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During her negotiations with Japan, Russia did not expect the Japanese to go to war. After all, Japan was a newly emergent country, whose naval officers might have been trained in Britain and her army officers in Germany, but several of those officers had begun their careers wearing armor and brandishing swords. The Russian army, by contrast, saw itself as among the world's most powerful. But as it turned out, while the Japanese may have been incapable of sustaining a lengthy, drawn-out war, they were able to achieve victory in a shorter, more locally contained conflict.
During her negotiations with Japan, Russia did not expect the Japanese to go to war. After all, Japan was a newly emergent country, whose naval officers might have been trained in Britain and her army officers in Germany, but several of those officers had begun their careers wearing armor and brandishing swords. The Russian army, by contrast, saw itself as among the world's most powerful. But as it turned out, while the Japanese may have been incapable of sustaining a lengthy, drawn-out war, they were able to achieve victory in a shorter, more locally contained conflict.
Having successfully financed roughly half of the costs of the Sino-Japanese War with war bonds, and having received indemnities from China which covered the full cost of the war and then half over again, many in the Japanese government and big business felt a war with Russia could be relatively easily financed as well. Even if the war were to cost as much as 300-400 million [[yen]] - twice as much as that with China - it was believed the economic growth of the intervening years would be sufficient to allow the private sector (e.g. people & corporations buying war bonds) to help cover the costs of the war. However, as early as April 1904, with the war already underway, the government anticipated an annual military budget of 580 million yen.<ref>[[Peter Duus]], "Economic Dimensions of Meiji Imperialism," in Peattie and Myers (eds.), ''The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945'', Princeton University Press (1984), 143-146.</ref>
==War==
==War==