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The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. The negotiations took place in August in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and were brokered in part by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. The final agreement was signed in September of 1905, and it affirmed the Japanese presence in south Manchuria and Korea and ceded the southern half of the island of Sakhalin to Japan.

====Japan asked Theodore Roosevelt to negotiate a peace agreement====

The Japanese asked U.S. President Roosevelt to negotiate a peace agreement, and representatives of the two nations met in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1905. For the sake of maintaining the balance of power and equal economic opportunity in the region, Roosevelt preferred that the war end on terms that left both Russia and Japan a role to play in Northeast China. Though excited by the Japanese military victories, Roosevelt worried about the consequences to American interests if Japan managed to drive Russia out entirely.

====Conclusion====

The Treaty of Portsmouth marked the last real event in an era of U.S.-Japanese cooperation that began with the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Instead, competition between the two nations in the Pacific grew over the years that followed. Conversely, Japanese relations with Russia improved in the wake of the treaty. Although the actual importance of Roosevelt’s mediation and personal pressure on the leadership in Moscow and Tokyo to the final agreement is unclear, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in moderating the talks and pushing toward peace.

* Republished from [https://history.state.gov/| Office of the Historian, United States Department of State]

* Article: [https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/portsmouth-treaty| The Treaty of Portsmouth and the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905]