Without Schiff's help, there would have been no victory

[wm]

Hello,
how much of this is true? Especially the "National newspapers devoted page after page to his role in the victory. History books added whole chapters about him" part.
Schiff was a powerful man, but it's hard to find any reliable source about the loans. Even the usually reliable complete archive of The New York Times has nothing about it.

By waging war on Russia, Japan hoped to seize the tsar's vast, empty northeast region, Manchuria. ...

Almost immediately, she realized she had bitten off too much. Russia was an immense country with a huge army and virtually unlimited financial resources. By April, the vice-governor of the government-owned Bank of Japan, Baron Korekiyo Takahashi, was in London trying desperately to borrow money on the international market. But it was a miserable excursion. Even under the most humiliatingly restrictive terms, he could find no more than half the absolute minimum Japan needed to continue the war. With only a few days remaining before he was due to sail back to Japan, Baron Takahashi went to a formal dinner given by a fellow banker. Over dessert, Takahashi found himself explaining his sense of disappointment to a man who happened to be seated next to him.
Japan will surely be defeated, he said bitterly - Tsar Nicholas II will have another success under his imperial belt. Takahashi's dinner partner, a Mr. Jacob Schiff, seemed more interested than mere courtesy would call for.
Schiff too, Takahasi learned, also hated Tsar Nicholas II, holding him personally responsible for a recent pogrom against the Jews of the Russian town of Kishinev. The conversation between the two men continued until the party broke up for brandy and coffee. Then Schiff wandered off and Takahashi forgot about him.

The next morning Baron Takahashi's aide awoke him with the news that a Mr. Schiff wanted to see him - to discuss a five million pound loan! Takahashi was dumbfounded. "Who is this Schiff?" he asked.
"A partner in the American investment bank of Kuhn-Loeb," the aide had learned, "a powerful force in the world money market, a major factor in international capital. Also, a Jew."

Intrigued, Takahashi met with Schiff immediately and began what would become a deep and life-long friendship with him. (Ultimately, the Japanese banker sent his daughter to New York to live with the Schiffs for three years.)

Over the next several months, Schiff arranged four further international loans, and cash in hand, Japan continued the war until she was in a position to sue for a victorious peace. In Japan, Jacob Schiff became a hero. National newspapers devoted page after page to his role in the victory. History books added whole chapters about him.

Emperor Meiji, in an absolutely unprecedented act, invited Schiff, a commoner, to luncheon in the Imperial Palace. Without SchifFs help, there would have been no victory over the Russians. With SchifFs help, Japan had earned for herself new territories, new resources and greatly improved status in the eyes of the world. No honor was too great for this man.

Jacob Schiff was an American, but it wasn't as an American that he had undertaken to help the Japanese.
And the nearly two hundred million dollars that he'd raised wasn't even predominantly American money. In this instance, Schiff had acted as a Jew. The fact was not lost on the Japanese. For the entire victorious populace of Japan, "Jew" became synonymous with access to, and control of, vast sums of money.
The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews During World War II by Marvin Tokayer

[fontessa]

how much of this is true? Especially the "National newspapers devoted page after page to his role in the victory. History books added whole chapters about him" part.
Schiff was a powerful man, but it's hard to find any reliable source about the loans. Even the usually reliable complete archive of The New York Times has nothing about it.

Seems to be generally correct.
Emperor Meiji directly awarded him 勲二等旭日重光賞 2nd Class, Gold and Silver Star. It's not clear that the emperor ate with him.

The bellow report can be translated to English with google translator.
Please try it.
ジェイコブ・H・シフと日露戦争
―アメリカのユダヤ人銀行家はなぜ日本を助けたか―
二村宮國
Jacob H. Schiff and the Russo-Japanese War
- Why did American Jewish bankers help Japan? -
Nimura Miyakuni
https://appsv.main.teikyo-u.ac.jp/tosho/mnimura19.pdf

fontessa

[wm]

Thank you.
Unbelievable, I was fully prepared to hear it was a myth.
Although I know now that his Kuhn, Loeb & Co was one of the most influential investment banks in the world.

[James A Pratt III]

More on Schiff and what you might call the secret history of the 20th century see the book "Wall Street and the Russian Revolution 1905-1925" by Richard B Spence.

On Pogroms the Russian Government didn't like jews but, it reguarded out of control rioting even worse. officials who didn't take action to stop pogroms sometimes got fired. Officials that did take action sometimes got rewarded.

[jerryasher]

Too Bombastic. You give to much value do that event and ignore all the preceding effort. The anchor of Japanese policy was the Anglo-Japan Treaty of 1902: which in practice froze those Europeans leaders which might have entertained a repeat of the "Boxer" Expeditions. Russia would have to act alone. As the Japanese Consul General in New York stated, (NYT Jan.10, 1904, p.2)"The affair is a direct result of the Japanese -Chinese War, and our statesmen have foreseen it." Moreover, in the days before Britain had purchased two Chilean battleships (HMS Triumph and Swiftsure) to prevent Russia from securing them and Japan purchased two Argentine armored cruisers, (Nsshin and Kasuga) which sailed from Genoa on January 9th. As Corbett writes, (Maritime Operations in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905, p.60, "There seemed then no reason for Japan to wait." The reported loans followed China's declaration of neutrality which only served to further isolate the theatre of battle to Russia detriment, Japanese land naval victories and followed Japan already passing 50% of its financial goal of what it sought in London.

[wm]

It's obvious that the Japanese Army and Japanese diplomats won the war.
But it seems at some point the economy could have run out of money and that was prevented by Mr. Schiff and his friends.
Russia, noticing that, could have held for longer hoping for an economic collapse of the enemy.

[jerryasher]

You are speculating, A bigger problem, and one foresaw before the war by then Minister of War General Kuorpatkin, was that the public was not in support of war and as he foresaw, the war led to significant widespread civil unrest. Indeed Russian historians are not shy in calling the events in 1905 a "Revolution." Kuropatkin himself criticized both the 10th and 17th Corps, deployed as reinforcements, as being unfit, old and full of neer do wells. The issue was not the "economic collapse of the enemy," but the political collapse of the regime in St. Petersburg.

[wm]

Yes, there was the 1905 Revolution and thousands of its victims but the revolution wasn't well-coordinated and could have been pacified. Russia wasn't that weak and survived 10+ more years just fine.