspect of the conflict. This is another knock on consequence, because these gestures, sincere or not all, were leading to the creation of the image the Japanese Empire wanted at the time. A victorious nation that is also compassionate. You know what I mean? In short, we are the good guys. Look at us. We're not sore winners. And once this takeover, the island is complete, and once these conversations between the admirals occur and the hospital ship is released, the road to a peace treaty is much easier. President Roosevelt is hosting.
- [33:21]
Noel Brown
He throws his hat in the ring as mediator. Right? But don't they politely decline?
- [33:27]
Ben Bowlin
Ah. He says, guys, come hang out with me in New Hampshire. You'll love it. It's the Granite State.
- [33:37]
Noel Brown
It's beautiful this time of year.
- [33:39]
Ben Bowlin
The leaves are beautiful. So eventually, Russian negotiators say, okay, it's going to be less painful to go through diplomatic means than it will be to go through another armed struggle, especially because we just got our butts handed to us and we are going to accept the majority of Japanese conditions or demands for peace. The czar, Nikki 2, says, we are not going to reject a claim for indemnity. We're going to offer. We'll say that we recognize Japan's control of the southern half of Sakhalin Island. And the Japanese forces said, okay, yeah, deal. So they signed the Treaty of Portsmouth on September 5, 1905, ending a war that lasted 19 months.
- [34:37]
Noel Brown
But if I'm not mistaken, Ben, this didn't go over particularly well with the Japanese public, despite the Japanese being the victors and receiving the most of the benefits of the treaty terms. I guess the idea was that they should have been paid reparations of some kind, that Russia would yield to every single Japanese demand without negotiation. And there was some kind of public backlash in the way it was reported and the way the public responded.
- [35:10]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah, yeah, you absolutely nailed it. The people themselves felt betrayed. And it's a phrase you can see in newspapers of the time, because on their end, the civilians there are going through so much economic strain. They've lost a lot of loved ones in this war that lasted 19 months. And on the day the treaty was concluded, we see a public outcry. I wasn't aware of this at first. 30,000 demonstrators gathered in Tokyo, and they eventually rioted. And for a while, martial law had.
- [35:51]
Noel Brown
To be taken in a park. I believe that I'm sure you're familiar with Habiya park, and it was known as the Habiya Riots.
- [35:57]
Ben Bowlin
Yes, yes, known as the Habiyya Riots. And that comes to us from the Asia Pacific Journal is where we're pulling some of this information from. And that, fellow ridiculous historians, is the story of how the nation Japan, the empire of Japan, once upon a time, absolutely rinsed the largest land empire in the world.
- [36:22]
Noel Brown
Doused, juiced, flambeed, sauteed, julienned, perhaps. It's lunch. I'm hungry. I mean, despite this public backlash in Japan, in fact, prime minister at the time Katsura Taro's cabinet would ultimately crumble as a result of this. It's my understanding it was ultimately seen through the lens of history as a resounding success.
- [36:53]
Ben Bowlin
And with that, we would love to preemptively thank Our super producer, Mr. Max Williams, for a resounding success editing this episode. We'd also like to thank all of you fellow ridiculous historians for joining us on this journey again. There's A lot more information out out there. For fellow war nerds fans of war history, please check out not just the nuts and bolts and mechanics and back and forths of this conflict, but the context that led to it. Right. And how the consequences of these battles in this war paved the way for other conflicts in the future.
- [37:37]
Noel Brown
That's right. It really did. The Russo Japanese War, you know, writ large, kind of ushered in a new, new era of modern warfare. And the way it was covered and the way, like, kind of the world saw conflicts like this moving forward, pretty interesting stuff. So there's definitely a lot more context to be had. But huge thanks to our research associate on this episode, these episodes, Dr. Z. Thanks to Alex Williams. Alex, what is it? Tijuana Williams, who composed our theme.
- [38:08]
Ben Bowlin
And big thanks to the one and only AJ Bahamas Jacobs, who runs a fantastic show called the Puzzler. Wrote an excellent book about living constitutionally. Huge fan. Please check it out. Oh, it's such a big.
- [38:23]
Noel Brown
Another one about living biblically.
- [38:25]
Ben Bowlin
Yeah, yeah, he. He will find. AJ Bahamas Jacobs will find the most fascinating way to express, explore history. We're super with him. We love having him on the show. He's had us on his show a couple times. And speaking of people who've been on the show, we do have some terrible news, and we don't want to end on terrible news, but it's really important. Jonathan Strickland, AKA the Quizzer, will be returning to the show very soon. We fought against it, but it is in the peace negotiation, so it's one of the terms we agreed to.
- [39:03]
Noel Brown
I think it's actually gonna happen in a pretty interesting scenario, as old J. Strick would say, where the three of us are gonna be quite far abroad together. We'll talk more about that when the time comes.
- [39:17]
Ben Bowlin
But quite close together now.
- [39:19]
Noel Brown
We're making it close together and far aflung from. From the rest of the world that we know. Again, little tease. We'll tell you more about that soon. In the meantime, we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.