Now that peace is assured, the time seems to have arrived for the world to reflect more calmly than ever upon the origin of one of the greatest wars ever recorded in history; and upon the ideals and notions, as well as training and aspirations, of the Japanese, that one of the belligerent parties which had not, perhaps, been sufficiently known to the world before the war. And above all the time has come to observe how faithfully Japan has maintained her ambition of deserving the name of a civilized nation, and to reflect how securely we may take her steady progress of the past, and especially during the last ten years, as a guarantee of her continued advance in the future.1
So wrote Baron Suematsu in a semi-official book of essays, published just after the treaty of Portsmouth had brought the Russo-Japanese war to an end. In it he invites his readers in the various European countries to reflect on the origins of the war. It is relatively rare in the history of war for governments to invite enquiries into the origin of wars, more common for them to conceal and distort these origins and to discourage and frustrate the study of their root causes. In this case Japan's readiness to encourage the study of the origins of her war with Russia suggests the existence of great confidence on her part that her war aims were justified and shared by many other countries.
It was of course easier for Japan as the victor to issue such an invitation than it was for the defeated. To be sure, the Russians held that they were the wronged party, against whom warlike steps had been taken without provocation. But for them the war became subsumed in the revolutionary year of 1905. One Russian leader wrote in February 1905: 'If the war had ended in a few months, it would have strengthened Russia's spirit, her international prestige. Even if she had not achieved real benefits from it, she might perhaps have taken heart and her prestige been revived. But the war has grown sour . . . and Russia's social fabric has gone to pieces.'2 The Russians still claimed that they had gone to war in a righteous cause. But they chose not to dwell on the muddled origins of the war unless it was for the purpose of self-justification.
Even without an invitation from the parties, there are ample grounds for studying the war's origins. The Russo-Japanese war was an important war of the twentieth century. Although it was confined to two countries, it was significant because of the vast number of those who took part in it: the Russian forces in the area starting at 100,000 troops and growing in 1905 to 1,300,000 and the Japanese starting with 300,000 and growing in 1905 to roughly triple that strength.3 The war was equally important because of the bitterness of the fighting and the toll it took of the manhood of both countries: the lengthy siege of Port Arthur ended with a loss of 58,000 killed to the victorious Japanese and a loss of 31,000 to the Russians, while the immense battle of Mukden is estimated to have caused casualties of 85,000 to the Russians as against 70,000 to the Japanese. Its sheer scale would justify the description of'a large and significant war of a bilateral kind'. It attracted the interest of army-navy officers around the world who competed to serve as attaches and its strategic and tactical lessons were soon the staple diet for study in the world's military academies. Most of the European nations deemed it to be sufficiently relevant to them to publish their multi-volume histories of the war.4
Even if the Russo-Japanese war was not a world war, it had repercussions throughout the world. Though the outside powers were not belligerents, they were surely 'involved'. France was the reluctant associate of Russia, while Britain and the United States were coming to be increasingly aligned with the cause of Japan. The fact that these countries avoided a declaration of war was sometimes a close-run thing. It will be necessary for us to test the argument often heard that Germany egged on Russia to expand in the Far East, while Britain egged on Japan to resist Russian expansion. The role of European countries in the origins of this war is, therefore, a subtle and complex one. The impact on Asia was equally strong. The war fundamentally changed the balance of power in east Asia and affected the destinies of Russia and Japan in the region. At another level the war was a victory for a coloured race against a white one and thereby shattered many nineteenth-century illusions.5
The Russo-Japanese war did not originate purely from a failure of diplomacy, though that was one factor. A diplomatic history would not therefore give an adequate account of its origins. Among its many-sided origins, there was a strong strategic factor. On the military side there were too many Russian troops in Manchuria in 1904 for Japan's conception of her own security and she did not succeed in negotiating for their withdrawal. On the naval side Russia wanted naval supremacy in the Korean straits, and Japan as an aspiring naval power could not accept that.6 There were also economic origins. It was not so much that Russia and Japan were competitors in trade as that they seemed to be competing for the same raw materials in Korea and Manchuria. The situation looked even more menacing for Japan as the Russian railway empire in north-east Asia came to a state of operational readiness. This improved the position of Russia and necessarily worked to the disadvantage of Japan. There were no basic political incompatibilities between Russia and Japan. Both had elements of stability and instability. Indeed there were resemblances between them and no great ideological differences.
In this introduction we offer certain reflections on the policy-making process in Russia and Japan. This is not the place to undertake a detailed study of the Russian or Japanese state systems, especially as most of the issues which would arise could be highly controversial. We then turn to a brief account of the two areas of political weakness in northeast Asia at the turn of the century: the kingdom (sometimes the empire) of Korea and the empire of China, together with the economically unexploited area of Manchuria. In the age of imperialism these were the natural targets for 'protection' (as it was called) by the stronger powers. These were notably Russia and Japan. We close the introduction with a brief description of the effect of the various railway systems which brought the crisis to a head.
Our story starts in 1894 with the Sino-Japanese war but treats the next six years with brevity. From 1900, the time of Russia's occupation of Manchuria, to the last six weeks of peace in 1904, the subject-matter is treated in increasing detail. Such a deliberate imbalance in treatment seems inevitable when one is considering how attempts to prevent a conflict come eventually to nothing.
