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of hard-fought successes for the Japanese in southernManchuria, including the capture of Port Arthur. TheRussian high command failed badly. The Trans-Siberian worked far better than might have been expectedbut could not compensate for the fact that Russia wasfighting beyond the farthest outskirts of her immenseempire. Above all, nothing could compensate for thefact that she was on the verge of revolution. Three weeksafter the fall of Port Arthur (January 1905) ' Red Sunday'occurred in St Petersburg, which may be taken as theopening of the 1905 Revolution.At the end of May 1905 the Russian Baltic fleet, afterits voyage round the world, was annihilated in the straitsof Tsushima in the most dramatically decisive of modernnaval battles. It was immediately followed by a crescendoof revolutionary outbreaks and demonstrations in Russia,and by peace proposals from President TheodoreRoosevelt, after approaches from Japan.The Japanese, hard put to it financially, feared anexhausting war of attrition farther and farther from theirbases and set their hopes on the revolution in Russia sodeveloping as to make the continuance of war impossible.Their hopes were justified. Peace was signed at Portsmouth,New Hampshire, in September. Within twomonths the Revolution extorted from the tsar the Octobermanifesto (see p. 68).The defeat of the Russian colossus by an Asiatic statehad profound repercussions in Asia, in Europe, and inRussia herself. At home it had similar effects, in certainrespects, to defeat in the Crimean War, and it stillfurther discredited tsarism as a system of government.By the terms of the treaty of Portsmouth Russia gave upPort Arthur, and in effect southern Manchuria, to Japan,acknowledged Japanese control in Korea (it was annexedin 1910), ceded the southern half of Sakhalin island (theoil deposits in the northern half were not known at thatdate), and accorded fishing rights along the Russiancoast, a matter of special importance (and still so to-day)owing to Japanese dependence on fish supplies and thegreat richness of the fisheries in question.The blow to the prestige and power of Russia wasu—R.H. 305