Japan gets all of Sakhalin

What if Japan had gotten all of Sakhalin in the Russo-Japanese War? How would this affect Japan and Russia? How would Japan develop and settle the island? Would Japan have been able to keep it until the present?
 
First things first. The Japanese are not going to use the name "Sakhalin." The name of the island will be Karafuto and if Japan can hold it, that will become the international name.

Relations with Russia would bad but not irreconcilable. They really did not want to lose Sakhalin. But they would have bigger problems domestically and would be shifting their foreign policy back to European politics, like what happened in OTL. The ball is then in Japan's court, they should try to restore good relations and come to some understanding with Russia in the Far East. What I'm trying to say is that if Japan wants to keep the island, they need to turn to diplomatic means and not provoke Russia into another war. Because if it comes to war, Russia trying to take back the island is basically guaranteed. So no more expansion, no more wars, and no giving Russia a Casus Belli.

In OTL Japan colonized its half of Karafuto with both Japanese and Korean settlers. The population had become quite substantial and easily outnumbered the Russian half many times over but nearly all left after WW2. So I would say that the population of a modern Karafuto would be around a million. As far as infrastructure goes, a tunnel connection to Hokkaido wouldn't be any harder to build than the Seikan Tunnel and building a tunnel under the Strait of Tartary connecting Japan to the rest of Asia would be an order of magnitude easier to build than both. Lots of cool potential here.
 
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trurle

Banned
What if Japan had gotten all of Sakhalin in the Russo-Japanese War? How would this affect Japan and Russia? How would Japan develop and settle the island? Would Japan have been able to keep it until the present?
Holding the northern part of Sakhalin (Karafuto) do also give Japan a substantial oil deposits, although most of it is in shallow sea, realistically preventing development until after WWII. And Japan is still very likely to lose Sakhalin in closing stages of WWII.

Small probability is what North Sakhalin oil fields can be developed in response to oil embargo in 1940 though (a lot of luck and foresight needed), resulting in large deviation from OTL.
 
And Japan is still very likely to lose Sakhalin in closing stages of WWII.

That's assuming, that, World War II or, at least, the Pacific War isn't butterflied away.
I should note that I saw elsewhere in the forum that not getting all of Sakhalin was seen as a betrayal by many Japanese leading to the rise of the militarists.
And, even, if it still happened, the Soviet Union may have had problems invading Japanese Sakhalin, because unlike in our timeline, where it had half of the island, from which a land invasion could easily be carried out, in this timeline, it would need to carry out an amphibious invasion. Also, if this alternate Sakhalin already had a big Japanese population and was well integrated with the other Japanese islands, the USA might have been unwilling to promise it to the Soviet Union.
 

trurle

Banned
That's assuming, that, World War II or, at least, the Pacific War isn't butterflied away.
I should note that I saw elsewhere in the forum that not getting all of Sakhalin was seen as a betrayal by many Japanese leading to the rise of the militarists.
And, even, if it still happened, the Soviet Union may have had problems invading Japanese Sakhalin, because unlike in our timeline, where it had half of the island, from which a land invasion could easily be carried out, in this timeline, it would need to carry out an amphibious invasion. Also, if this alternate Sakhalin already had a big Japanese population and was well integrated with the other Japanese islands, the USA might have been unwilling to promise it to the Soviet Union.
If in 1945 whole Sakhalin invasion will be competing for limited amphibious assets of Soviet Union, Kuril islands invasion is scaled down or cancelled while Sakhalin is still captured. Sakhalin is low-risk high-reward target for Soviets compared to Kuril islands, and they will do capture even if facing opposition from the US.
 
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IMHO the Soviets taking Sakhalin back won't really upset the USA a lot, taking and keeping the Kuriles was problematic but the US was not going get in to a fight over that. If the Soviets attack Sakhalin/Karafuto there is no way they will be able to take the Kuriles before the war ends and the USA occupies them (or at least has some USN units there). Taking Sakhalin/Karafuto after the Japanese have had it for 40 years is going to be a lot tougher than the Kuriles and even those gave the Soviets trouble. There will also be a significant ethnic Japanese population there (much more than the Kuriles) after 40 years of Japanese ownership which will be interesting - you could see them expelled. While the Soviets could probably take Sakhalin, a failed landing is possible depending on Japanese defenses and even more likely is an incomplete occupation before an official cease fire. Given the "taking" of Sakhalin/Karafuto, and the proximity to the USSR I would expect over the intervening years physical defenses would be substantial, and given it would be the only significant oil production area the Japanese have it would be pretty well defended even in 1945.
 
