This, from the Japanese point of view, was quite alarming. So in 1891, Russia broke ground on a railroad that would connect one side of its immense bulk to the other. Witte’s ideas dovetailed with those of Czar Alexander III, who saw the growth of a Russian population in Siberia as a way to secure the country’s eastern border. A railway, he thought, would allow Russia to settle Siberia, harvest its natural resources, and expand trade with East Asia. Witte believed that political power came from economic power, and saw Siberia as an underexploited region of the Russian Empire. The Trans-Siberian Railway was the pet project of Sergei Witte, an influential minister in the Russian government. “The Russo-Japanese War cannot be understood without the Siberian background.” How a railroad kicked off a war “This military conflict was the first significant outburst in the Russo-Japanese rivalry that started during the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway,” wires Eva-Maria Stolberg, an associate professor in Russian history at the University of Duisburg-Essen, in her scholarly work. This lesser-known war, with such far-reaching consequences, started with the Trans-Siberian Railway. The war marked the first time a non-Western power defeated a Western state in the modern era, and helped give rise to the US-Japanese rivalry that culminated in the Pearl Harbor attack. It was also the cause of a major war, which turned into one of Russia’s most humiliating defeats: the Russo-Japanese War starting in 1904. The 5,772 miles of track connect Moscow to the Pacific port of Vladivostok. Begun in 1891 and completed 100 years ago today (per Google Doodle), it’s the longest railroad line in the world. The Trans-Siberian Railway is one of the most impressive engineering feats in modern history.
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