The recent centenary of the Great War has prompted much reflection on its social, technological, and military implications. Yet many of the battlefield technologies and social innovations we associate with World War I had already emerged a decade earlier in Asia, during the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. These included the dominance of the machine gun on the conventional battlefield, the importance of the media, wireless communications, radio jamming, and even the emergence of submarines. All factors of conflict throughout the 20th century. In particular the defining battle of that conflict – the Siege of Port Arthur, which lasted from August 1, 1904 to January 2, 1905 – saw many innovative uses of technologies along with bloodshed on a scale that made it a precursor to World War I trench warfare.
Had Western observers chosen to take notice, it was here that important lessons on the future of warfare first emerged. Yet, it was not the siege of Port Arthur that occupied the attention of most contemporary observers. Instead, the land battle that received the most attention was the 1905 Battle of Mukden, the largest fight the world had seen since the three-day Battle of Leipzig in 1813.