In Russia an autocratic emperor had the final say in determining foreign affairs. In the decade covered by this book, there was no prime minister in Russia. For want of this, the emperor had to act as the coordinator to whom all the ministers made direct reference. The state secretaries followed the practice of sending official communications (including of course diplomatic correspondence) to the emperor, attaching their own views and recommendations as to the action that was needed and occasionally (generally too rarely) having audiences with him. There was no automatic opportunity for advance consultation with other ministers in the ordinary course. One consequence of this was that the emperor might receive differing advice from his state secretaries. Without a proper coordinating mechanism, it was not impossible for the emperor to endorse on different occasions courses of action which were mutually contradictory. This led to the accusation that one of the ministries had greater leverage with him and caused jealousies between departments. But at times in our story we shall also find that committees were set up to deliberate on the knotty problems of east Asia and to try to work out a consensus before advising the tsar.
In its formulation, tar-eastern policy had to take account of commercial, strategic and diplomatic considerations. The tsar had to weigh the advice of the war ministry, the navy ministry, the finance ministry and the foreign ministry. Those in charge of these offices were not politicians but bureaucrats. Being officials, they did not have to serve constituents; make speeches or answer interpellations in a parliament (before 1905); justify their policies in public; or adjust them in order to make them publicly acceptable. There was not much pressure of public opinion in Russia which affected decisions on east Asia, as distinct from those on the Balkans where pan-slavic doctrines had their influence. Policies could be drawn up more coolly and implemented without fear of stirring up emotional scenes. The reverse of this was, however, that the Russian ministers had little understanding of any system, such as that of the Japanese, where ministers had to make parliamentary speeches and issue white papers on foreign policy. They were also impatient with the critical exposure which Russia received from speeches made in foreign countries.
Much depended upon the personality of the new Autocrat of all the Russias, Nicholas II (r. 1894-1917). He was born in 1868, the son of Alexander III and the Empress Marie from Denmark, and was well educated by private tutors. When his father became tsar, Nicholas was notoriously — and deliberately — kept out of touch with affairs of state. A rare exception to this was his world cruise in 1891 which included visits to India, Japan and Vladivostok. Among his adventures was the episode at Ōtsu in Japan when a disgruntled policeman attacked him with a sword and injured him in the head. The exact cause is still unclear; and the consequence of this incident for Nicholas's later judgements is equally unclear.7 On his return to Russia, he became engaged in April 1894 to Princess Alexandra of Hesse-Darmstadt. But the euphoria of this event was soon broken by his father's sudden illness which resulted in his death at the age of forty-nine on 1 November. Nicholas acceded to the throne at the age of twenty-six in the midst of the war between China and Japan. His marriage took place later in the month, on the day following his father's funeral. He was formally crowned in May 1896 after a period of court mourning and amid a flurry of diplomatic activity.
What can be said of Nicholas in his first years on the throne? It is important not to read back to earlier times qualities which became manifest later in his reign when personal tragedies affected his mind. The impression left by his performance in the decade before the Russo-Japanese war is that of a dedicated, hard-working sovereign, who was caught up in paperwork, in audiences and ceremonial, and was unable to find a permanent adviser on whose judgement he could rely. Young, shy and diffident, he sought to avoid argument and confrontation and often firm decisions. But he was proud of his role as an autocrat, was strongly nationalistic and had a high sense of duty to his country. Surrounded by intrigue at his own court and swamped by advice from friendly senior monarchs abroad, he was apt to retreat into domestic life as a form of escapism from the harsh decisions which he alone could take.
Nicholas certainly had an unenviable role. In performing it, he seems to have suffered from lack of training and from the protected life he led. Sir Charles Scott, the British ambassador, reported that Nicholas was 'incapable, either from want of sufficient experience or by natural diffidence, of taking a decided initiative on his own judgement and inclined to throw his whole weight of responsibility on Count Mouravieff .8 This judgement probably applied equally to his other ministers. It was a dilemma for Russia: the decisions had to be made by the tsar; but he was unsure of himself and untrained for the office. Moreover the environment of his life was not ideal for making judgements. Because of the insecurity felt in court circles since the assassination of Alexander II, Nicholas generally lived in Tsarskoye Selo, some 15 miles from the capital, and never left his palaces without a strong guard. Surrounded by a small intimate coterie, he was cut off from awareness of public opinion and was the victim of those who reported to him. Since he had a self-contained character, he was content with this life of social isolation. Through the narrow window of Tsarskoye Selo he surveyed the affairs of Europe in the diplomatic papers he so conscientiously studied. Because of his world tour in 1891, he kept especially in touch with east Asian affairs and was evidently a strong believer in his country's prospects in Siberia and the far east.
The conduct of foreign affairs was made difficult by the strange pattern of the emperor's calendar. He had the custom of taking very long holidays, considering the crucial place that he occupied in policymaking. Nicholas would go in August to Wiesbaden for the sake of the tsarina; to the imperial hunting lodge at Spala in Poland; and later in the autumn to the Livadia Palace at Yalta in the Crimea. In these places, he was generally attended by some of his ministers, who only chose to stay close to the throne because of jealousy of their colleagues, who might be trying to steal a march with the tsar. Russian diplomats' reports went straight to these holiday places from capitals abroad, though foreign communications were delivered at St Petersburg where the foreign ministry maintained a nominal existence but where policy decisions could rarely be taken. These months (when so many of the crises in the east arose) were therefore a 'close season for diplomacy': the British ambassador generally took furlough from September to just before Christmas, by which time the court had returned to the capital, though this was not feasible for Japanese diplomats.
The fact that diplomacy at the Russian capital was difficult did not mean that the foreign policy pursued by the tsar and his ministers was other than moderate. The emperor frequently professed to be pursuing the object of peace. We know of the personal initiative which he took over the peace conference at The Hague in 1899. If it was regarded by professional diplomats as naïve and innocent, it was none the less representative of his style — and that of Nicholas I before him. It was his own handiwork, not that of his ministers. Contemporary witnesses confirm 'the emperor's innate love of peace'.9 Indeed the closer people went to the emperor's family circle, the more they were impressed with this peace-loving quality. But Nicholas wanted peace on Russia's terms and failed to understand how objectionable her actions appeared to others or when a conciliatory approach was desirable.
