The hospital train of the Russian Red Cross during the Russo-Japanese War, 1905 (b/w photo)

China Paramedics and female paramedics in a hospital train of the Russian Red Cross, who was used in the Russo-Japanese War. The war was triggered by the expansionist Russian Far Eastern policy and the Japanese major struggle for power in East Asia. In the 1890s, severe tensions between Russia and Japan developed for the control over the Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula with the ice-free Port Arthur. The refusal, to leave Korea entirely to the Japanese influence, led on 8./9. February 1904 to the Japanese attack on the Russian fleet in Port Arthur. After several defeats, Russia had to leave in the Treaty of Portsmouth on 5 September 1905 the lease of Liaodong and the concession for the South Manchurian Railway to Japan, which also included the southern part of the Sakhalin Island and was able to establish a protectorate over Korea. Japan thus reached the dominant position in East Asia.