"The spirit of the age": British war correspondents and interpretations of war and culture in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905

The study of the Russo-Japanese War has fallen heavily into the shadow of the First World War, resulting in a distorted understanding of the conflict, particularly regarding the European observation and analysis of it at the time. This study proposes to take this event out of such a context, drawing attention to military and cultural influences that Europeans, particularly British war correspondents, carried with them into the war, such as Mahanism, Orientalism, and anxieties regarding modernity. It argues that these correspondents entered the conflict influenced by prominent, preexisting discourses on naval warfare, the Orient, and modernity, which generally advocated for a conscious link in the future development of society and the military. These and other discourses, not those stemming from the memory of the First World War, ought to be emphasized in the study of war, society, and culture before 1914.