Russia's foreign ministers were officials, not politicians. Whether Nicholas was well served by them is doubtful. He had three foreign ministers during the first ten years of his reign: Prince Lobanov-Rostovskii; M. N. Muraviev; and V. N. Lamsdorf. Lobanov was at the end of a long and distinguished diplomatic career in Europe; but he was 'often in the country and it was almost impossible to see him except on his reception day'.10 Muraviev was appointed after a less distinguished career in less prominent capitals, while Lamsdorf came to prominence through service in the ministry itself. Their subordinates in the ministry were as always a mixed bag. On the one hand, they could be loyal and competent. On the other, some serious criticisms were made about their lack of professionalism. Thus Dmitrii Abrikosov, himself a junior in the service, wrote that 'the stagnation in the Foreign Ministry is indescribable. Everybody is asleep'.11 The Germany ambassador also reported: 'Nor have I in my whole life ever seen so much laziness as in the ministries here. All officials arrive at 11 or 12 o'clock and disappear at 4 never to be seen again. During office hours they do nothing but smoke and promenade in the corridors'.12 There was certainly slackness in the head office; and this reflected itself in some lack of control over legations and consulates overseas.
The weakness of the foreign ministry played into the hands of the already powerful finance ministry. The increasing preoccupation of the Russian state with railway building and industrialization which had been started under his father was a matter beyond Nicholas's competence. He tended to leave the problems associated with it — private capital and foreign loans — to the finance ministry and its new luminary, Sergei Witte (1849-1915). Witte's successful career began in a private railway company from which he had entered government service in 1888. He was chosen to head the railway department in the finance ministry in 1891 and became, first, communications minister and then finance minister in the following year. In this role he succeeded in restoring the state finances, returning the country to the gold standard and arranging state and private loans from abroad. Through his influence with the tsar, he was able to nominate those loyal to him to ministerial positions.13
Whether or not the relationship between Nicholas and Witte was one of trust, it was certainly on Nicholas's part one of dependence in the early stages. The power of the ministry of finance bureaucracy and its ability to manage state funds was something that Nicholas could not challenge. It came close to being a superior banking house, channelling the resources of the state into many ventures in Asia, notably the TransSiberian railway. Because these undertakings were so wide-ranging in their implications, Witte became the focus of much of the frenzied political activity in the east at the time.14 Since he was by nature highhanded and self-confident, he often went ahead without due consideration for other political forces and parts of the bureaucracy. Naturally Witte became unpopular. But, so long as he enjoyed the support of the tsar, as he did until 1902, he had not much to fear. Nicholas, inheriting Witte as one of his father's ministers, kept on relatively good terms with him. When, however, the tsar turned against him Witte never forgave him and had many harsh things to write about the young tsar in retrospect in his memoirs, Vospominaniya.15 It is, however, a distortion to believe that this was representative of his sentiments throughout the years he served the tsar.
Like Bismarck before him, Witte had by no means a guarantee of power. Firstly, he was disliked by many of his influential colleagues. Though they were dazzled by his brilliance, they were put off by his overbearing manner and dictatorial intrusions into their preserves. Secondly, his power derived from his ministry of which he had to make a success. The Russian economy being what it was, that could not be guaranteed in the long term. Thirdly, he had to kowtow to the tsar who was fickle in his likes and dislikes. Witte had to lobby to keep his views before his master. Naturally the supreme autocrat resented too much power falling into the hands of any of his subordinates and from 1902 onwards began to keep his distance from Witte, who was having less success with the economy.
There were many competing groups in the Russian court. The ministers, the grand dukes, the armed services — to name but a few. Thus conflicting policies would be put before the tsar with whom the final decision lay. Sometimes the tsar might be won over to one group and be used to do down its rival. On other occasions information might be withheld from the Sovereign: 'In the middle of all the tiraillements between contending Ministers, Grand Dukes and other influences, it is difficult to make out how much the Emperor is told.'16 It was baffling to the diplomats who had to fathom which voice was speaking for Russia. It came as second nature to them to recognize that there were many voices and many policies operating simultaneously. Was it the voice of the armed services which were not kept under adequate central control? Was it the voice of the grand dukes, the four brothers of Nicholas's father, each an independent, strong-willed man, that carried weight? There was a Babel of voices and little coordination. Russian government was disorganized, inefficient and only kept abreast of the modern industrialized world with difficulty.17
In these circumstances it would be unreasonable to expect that Russian 'policy' at the frontier would be crystal clear to the outside observer. There was inefficiency, rivalry and contradiction there too. Yet it has to be said that Russia exhibited remarkable skill in dealing with China, the central problem of east Asia in the 1890s, despite the fact that she had no integrated colonial service and had to improvise with officials from many walks of life. These officials seem to have succeeded in convincing at least some of the potentates of the Middle Kingdom that Russia was the true friend and best protector of China, despite the evidence that she was, on the contrary, the most expansive of outside countries. The Russians seem to have understood better the foibles of the Chinese officials of the Tsungli Yamen (Board of Foreign Relations) and its successor, the Waiwupu; the court and the eunuchs; and especially the Manchu clansmen. They seem to have grasped successfully the subtle relationship between central government and the viceroys in the provinces. Russian diplomats often saw long periods of continuous service in the east and had a good command of languages of the area. They were also skilful in adapting to the mores of the Chinese court. J. O. P. Bland, the experienced British commentator on things Chinese, wrote: 'The Russians pay their Chinese friends well not only for what they want but also to block our roads. They have the foremost men in the (Chinese) Empire in their employ and interest while we go on blundering in the dark, violating every principle of mandarin livelihood.'18 This judgement doubtless reflects the distrust between Britain and Russia in coping with the problems of China and may therefore be unfair.19 But it underlines the reputation which Russia had for maintaining good relations despite her inclination for racialism. One of the most effective experts was D. D. Pokotilov, the finance ministry man with special responsibility for the Russo-Chinese Bank and the Chinese Eastern Railway. Coming to China at the age of 22 in 1898, he acquired an unsurpassed knowledge of the Chinese language. His skill in handling Peking officials was outstanding; and the adherence of Li Hung-chang to the Russian cause was in large measure his doing. He was to become minister to China from 1905 to 1908.
