THE SAGHALIEN COMPLICATION
ONE of the problems which invited the attention of the new Government early in the Meiji era had been handed down from the days of feudalism. In those days, neither Yezo nor Saghalien nor the Kurile Islands were under effective Japanese administration. The feudatory of Matsumae had his castle at the extreme south of Yezo, but the jurisdiction he exercised was only nominal. Yet the earliest explorers of Saghalien were certainly Japanese. As far back as 1620, some vassals of the Matsumae feudatory landed on the island and remained there throughout a winter. The supposition then was that Saghalien formed part of the Asiatic mainland. But, in 1806, Mamiya Rinzo, a Japanese traveller, voyaged up and down the Amur, and, crossing to Saghalien, discovered that a narrow strait separated it from the continent. There still exists in Europe a theory that Saghalien’s insular character was discovered first by a Russian, Captain Nevelskoy, in 1849, but in Japan the fact had already been known.
Saghalien commands the estuary of the Amur, and Muravieff, the distinguished Russian commander in East Asia, appreciated the necessity of acquiring the island for his country. In 1858, he visited Japan with a squadron and demanded that the Strait of La Pérouse, which separates Saghalien from Yezo, should be regarded as the Russo-Japanese frontier. Japan naturally refused a proposal which would have given the whole of Saghalien to Russia, and Muravieff then resorted to the policy of sending emigrants to settle on the island. Two futile attempts to prevent this process of gradual absorption were made by the Japanese Government; they first proposed a division of the island, and afterwards they offered to purchase the Russian portion for a sum of about £400,000—$2,000,000. St. Petersburg seemed inclined to acquiesce, but the bargain provoked opposition in Tokyo, and not until 1875 was a final settlement reached, the conditions being that Japan should recognize Russia’s title to the whole of Saghalien and Russia should recognize Japan’s title to the Kuriles. These latter islands had always been regarded as Japanese property, and therefore the arrangement now effected amounted to the purchase of an area of Japanese territory by Russia, who paid for it with a part of Japan’s belongings. An interesting sequel to this chapter of history is that, thirty years later, Saghalien became the scene of a Japanese invasion and was ultimately divided between the two nations along the fiftieth parallel, which was precisely what the Bakufu statesmen had originally proposed.
THE FORMOSAN EXPEDITION
The expedition of Formosa in 1874 has already been spoken of. Insignificant in itself, the incident derived vicarious interest from its effect upon the relations between Japan and China in connexion with the ownership of the Ryukyu Islands. Lying a little south of Japan, these islands had for some centuries been regarded as an appanage of the Satsuma fief, and the language spoken by their inhabitants showed unmistakable traces of affinity with the Japanese tongue. Therefore when, in 1873, the crew of a wrecked Ryukyuan junk was barbarously treated by the Formosan aborigines, the Yedo Government at once sought redress from Peking. But the Chinese paid no attention to this demand until a force of Japanese troops had made a punitory visit to Formosa, and China, recognizing that her territory had been invaded, lodged a protest which would probably have involved the two empires in a war had not the British minister in Peking intervened. The arrangement made was that China should indemnify Japan to the extent of the expenses incurred by the latter in punishing the aborigines.
THE RYUKYU COMPLICATION
A fact collaterally established by the Formosan affair was that the Ryukyu Islands belonged to Japan, and, in 1876, the system of local government already inaugurated in Japan proper was extended to Ryukyu, the ruler of the latter being pensioned. China now formulated a protest. She claimed that Ryukyu had always been a tributary of her empire. But China’s interpretation of “tribute” was essentially unpractical. “So long as her own advantage could be promoted, she regarded as a token of vassalage the presents periodically carried to her Court from neighbouring States, but so soon as there arose any question of discharging a suzerain’s duties, she classed these offerings as an insignificant interchange of neighbourly courtesy.” Undoubtedly Ryukyu, from time to time, had followed the custom of despatching gift-bearing envoys to Peking, just as Japan herself had done. But it was on clear record that Ryukyu had been subdued by Satsuma without any attempt whatever on China’s part to save the islands from that fate; that thereafter, during two centuries, they had been included in the Satsuma fief, and that China, in the settlement of the Formosan complication, had constructively acknowledged Japan’s title to the group. Each empire asserted its claims with equal assurance, and things remained thus until 1880, when General Grant, who visited Japan in the course of a tour round the world, suggested a peaceful compromise. A conference met in Peking, and it was agreed that the islands should be divided, Japan taking the northern part and China the southern. But at the moment of signing the convention, China drew back, and the discussion ended in Japan retaining the islands, China’s protests being pigeonholed.