Japan can keep it until the present and easily will without Soviet entry in WWII. It might keep Sakhalin if it surrenders in WWII before the USSR joins, but I'm skeptical that Stalin will forgo an opportunity to recover a territory Russia lost just 40 years before.

As for development, it is virtually certain that the island would be substantially more developed if it had spent the entire 20th century under a Japanese administration, easily supporting twice or more its current population though, still far less than Hokkaido. This is of course because, thanks to its proximity to Japan, it would have received far more government attention, far more internal migration and far more business investment than the vast Soviet Union would ever be willing or likely able to commit. The industries in Japanese Sakhalin would also be a bit more important to resource-poor Japan, in relative terms than they would be to resource-rich Russia, especially petroleum and gas. Forestry and paper-mills would also have a bigger role in Japanese Sakhalin and would extensively managed.

The capital city, Toyohara (Yuzhno Sakhalinsk), would have a climate similar to Anchorage. It would look a bit like Hakodate. I'd estimate between 300,000 and 800,000 residents. Most cities would probably be noticeably Japanese yet have a somewhat "boreal" feel to them as well. That is to say, that many buildings and homes would have heavier, more weather resistant designs and would be simpler and more spartan in appearance than is typical of Japan, though many Japanese elements would likely remain. I think a medium sized Japanese city in Karafuto such as Otomari (Korsakov) would look a lot like what the actual town of Nemuro looks like today. Smaller towns would look like Wakkanai accross the Soya Strait. There would be many gritty fishing towns, of probably very similar to the ones in Northern Hokkaido. Compared with OTL Sakhalin, communities in Southern Karafuto would appear less centralized and planned out, have more individual homes, more roads and fewer wild spaces, though it would still be the closest thing to a wilderness in Japan. Further north, the climate becomes dramatically colder. Things would start to look rather a like they do now. Thanks to the harsh weather, more people would live in medium sized concrete apartments and towns that would be familiar to an OTL Sakhalinian. Like Alaska, Greenland, or Siberia, this isolated and unusual region could breed a different take on Japanese culture: perhaps a little more wild and frontier minded. Like a Japanese Alaska.


IMHO the Soviets taking Sakhalin back won't really upset the USA a lot, taking and keeping the Kuriles was problematic but he US was not going get in to a fight over that. If the Soviets attack Sakhalin/Karafuto there is no way they will be able to take the Kuriles before the war ends and the USA occupies them (or at least has some USN units there). Taking Sakhalin/Karafuto after the Japanese have had it for 40 years is going to be a lot tougher than the Kuriles and even those gave the Soviets trouble. There will also be a significant ethnic Japanese population there (much more than the Kuriles) after 40 years of Japanese ownership which will be interesting - you could see them expelled. While the Soviets could probably take Sakhalin, a failed landing is possible depending on Japanese defenses and even more likely is an incomplete occupation before an official cease fire. Given the "taking" of Sakhalin/Karafuto, and the proximity to the USSR I would expect over the intervening years physical defenses would be substantial, and given it would be the only significant oil production area the Japanese have it would be pretty well defended even in 1945.

If the surrender happened and the Soviets still had not taken Sakhalin and the Kuriles then they would simply ignore the ceasefire and keep attacking until they had what they wanted. That's what they did IOTL.

The USN could easily seize the Kuriles in advance if it had wanted to and would love to have bases there so that they could keep the Soviet Pacific fleet bottled up. However, a Japanese North Sakhalin doesn't necessarily change Stalin's demands (look what he did to Germany, Finland, and Poland and what he intended to do to Turkey if he got the chance. Why should we expect him hold back on this?) nor does it change Roosevelt's willingness to grant these demands if it brings the USSR into the war in a timely manner and help end the thing once and for all. And as you pointed out, the US wasn't going to get into a fight over remote islands. The Soviets wanted them a lot more than the Americans wanted to stop them and stopping them would require sticking America's neck out for an axis power that it had been at war with just a few weeks ago while potentially weakening its hand over much more important issues elsewhere in the world.
 
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As far as infrastructure goes, a tunnel connection to Hokkaido wouldn't be any harder to build than the Seikan Tunnel and building a tunnel under the Strait of Tartary connecting Japan to the rest of Asia would be an order of magnitude easier to build than both. Lots of cool potential here.

While seeking to recover Sakhalin would be a matter of national pride, have read elsewhere of the island being a white elephant more suitable for sending prisoners to prior to the discovery of oil. That said, the Soviets/Russia would have probably benefited from trade via a tunnel under the Strait of Tartary linking Japan to the rest of Asia.
 