In Japan and Russia there were like and unlike elements. Unlike Russia, Japan was a constitutional state with a monarchy limited by the Meiji constitution of 1890. Like Russia, Japan reserved many prerogatives and autocratic powers to the emperor who for the period of this study was the Emperor Meiji (r. 1868-1912). By 1894 he had become an important ruler with abundant experience in seeing his country developing through years of rapid change. This did not mean that the emperor took an active part in state affairs. But at moments of crisis, he either convened an imperial conference or in other ways made clear his views. In foreign affairs he took a part in decision-making over Japan's part in the relief of the Peking legations in 1900, the signing of the AngloJapanese alliance in 1902 and in the decision to declare war on Russia. In general, he was able to hold up decisions while the substance was further studied. He did not tend in the second half of his reign to put up alternative policies of his own so much as to serve as a corrective or delaying force.
One example of the emperor's prerogatives was to refer issues to a body called the genro or elder statesmen. This was a group of cautious leaders, products of the Meiji restoration, and former prime ministers who were by the 1890s mainly in their late fifties. In foreign affairs these men were a counter-force to the political party leaders who were often fiery and belligerent. They restrained the more extreme groups and urged them to take account of the strengths of foreign powers. This body was extra-constitutional and depended on the exercise of the emperor's prerogatives. It has to be remembered that Japan was not stable politically in the 1890s and 1900s and the volatile members of political parties were often advocates of quite extravagant policies in foreign affairs. Only a senior body, backed by the emperor's authority, was in a position to keep them in check.
In Japan as in Russia, it is difficult to assess the exact weighting of those in the uppermost echelons of power. Because of the divinity ascribed to the Japanese emperor, it was difficult for commentators to estimate his role, though it was clear that he did not make the ultimate decisions as the tsar had to do. In order to find out who counted in Japan's decisions, it is sometimes necessary to look at the writings of foreign observers who were admitted to inner court circles. Such a person was Sir Claude MacDonald, the British diplomat who stayed in Japan for the first decade of this century. He wrote:
I sat opposite to the Emperor at the lunch given to Admiral Noel and the officers of our Fleet. Besides plying a very healthy knife and fork, His Majesty chatted most amicably with everybody all around. The Imperial Princes, Arisugawa and Kanin who sat on either side, treated him with marked deference but Marquis Ito and Count Inouye (the latter sat next to me) seemed to speak on absolute terms of equality and cracked jokes which made this direct descendant of the Sun roar with laughter. It was a great revelation to me and one which pleased me very much for though a Mikado he seems very human.20
The high standing of the elder statesmen in the counsels of the Emperor Meiji comes out strongly from this passage which lifts the veil a little on the relationships between those at the top.
During the period covered by this study, Japan grew from being a regional power, able to gain ascendancy over Korea and China, to being a world power. From 1895 Japan set about a fundamental restructuring of her army and navy. It was to be completed within ten years and was to be funded by the large indemnity obtained from China after her victory over that country in war. Not only would both services be modernized but ordnance factories and shipyards would be developed so that Japan could speedily become self-sufficient in arms and naval shipbuilding. There was unquestionably a spirit of national pride in Japan's progress and achievement which began to show itself in nationalist rhetoric. All too often this was to be directed at Russia.
By contrast with Russia, the foreign ministry was young and small. But its bureaucracy was efficient and farsighted. The service became highly professional when the system of competitive entry by examination was instituted in 1894. Japanese diplomats were thereafter drawn from the elite of the university system; and even senior diplomats in the Japanese service were young by European standards.
The foreign minister was a junior, but important, member of the cabinet. By 1894 he was generally a career foreign ministry bureaucrat recalled from posting overseas to enter the cabinet. He had normally no political affiliation and to that extent did not count in the battles that the political parties were waging. The office holders changed often. Four of the foreign ministers in our period were strong characters who were able to hold sway by force of personality but not political clout: Mutsu (1892-96); Aoki (1898-1900); Kato (1900-1); Komura (1901-5). The foreign minister had to keep on good terms with the prime minister and through him with the genro if he was to steer through his policies. But serious disputes could arise among the ministers and between the antiRussian foreign ministry and the pro-Russian genro.
As in the case of Russia, we must speak of 'many policies' rather than 'one policy'. Not only were there several policies in Tokyo (as we shall see as the study advances); but those on the frontier assumed that they had a certain degree of licence. Thus, consuls in China and Korea who often did not have a high opinion of the Chinese or the Koreans but tended to share the opinions of European diplomats, took certain liberties. They and the soldiers were often pursuing active policies of advance. The Russo-Japanese incident at Masampo in 1899 was a case where local officers tried to ensure that their own nation did not come off second best (probably without the knowledge of Tokyo). The time after 1895 was one of patriotism and confidence vis-à-vis Asian countries as expressed in the publications Kokumin no tomo and Nipponshugi.
