On Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War

"If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith." - Albert Einstein

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"But by winning the war aganst an opponent who performed badly and was weak did not mean that the Japanese were invincible.

As the historian Geoffrey Regan points out:

"A British admiral once said, 'It takes three years to build a ship, but three hundred years to build a tradition.'"

Japan thought that the victory had completed this task in a matter of a few years. It had all been too easy.

Looking at Togo's victory over the world's great powers convinced some Japanese military men that with more ships, and bigger and better ones, similar victories could be won throughout the Pacific.

This overconfidence in her own abilities would, in the long run lead to the Second World War"


The full quote:

"It takes three years to build a ship. It would take three hundred to rebuild a tradition. The evacuation will continue.

It takes two years to build a battleship: it would take two hundred to rebuild the Commonwealth."

--- Admiral A. B. Cunningham; The Battle of Crete, May 1941