Japan can keep it until the present and easily will without Soviet entry in WWII. It might keep Sakhalin if it surrenders in WWII before the USSR joins, but I'm skeptical that Stalin will forgo an opportunity to recover a territory Russia lost just 40 years before.

If the surrender happened and the Soviets still had not taken Sakhalin and the Kuriles then they would simply ignore the ceasefire and keep attacking until they had what they wanted. That's what they did IOTL.

The USN could easily seize the Kuriles in advance if it had wanted to and would love to have bases there so that they could keep the Soviet Pacific fleet bottled up. However, a Japanese North Sakhalin doesn't necessarily change Stalin's demands (look what he did to Germany, Finland, and Poland and what he intended to do to Turkey if he got the chance. Why should we expect him hold back on this?) nor does it change Roosevelt's willingness to grant these demands if it brings the USSR into the war in a timely manner and help end the thing once and for all. And as you pointed out, the US wasn't going to get into a fight over remote islands. The Soviets wanted them a lot more than the Americans wanted to stop them and stopping them would require sticking America's neck out for an axis power that it had been at war with just a few weeks ago while potentially weakening its hand over much more important issues elsewhere in the world.

I think, that, you are ignoring the butterfly effect, it's possible that if Japan got all of Sakhalin, World War II, as we know it, wouldn't happen. I repeat that I read, in this forum, that not getting all of Sakhalin was seen as a betrayal by many Japanese, leading to the rise of the militarists. So, it's possible that if Japan got all of Sakhalin, the militarists would never rise and Japan would never embark on the mad campaigns that it did it, in our timeline.

Regardless, even if World War II, as we know it, still happened, I should note again that if this wholly Japanese Sakhalin has a large Japanese population and is well integrated with the Japanese home islands, Roosevelt may be unwilling to promise it to the Soviet Union. And even if he still promised Sakhalin to the Soviet Union, he may not promise the Kuril Islands, some of which had always been Japanese and others were peacefully ceded by Russia to Japan. Regardless, I'm not sure what cease-fire you're refering to but if you're refering to the Japanese surrender, it actually happened one say after the end of the Soviet campaign in the Kuriles. Also, it should be noted that, in our timeline, the USA never accepted the cession of all of the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union. Also, it should be noted that there is some evidence that Stalin never wanted the southernmost islands, the ones that Japan still disputes, that he never even considered them to be part of the Kuril Islands, not the Kunashiri Island and the Etorofu Island, let alone the Shikotan Island and the Habomai Islands, read https://www.spf.org/islandstudies/research/a00020r.html.
Japan may very well keep, at least, those four islands, in this altenate timeline, even if World War II, as we know it, still happened.
 
While seeking to recover Sakhalin would be a matter of national pride, have read elsewhere of the island being a white elephant more suitable for sending prisoners to prior to the discovery of oil. That said, the Soviets/Russia would have probably benefited from trade via a tunnel under the Strait of Tartary linking Japan to the rest of Asia.
The Russians wanted the island because of historical ownership. Same thing with the Kurils. Also the old Tsarist mentality; more land = good. Less land = bad. The Japanese would mostly want the island for its fishing rights, which to a country like Japan are just as important as land. Nobody is going to get the oil there for a couple decades yet. By that point the borders would have become fairly permanent.

Russia could have absolutely benefited from trade with Japan. I think even if Japan had just keep south Sakhalin (Karafuto), that would have kept them invested enough to (partially) pay for a tunnel under the Tatar Strait connecting Japan and Russia after the international climate has stabilized under an alternate UN/LoN as a goodwill gesture. Russia could sell its raw materials and Japan could pay with its finished products. It depends on the state of the Russian economy I guess.

The failure of the Russian Far East and Japan to build a symbiotic economic relationship strikes me as a major missed historical opportunity that doesn't get explored very much on this site.
 
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I think, that, you are ignoring the butterfly effect, it's possible that if Japan got all of Sakhalin, World War II, as we know it, wouldn't happen. I repeat that I read, in this forum, that not getting all of Sakhalin was seen as a betrayal by many Japanese, leading to the rise of the militarists. So, it's possible that if Japan got all of Sakhalin, the militarists would never rise and Japan would never embark on the mad campaigns that it did it, in our timeline.