There was already evidence of the divide between the army and the civilians which was to dog Japan's policies in the 1930s. That it did not unduly affect Japan's fortunes in the 1895-1905 period was due to the institution of the genro which put a brake on precipitate action by the army. But it was due even more to the fact that the genro contained within its membership both General Yamagata and General Ōyama, the military heroes of the Sino-Japanese war and the military leaders of the ChOshu clan from which the officer corps was in the main drawn. While the genro were often divided — and the tension between Yamagata the soldier and Ito the civilian politician was often considerable — it was generally possible to work for a consensus between any hard-line military position and more moderate lines of policy. Such was the contribution to Japan's international affairs of the genro, who had the personal confidence of the emperor and used it to intervene at crucial junctures in the interest of restraint.
The instrument for these consensual decisions was the imperial council (gozen kaigi) or council in the presence of the emperor. At these gatherings which were held irregularly, the senior members of the cabinet were summoned along with the genro to sit in front of the emperor to discuss policy. This procedure came to an end after the death of the Emperor Meiji in 1912. But, while it lasted, it kept an eye on the political and military hotheads and imposed some discipline over them.
The 1890s was a time when the political standing of the army and navy grew. The root of their power was the special position which the military held under the Meiji constitution of 1889-90. This recognized for the army the independence of the right of supreme command (tō suiken no dokuritsu): there could be no civilian interference over the command and operation of forces. The army leaders had the right of direct access to the throne, the emperor being commander-in-chief. Even the cautious General Yamagata tried to use this right in 1894 against the wishes of Tokyo but was recalled from the field.
Japan had a remarkable knowledge of things Russian including culture and literature, in spite of being at a stage of development where she admired Europe and turned her back on Asia. The yearning of Japanese academics and intellectuals for the writings and social thought of Tolstoy, Gorky and Dostoievsky was immense. There were colleges in Tokyo for the study of the Russian language, both government-controlled and private. There were also many translations of the Russian nineteenth-century classics appearing in Japanese at the turn of the century.21
It would be misleading to judge the Japanese establishment by reference to the attitudes of Japan's progressive intelligentsia, which was in so many ways opposed to it. The establishment was much more taken up with the menace of Russia, seeing that country as the major threat to Japan's national security. As the interests of Russia and Japan came into conflict and their armed forces clashed from the 1850s onwards, there was published a substantial literature speculating about Russia's military and diplomatic objectives in the area of north-east Asia. After the confrontation of 1895 the Japanese government took positive steps through the army and navy to collect intelligence about Russia and the vulnerability of the Russian Empire in Europe, especially Finland and Poland.22 Thus, there was no shortage of information about Russia and her doings, even if it was largely hostile in tone.
There was no real counterpart to this in Russia. While there was academic instruction about things Japanese and while the Russians had built churches in Japan, even a cathedral (St Nikolai) in Tokyo, the Russian approach to Japan was similar to that towards other parts of east Asia, namely, superiority and a desire for assimilation.23 It was understandable therefore if the majority of Japanese at the turn of the century looked on Russia as a menace, as a country whose interests and possessions impinged on their own and threatened to harm them.
The two areas of north-east Asia which are the focus of this study are Korea and Manchuria, the latter a sparsely inhabited part of the Manchu empire of China. Korea had been historically a tributary state of China, though she had concluded commercial treaties with Japan and the western countries since the 1870s. After the appointment in 1883 of a vigorous Chinese viceroy, China regained some of the prestige she had lost but at the cost of antagonizing the Japanese. Increasingly the Korean king turned for protection towards Russia which saw this as a convenient opportunity. But the largest foreign community was the Japanese with 20,000 residents.24
Manchuria was one of the wealthier but under-populated parts of the Manchu empire which had reached its zenith in the eighteenth century. But the Manchus had more recently failed to come to terms with the challenge presented by western commercial states in their determination to stay in power. To be sure, they took steps towards consolidation and modernization; they created an army and navy with modern weapons; and they built factories. But, when a major test of strength came in the war with Japan of 1894-95, the Manchu institutions were found wanting and China came to be spoken of as 'the sick man of Asia'.
In the atmosphere of weakness which prevailed in China towards the end of the nineteenth century, the bureaucrats had to adapt their tactics accordingly. They were loyal to the dynasty in the main but they were also self-seeking. A bureaucrat like Li Hung-chang (1823-1901) was loyal to his monarch and to his country and to his family and friends. For him the survival of the dynasty was probably the prime priority, more important than the survival of the country. Li had a sense of national need as shown in his awareness of the need for a navy, for shipbuilding yards and ordnance factories. But he was at the same time not averse to feathering his own nest. From 1895 till his death he was the leader of the pro-Russian party at the Chinese court and received subventions from Russia for his services. 'Squeeze' was not, of course, purely a western importation; it was native to China. The Manchu court was heavily implicated in 'squeeze'. The leaders of the day had not a strong enough sense of nationalism to wage a campaign against these corrupt practices.
The illusion of 'sickness was if anything increased by the uniqueness of the Chinese government system. This can be illustrated by remarks made by Sir Ernest Satow at the end of a six-year stint as British minister to China:
China is not a centralized state of modern type, but rather a congeries of semi-autonomous satrapies, a confederacy of territories each possessing a separate financial, military, naval and judicial organization, in fact a sort of 'Home rule all round' system, presided over by a central committee for deciding questions referred to it by the provincial authorities.25
With this sprawling, amorphous, decentralized structure, China was unfamiliar to Europeans who had become used to the triumph of the centralized nation-state in the nineteenth century. To locate the focus of power in China was much more complicated. For foreigners the first point of access was to the Tsungli Yamen (Board of Foreign Relations) which possessed no real power. They reported to the grand council, a loose cabinet consisting of those who presided over the various boards. These had audiences daily with the empress dowager (1834-1908) who for most of our period was the dominant force. Behind her was the emperor who did not count especially after his attempts at reform in 1898. Then there was the legendary power of the two hundred or so palace eunuchs who exerted influence over the empress dowager. The independent authority of the provincial governors could be great as for instance at the time of the Boxer rebellion in 1900. Alongside them were the statesmen, some like Li Hung-chang himself who owed their position to successes achieved in the role of provincial governor. Li, who will be prominent in the early part of our story, and Prince Ching, a member of the imperial family who became prominent after Li's death, are the only two Chinese statesmen who can claim to have been world figures of any significance.
