Discover Dalian History

Events In Manchuria (1900-52)

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Japan and Russia long struggled for control of this rich, strategically important region. Japan tried to seize the Liao-tung peninsula in 1895, but was forestalled by the Triple Intervention. From 1898 to 1904 Russia was dominant. As a result of a Russo-Chinese alliance against Japan, the Russians built Harbin, the naval base at Port Arthur, the commercial center of Dalny (Dalian) and the Chinese Eastern Railroad. Japan, after victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), took control of Port Arthur, Dalny (renamed Dairen) and the Southern half of Manchuria, limiting Russian influence to the North. Chiefly through the South Manchurian Railroad, Japan developed the region's economy. From 1918 to 1931 the warlords Chang Tso-lin and Chang Hsüeh-liang controlled Chinese military power in Manchuria.

Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931–32, when Chinese military resistance, sapped by civil war, was weak. The seizure of Manchuria was, in effect, an unofficial declaration of war on China. Manchuria was a base for Japanese aggression in North China and a buffer region for Japanese-controlled Korea. In 1932, Japan annexed Manchuria and formed it as Manchukuo, an independent nation that was in truth a puppet state. The Japanese developed the cities of Dairen (Dalian), Anshan, Fushun, Mukden (Shenyang), and Harbin areas into a huge industrial complex of metallurgical, coal, petroleum, and chemical industries.

Timeline - 1952 Nov 29

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A CIA spy plane with John T. Downey (22) and Richard G. Fecteau (25) was shot down over Manchuria. The 2 men were captured and spent 20 years in a Chinese prison.

Timeline - 1948 Nov 01

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Mao's Red army conquered Mukden, Manchuria.

Timeline - 1945 Aug 16

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U.S. Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright, who was taken prisoner by the Japanese on Corregidor on May 6, 1942, was released from a POW camp in Manchuria by U.S. troops.

Timeline - 1932 Jan 31

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The Soviet premier told Japan to get out of Manchuria.

Timeline - 1932 Feb 18

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Manchurian independence was formally declared.

Timeline - 1932 Jan 02

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Japanese forces in Manchuria set up a puppet government known as Manchukuo.

Timeline - 1931 Nov 20

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Japan and China rejected the League of Council terms for Manchuria at Geneva.

Timeline - 1931 Sep 19

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Japanese troops conquer Mukden, South Manchuria.

Timeline - 1931 Sep 18

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Japan took Manchuria and renamed it Manchukuo.

Timeline - 1931 Sep 18

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The Mukden Incident was initiated by the Japanese Kwantung Army in Mukden, without its own government's consent. It involved an explosion along the Japanese-controlled South Manchurian Railway. It was soon followed by the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the eventual establishment of the Japanese-dominated state of Manchukuo to ensure a supply of natural resources. The neutrality of the area, and the ability of Japan to defend its colony in Korea, was threatened in the 1920s by efforts at unification of China. Within three months Japanese troops had spread out throughout Manchuria, an occupation that finally ended at the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945.

Timeline - 1929 Dec 22

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Soviet troops left Manchuria after a truce was reached with the Chinese over the Eastern Railway dispute.

Timeline - 1929 Nov 18

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Stalin sent troops to Manchuria.

Timeline - 1929 Sep 21

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Fighting between China and the Soviet Union broke out along the Manchurian border.

Timeline - 1928

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The Japanese army unilaterally instigated armed clashes in China's Manchuria region to justify full-scale intervention.

Timeline - 1910 Jan 21

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Japan rejected the American proposal to neutralize ownership of the Manchurian Railway.

Timeline - 1907 Mar 22

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Russians troops completed the evacuation of Manchuria in the face of advancing Japanese forces.

Timeline - 1905 Mar 05

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Russians began to retreat from Mukden in Manchuria.

Timeline - 1905 Feb 27

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Japanese pushed Russians back in Manchuria, and cross the Sha River.

Timeline - 1905 Jan 27

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Russian General Kuropatkin took the offensive in Manchuria. The Japanese under General Oyama suffered heavy casualties.

Timeline - 1904 Feb 06

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Japan's foreign minister severed all ties with Russia, citing delaying tactics in negotiations over Manchuria.

Timeline - 1904 Feb 04

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Russia offered Korea to Japan and defended its right to occupy Manchuria.

Timeline - 1900 Nov 09

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Russia completed its occupation of Manchuria.

Timeline - 1928 Jun 03

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Manchurian warlord Chian Tso-Lin died as a result of a bomb blast set off by the Japanese, who were planning to invade and claim Manchuria.

Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) Landmark Battle

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Battle of Tsushima (May 27-29, 1905), naval engagement of the Russo-Japanese War, the final and crushing defeat of the Russian navy.

The Japanese had been unable to secure the complete command of the sea because the Russian naval squadrons at Port Arthur and Vladivostok made sorties and both sides suffered losses in the ensuing engagements. Meanwhile, the Russian government decided to send the Baltic Fleet all the way to the Far East under the command of Admiral Zinovy Petrovich Rozhestvensky to link up with the Pacific Squadron at Port Arthur, upon which the combined fleets would overwhelm the Japanese navy. The Russian Baltic Fleet, having spent the whole summer fitting out, sailed from Liepaja on Oct. 15, 1904. Off the Dogger Bank (in the North Sea) on October 21, several Russian ships opened fire on British trawlers in the mistaken belief that they were Japanese torpedo boats, and this incident aroused such anger in England that war was only avoided by the immediate apology and promise of full compensation made by the Russian government.

Near Madagascar, Rozhestvensky learned of the surrender of Port Arthur to Japanese forces and proposed returning to Russia. But since he was expecting naval reinforcements, which had been sent from the Baltic via Suez early in March 1905 and which later joined him at Camranh Bay (Vietnam), he decided to proceed. His full fleet amounted to a formidable armada, but many of the ships were old and unserviceable and their crews were poorly trained. Early in May the fleet reached the China Sea, and Rozhestvensky made for Vladivostok via the Tsushima Strait.

Admiral Togo Heihachiro's fleet lay in wait for him on the south Korean coast near Pusan. On May 27, as the Russian Fleet approached, he attacked. The Japanese ships were superior in speed and armament, and in the course of the two-day battle, two-thirds of the Russian Fleet was sunk, six ships were captured, four reached Vladivostok, and six took refuge in neutral ports. It was a dramatic and decisive defeat. After a voyage lasting seven months and when within a few hundred miles of its destination, the Baltic Fleet was shattered. Russia's hope of regaining mastery of the sea was forever crushed.