Regardless, even if World War II, as we know it, still happened, I should note again that if this wholly Japanese Sakhalin has a large Japanese population and is well integrated with the Japanese home islands, Roosevelt may be unwilling to promise it to the Soviet Union. And even if he still promised Sakhalin to the Soviet Union, he may not promise the Kuril Islands, some of which had always been Japanese and others were peacefully ceded by Russia to Japan. Regardless, I'm not sure what cease-fire you're refering to but if you're refering to the Japanese surrender, it actually happened one say after the end of the Soviet campaign in the Kuriles. Also, it should be noted that, in our timeline, the USA never accepted the cession of all of the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union. Also, it should be noted that there is some evidence that Stalin never wanted the southernmost islands, the ones that Japan still disputes, that he never even considered them to be part of the Kuril Islands, not the Kunashiri Island and the Etorofu Island, let alone the Shikotan Island and the Habomai Islands, read https://www.spf.org/islandstudies/research/a00020r.html.
Japan may very well keep, at least, those four islands, in this altenate timeline, even if World War II, as we know it, still happened.
I am not ignoring butterflies, I just didn't make my post about their details and instead focused on what I thought a Japanese Sakhalin would be like. I do not know what, if any major butterfly effect would occur from this change in 1905 but Japan's prospects of keeping it are easier to assess. Firstly, if the whole war is butterflied away, then Japan keeps everything it gets, period. If the war happens but Japan surrenders before the Soviets enter, then Japan also keeps everything. If the war happens and the Soviet invasion has not yet occurred or Japan has managed to hold it at bay, then it probably keeps all the Kuriles and almost certainly the Southern Kuriles but may lose Sakhalin depending on: 1. how close the Soviets are to being able to seize Sakhalin before the Americans start to react and 2. exactly what the USA explicity promised Stalin in the first place. The vaguer the promises, the less more flexible the settlement. The Americans would probably accept a Soviet annexation of Sakhalin if it happened quickly enough at or near the end of the war, even though it would have clearly been a core Japanese territory by this point. Remember that South Sakhalin/Karafuto was already pretty well integrated with the Japanese home islands IOTL but this did not prevent Roosevelt from signing it away. Its population in 1945 would not be much greater with control of North Sakhalin because of the very harsh climate in the Northern half of the island. What really works against it though is the fact that Japan gained it in war in the first place and so the Americans, temporarily still in a Pacific war mindset and eager to suppress militarism, will be much more hesitant to agree that it constitutes core territory. This will make the Americans temporarily more accomodating to Stalin's wishes, though they could quickly harden their stance in the days and weeks after the surrender, thus limiting his window of opportunity, even with an explicit promise made at Yalta.

With the ceasefire in the Kuriles, I am referring to the period after declaring the surrender but before signing it and beginning the formal occupation. There was supposed to be a ceasefire by mid August but during this time, the Soviets continued their campaign to take what they wanted and the Japanese continued resisting them. My point is that if promised something, the Soviets will attack as long as they can possibly get away with it and will only stop if the US is able to actually push back, such as by landing occupation forces ahead of them. That might continue even after the formal surrender. This is Stalin we're talking about, after all. IOTL, Roosevelt made the mistake of explicitly promising the Kurile islands to Stalin in Yalta and in so doing, increased the chances of potentially unnecessary and problematic territorial concessions. If Stalin didn't consider the Southern islands part of the Chain and expect to be able to claim them, then why did he rush to invade them as quickly as possible? Had Roosevelt gotten Stalin to agree to a vague statement about the territories, then the ultimate resolution could have been renegotiated according to the realities on the ground. Japanese control of North Sakhalin could delay the Soviets enough that they would totally lose their window of opportunity to take the Kuriles after which time, the US can renegotiate. The local population will not have been evacuated and the US is warming up to Japan while cooling off to Russia. Turning the islands and everyone on them over to the USSR to be annexed and ethnically cleansed starts to look really bad, really fast. Stalin would eventually have to give up on the Kuriles.
 
If Japan has the whole island, the Russians are going to have a very hard time forcing an invasion. Their OTL seaborne invasions were stymied heavily by light Japanese defences, and a Japanese Sakhalin without any easy Russian ingress (asie from by sea or across sea ice) is going to be met with much more resistance.
 
If Japan has the whole island, the Russians are going to have a very hard time forcing an invasion. Their OTL seaborne invasions were stymied heavily by light Japanese defences, and a Japanese Sakhalin without any easy Russian ingress (asie from by sea or across sea ice) is going to be met with much more resistance.
I agree for the most part. The prospects of the attack succeeding before Autumn are grim. Still, the island has a huge coastline parallel to the mainand and it is harder to concentrate defenses there than on say, the Kuriles (though it is easier to resupply them). The Russians could also land in multiple locations simultaneously. They would probably want to launch the main assault across the northern end of the Tartar Strait, near Nikolaevesk. Here, their now considerable air power would be a major threat. There are also several good harbors on the Western coast of the Sea of Japan from which a small fleet could depart and from here, they could land close to the population centers at the Southern end. That's not to say they would pull it off, but it can't be ruled out either.
 
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