Manchuria was the name given to the territory known to the Chinese as the Three Eastern Provinces. It was divided for administrative purposes into the three provinces of Liaoning (Fengtien), Kirin and Heilungkiang. Of these Heilungkiang to the north was by far the largest while Liaoning was the smallest and most accessible. In the 1890s Manchuria had been regarded mainly as a place valuable for its strategic situation; but gradually, with the development of railway building in the area, it came to be recognized as a territory rich in agricultural, forestry and mineral resources. The railways attracted large numbers of Chinese labourers mainly from the province of Shantung and Hopei who stayed on in the north and, when the rail network was completed, impoverished Chinese farmers took advantage of it to establish themselves in the newly opened territory. So too did the Koreans who tried to set up farms across the Yalu river.
Our concern is largely with Liaoning and especially with its most southerly tip, the Liaotung peninsula. This possessed very special strategic significance, being so close to the approaches to the Chinese capital of Peking and commanding the Gulf of Chihli. It included, in particular, the naval base of Port Arthur (Lushun), the home port of the Chinese Northern (Peiyang) fleet. The dockyard there had been built at great cost by French contractors. The entrance to the harbour was a narrow one since the bay on which the town stood was shielded from the Yellow Sea by a vast peninsula, the Tiger's Tail. The harbour's east side had a depth of water of 9 metres while the west side was open to commercial traffic. Moreover its naturally strong position was improved by having the strongest fortress in China. Still it was basically a small place with a small population in 1894.
Talien, known to the Japanese as Dairen and to the Russians as Dalny, was in 1894 not much more than a fishing-village. The harbour was ice-free, like that of Port Arthur. It was intended by Witte to be an entrepot for ordinary export items from Manchuria like soya beans, bean cake, coal etc.26 In practice, however, it proved to be hard to attract trade to Talien. The Chinese merchants who were the dominant group in the coastal trade were not inclined to promote the growth of the port, while the foreign trading houses were content to work through existing channels. Like the rest of the Liaotung peninsula, Talien was a place of unmade roads and very primitive conditions, which were only redeemed by its accessibility to the sea. The coming of the railway age to this area was to bring about a transformation in its fortunes, as it became the headquarters of the new line.
A special part in our story will be played by Niuchuang (Newchwang), which was the only treaty port on Manchurian soil. There is some confusion about the proper terminology for this town. Niuchuang was about 30 miles up-country and not a port; it had seen its best days in the seventeenth century. On the Liao river was Yingkow, sometimes referred to as 'Port Newchwang', which was in fact the treaty port and the site of the foreign settlement. 'Newchwang' was the name used for it by foreigners, even though the official Chinese place-name was Yingkow. Yingkow was about fifteen miles from the mouth of the Liao river, which was navigable for 200 miles to beyond Mukden. Niuchuang had therefore great potential as a market for produce coming down from the Manchurian plain. Niuchuang was the place of settlement for foreigners, mainly Russians, Japanese, British and Americans, a community of 7,700 of which the Japanese made up 7,400. Opened as a treaty port in 1861, it had become a prosperous town by the 1890s with customs offices, consulates, warehouses of foreign merchants and the gunboat dock which gave a vestige of security in an area notorious for banditry. To the south, there was silting of the river at the bar. Additionally the river was frozen solid by ice in the mid-winter months. Yet, so long as Manchuria was opened by river, Niuchuang's position was assured. With the coming of railway venturers, however, there was the possibility that it might be passed by.27
Until the final decade of the nineteenth century the string of Russian settlements which crossed Siberia were linked only by path and river. At the end of this chain was the port of Vladivostok, which was the focal point of Russia's naval power in the Pacific from 1871 onwards. Vladivostok was not ideal from the naval standpoint because of the serious icing problems in the winter.
Although an exceptionally powerful ice-breaker was available during these months, Russian ships still had to seek safe haven in ports to the south, including Japan.28 And Russia could not secure a Korean port, for example, without inviting the resistance from one or other of the powers, as the Port Hamilton (Komondo) crisis had shown in 1885.
Could Vladivostok and the Russian colony around it be revived by opening up railway communication? The first rail survey across Siberia was conducted in 1887, though the idea had been talked of many times before by governors-general and military men. Now it was pursued. In February 1891 the committee which had been studying the matter came out in favour of building a line. The ministers adopted the proposal. Alexander III in his rescript of 29 March confirmed this decision to the world. His son, Nicholas Alexandrovich (later to be tsar as Nicholas II) was in the far east at the time and was ordered to perform the inauguration ceremony. In Vladivostok on 31 May the tsarevich laid the foundation stone for the station on the Ussuri section of the line.29 The work had been started earlier on the track and, like the other sections scattered across Asia as far west as Cheliabinsk, made great progress. A special body called the Trans-Siberian railway committee was created towards the end of 1891 to deal with the problems of economic development and colonization of the area. New energy was infused into the scheme by Sergei Witte, who had been a railway specialist in the private sector before he became a minister. Although he had not been associated with this grandiose design from the outset, he soon made it his own. He had the expansive personality to cope with the large-scale problems which arose. It was a bond between him and the tsarevich, who was appointed chairman of the railway committee in 1893.30
The first stage of the enterprise was completed in 1897. The Ussuri line from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk was opened to traffic and passengers could travel between these towns in two days. This gave Vladivostok a new lease of life. In 1885 it had been a mean frontier town with a population estimated at 13,000, of which Russians made up 7,500 and Chinese, Koreans and Japanese 5,500. When the building of the line began, there was a great influx of labour for the railway, both Russians and others. By 1897 it had grown to 28,896 of which the Russians made up 16,265. The same rapid growth was to be found in other far-eastern cities like Khabarovsk and Blagovestchensk. It was assumed that these small communities would be expanded by migration when the complete route was in operation.31
The Trans-Siberian proper was built fast and expensively. It was built in sections using local contract labour — never a good way of effecting economies. On the other hand, it was to be a single-track line, built to minimum standards in order to ensure both cheapness and speed. The assumption was that it would take time for the traffic to pick up. Its construction was therefore seen as basic and experimental. The problem of passing Lake Baikal was not initially faced as the train was merely to be put on the ferry. It was not until 1904 that the Baikal loop was built to take the track round the cliffs at the southern end of the lake. It was in short a rough-and-ready enterprise, with the main emphasis placed on speed of construction.32
The great paradox was that Russia with her weak economy should have been so bold as to embark on this vast, uncertain and extravagant venture. The fact was that the Russian Empire had one of the weakest economies in Europe and there was a great discrepancy between that economy and her territorial aggrandizement in Asia. It was therefore a financial miracle that a country so retarded should have been able to contemplate building a railway on such a scale. It shows the extent of the imperialist drive. Since there could be no clear expectation of quick returns from a railway passing over an area so sparsely populated, Russia's investment in the Trans-Siberian was really an 'investment in potential'.
Russia could not have embarked on the Trans-Siberian railway project without enlisting the support of French capital. The availability of this was linked to the conclusion of, first, an entente (1891) and, later, an alliance between the two countries (1894). These arrangements offered political and defensive cooperation and smoothed the way for financial partnership.33 It was not clear to contemporaries how far the military aspect of the alliance applied to the far east in those days of secret diplomacy. Certainly the Japanese thought it would and saw a proof of this in the three-power intervention of 1895. But it was generally held that the Franco-Russian alliance was confined to Europe, even if there were uncertainties on this point.34
The raising of French loans was one of the responsibilities of Witte. By channelling the funds for the railway through his finance ministry, he ensured that he had a continuing control over the Trans-Siberian and related lines during their building phase. But he had a struggle and it was always doubtful how long his colleagues would permit his dominance. Witte originally had high hopes of the line being commercially viable and maintained this view in his memoirs.35 He hoped to recoup the high expenses of rapid construction by the commercial profits of the line. But this optimistic assessment was soon dropped. Instead the railway came to justify itself more and more by strategic considerations. Firstly it offered the opportunity to step up the rate of colonization in Russia's eastern territories; and secondly it gave Russia the means to increase the number of her armed forces there at short notice. But the more that strategic considerations crept in, the more Witte had to share responsibility for railway decisions with the army and navy ministers who were more often than not his jealous rivals. This was to become true after 1898 and more so after 1900. This conflict of authority led to discord and, of course, as the prospects of profits receded, intrigue and attacks on Witte. Yet, to the outside observer, these disagreements were not obvious; and, as the various eastern lines were opened, there was great euphoria in Russia at a remarkable national achievement.
In Asiatic Russia the railway age went through three phases in our period. The first was the original Trans-Siberian line, which was intended to proceed by the Amur route (9,200 km), though the Amur line was not taken up till after 1905. The second was the shortened route from Lake Baikal through Tsitsihar and Harbin to Vladivostok (1,510 km). The third was the extension of the railway south from Harbin to Port Arthur (772 km). The second section became the 'Chinese Eastern Railway', while the third became known as the 'south Manchurian line'. Since this last line came south and west into territory of political and strategic significance, it was this as much as the Trans-Siberian railway which caught the imagination of neighbouring countries and raised their suspicions.
Let us remember that Russia saw her railways as having a mission civilisatrice. Indeed, Russian railways were regarded as uniquely civilizing. Thus, an early Guide to the Great Siberian Railway, published in 1900, states proudly:
The civilizing policy of Russia in the East, which may be regarded as an exception to that of other countries, was guided by other principles and was directed to the mutual welfare of nations by the maintenance of peace throughout the immense extent of her dominions. The honour of having planted the flag of Christianity and civilization in Asia is due to Russia. The near future will show the results of the activity of our Government and of our civilizing enterprises, which will add to the glory and power of Russia and her Sovereign Chief.36
The railways also had the effect of changing the existing image of Siberia and the Maritime Provinces as a place of exile and of giving it social opportunities.37
China too had ambitions to build railways in the north of her territory. As early as 1878, Li Hung-chang had asked C. W. Kinder, a British engineer, to build a railway to Tangshan in order to carry coal from the Kaiping mines. By 1890 when the line to Kaiping had been completed, Li proposed that the line from Shanhaikuan should be extended through Mukden to Kirin and Hunchun, thus strengthening China's hold and preventing Russian influence from spreading in the area. To that end he set up the Imperial Chinese Railway Administration which took the line to Chinchow (Northern line) by the time the war with Japan began in 1894. When peace returned, Li wanted to enlist the financial and technical assistance of British interests. But the Hongkong-Shanghai Bank would not agree to raise a loan as the railway administration was heavily overdrawn. The Chinese made some headway and obtained major finance from British sources in 1898 to build the Northern Line Extension.
Since 1890 Japan, under the influence of General Yamagata, had been anxious to prevent the railways in Korea — both Seoul—Fusan and Seoul—Uiju — falling under Russian control.38 She had been surveying the terrain between Seoul and Fusan to see whether she herself could build a line there. After the Sino-Japanese war, Russia which had gained influence throughout the peninsula objected to the building of the line unless it was in her hands. This only strengthened the Japanese resolve and a group of businessmen, led by Shibusawa Eiichi, raised enough capital to proceed with the line. When construction began, the Russians asked for the line to adopt the broad gauge that they used. The pace of building was speeded up in 1903 and most of the Seoul—Fusan line was completed before the Russo-Japanese war broke out, the remaining section being accomplished in January 1905.39
The significance of all this activity was that north-east Asia was for the first time experiencing the railway age. In these decades of imperialism railways were a means of one country expanding its territory. Russia and Japan — and most countries for that matter — were exerting pressure on the weak Chinese and Korean governments to obtain firm and exclusive railway privileges. The competition for these rail concessions excited serious international jealousies. It was clear that in the band of territory extending from Peking, through Chinchow and Port Arthur to Seoul, these concessions would be hotly contested. The vast railways of Russia excited the particular interest of military men in Japan who saw the security of their islands being threatened by them and concluded that Russia should be stopped before her railway network reached its full operating capacity. The deteriorating RussoJapanese relationship which is the theme of this book has to be seen against the background of railway building.
1. Suematsu Kenchō, The Risen Sun (London 1905), p. x.
2. Witte to Kuropatkin, 12 Mar. 1905, in Krasnyi Arkhiv, 19 (1927), no. 6, p. 140.
3. Estimates of troop strength are very varied, being equally difficult to calculate on both sides. On the Japanese side, Itö Masanori, Kokubōshi, pp. 219-22; on the Russian, Russko-Iapanskaia Voina (Leningrad 1933).
4. For example, Committee of Imperial Defence, Official History of the Russo-Japanese War (London 1910 (5 parts)); Der Russisch-japanische Krieg (Vienna, 1906). Attachés reports were also published by Germany and the United States.
5. For example R. P. Dua, The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War on Indian Politics (Delhi 1966).
6. Itō Masanori, op. cit., pp. 216-19, for Chief of General Staffs memorial of 1 Feb, 1904.
7. G. A. Lensen, 'The attempt on the life of Nicholas II in Japan' in Russian Review, 20 (1961), pp. 232-53.
8. Scott to Salisbury, 27 May 1898, Scott papers, 52297.
9. G. P. Gooch and H. W. V. Temperley (eds), British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914, vol. 2, no. 282. (Hereafter cited as BD.)
10. M. H. Fisher and N. Rich (eds), Holstein Papers: Correspondence, iii, no. 480.
11. D. Abrikosov, Revelations of a Russian Diplomat, p. 88.
12. Holstein, iii, no. 480.
13. T. H. vonLaue, Sergei Witte and the Industrialization ofRussia, pp. 146-7.
14. I.I. Rostunov, Istoriya Russko-Iaponskoi Voiny, p. 35:'Between 1892 and 1903 Witte laid down Russia's far eastern policy in the main.'
15. S. Iu. Witte, Vospominaniya, vol. 1, pp. 9 ff.
16. T. H. Sanderson to Cecil Spring-Rice, 2 Dec. 1903 in Spring-Rice papers (FO 800/241).
17. Witte to Kuropatkin, 12 Mar. 1905 in Krasnyi Arkhiv, 19 (1927), p. 140.
18. Bland to Burkill, 13 Apr. 1903 in J. O. P. Bland Papers, 3.
19. A. L. Galperin, Anglo-Iaponskii Soiuz, p. 31.
20. MacDonald to Lansdowne, 24 Oct. 1905 in Lansdowne papers (FO 800/134).
21. Nobori Shomu and Akamatsu Katsumaro, The Russian Impact on Japan: Literature and Social Thought, pp. 14-19.
22. Kurobane Shigeru, Nichi-Ro Sensō to Akashi Kōsaku, pp. 73-4.
23. A. I. Alekseyev, Osvoenie russkimi lyudmi Dalnego Vostoka i Russkoi Ameriki, pp. 158-9.
24. G. A. Lensen, Balance of Intrigue vol. 2, p. 804.
25. Satow to Grey, 31 Mar. 1906, in Grey papers (FO 800/89).
26. Witte, op. cit., vol. 1, ch. 9.
27. Bowra papers, 17, p. 63.
28. Alekseyev, op. cit., p. 145.
29. Harmon Tupper, To the Great Ocean, pp. 81-5.
30. Rostunov, op. cit., pp. 35-6.
31. Alekseyev, op. cit., pp. 144-6.
32. Tupper, op. cit., pp. 336-40.
33. V. I. Bovykin, 'The Franco-Russian Alliance' in History, 64 (1979), pp. 20-35.
34. Jordan (Seoul) to Morrison, 21 Jan. 1900, in Lo Hui-min (ed.), The Correspondence of G. E. Morrison, vol. 1, pp. 130-1.
35. Witte, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 130-3.
36. A. I. Dmitriev-Mamonov and A. F. Zdziarskii (eds), Guide to the Great Siberian Railway, p. 51.
37. Ibid., pp. 51-2. 'The deliverance of Siberia from the sad lot of affording a refuge to the worthless elements of the Empire, was the logical result of that work of civilization which, giving social capacity and competency to that country, thereby strengthened its position as mediator in the great mission of Russia in the East for the introduction of the principles of Christian civilization into Asiatic life.'
38. Ōyama Azusa (ed.), Yamagata Aritomo Ikensho, pp. 175-80, 198-9.
39. Inouye Yūichi, 'Russo-Japanese Relations and railway construction in Korea, 1894-1904', pp. 95-6.