KOREAN COMPLICATION
Sufficient reference has already been made in these pages to the series of events that terminated in 1875, when Japan, by a display of partly fictitious force, drew Korea out of international isolation and signed with the Peninsular Kingdom a treaty acknowledging the latter’s independence.
WAR WITH CHINA
During the centuries when China occupied the undisputed position of first in might and first in civilization on the Asiatic continent, her habit was to use as buffer states the small countries lying immediately beyond her borders. But she always took care to avoid any responsibilities that might grow out of this arrangement. In a word, the tide of foreign aggression was to be checked by an understanding that these little countries shared the inviolability of great China, but it was understood, at the same time, that the consequences of their own acts must rest upon their own heads. Such a system, having no bases except sentiment and prestige, soon proved futile in the face of Occidental practicality. Burma, Siam, Annam, and Tonking, one by one, ceased to be dependent on China and independent towards all other nations.
In Korea’s case, however, the fiction proved more tenacious, since the peninsula furnished easy access to Manchuria, the cradle of the Manchu dynasty. But while seeking to maintain the old-time relations with Korea, Chinese statesmen clung uniformly to traditional methods. They refrained from declaring Korea a dependency of China, yet they sought to keep up “the romance of ultimate dependency and intermediate sovereignty.” It was thus that, in 1876, Korea was allowed to conclude with Japan a treaty describing the former as “an independent State enjoying the same rights as Japan,” nor did the Peking Government make any protest when the United States, Great Britain, and other powers concluded similar treaties.
To exercise independence in practice, however, was not permitted to Korea. A Chinese resident was stationed in Seoul, the Korean capital, and he quickly became an imperium in imperio. Thenceforth Japan, in all her dealings with the Peninsular Kingdom, found the latter behaving as a Chinese dependency, obeying the Chinese resident in everything. Again and again, Japanese patience was tried by these anomalous conditions, and although nothing occurred of sufficient magnitude to warrant official protest, the Tokyo Government became sensible of perpetual rebuffs and humiliating interferences at China’s hands. Korea herself suffered seriously from this state of national irresponsibility. There was no security of life and property, or any effective desire to develop the country’s resources. If the victims of oppression appealed to force, China readily lent military assistance to suppress them, and thus the royal family of Korea learned to regard its tenure of power as dependent on ability to conciliate China.
On Japan’s side, also, the Korean question caused much anxiety. It was impossible for the Tokyo statesmen to ignore the fact that their country’s safety depended largely on preserving Korea from the grasp of a Western power. They saw plainly that such a result might at any moment be expected if Korea was suffered to drift into a state of administrative incompetence. Once, in 1882, and again, in 1884, when Chinese soldiers were employed to suppress reform movements which would have impaired the interests of the Korean monarch, the latter’s people, counting Japan to be the source of progressive tendencies in the East, destroyed her legation in Seoul, driving its inmates out of the city. Japan was not yet prepared to assert herself forcibly in redress of such outrages, but in the ensuing negotiations she acquired titles that “touched the core of China’s alleged Suzerainty.” Thus, in 1882, Japan obtained recognition of her right to protect her legation with troops; and, in 1885, a convention, signed at Tientsin, pledged each of the contracting parties not to send a military force to Korea without notifying the other.
In spite of these agreements China’s arbitrary and unfriendly interference in Korean affairs continued to be demonstrated to Japan. Efforts to obtain redress proved futile, and even provoked threats of Chinese armed intervention. Finally, in the spring of 1894, an insurrection of some magnitude broke out in Korea, and in response to an appeal from the Royal family, China sent twenty-five hundred troops, who went into camp at Asan, on the southwest coast of the peninsula. Notice was duly given to the Tokyo Government, which now decided that Japan’s vital interests as well as the cause of civilization in the East required that an end must be put to Korea’s dangerous misrule and to China’s arbitrary interference. Japan did not claim for herself anything that she was not willing to accord to China. But the Tokyo statesmen were sensible that to ask their conservative neighbour to promote in the Peninsular Kingdom a progressive programme which she had always steadily rejected and despised in her own case, must prove a chimerical attempt, if ordinary diplomatic methods alone were used. Accordingly, on receipt of Peking’s notice as to the sending of troops to the peninsula, Japan gave corresponding notice on her own part, and thus July, 1894, saw a Chinese force encamped at Asan and a Japanese force in the vicinity of Seoul.
In having recourse to military aid, China’s nominal purpose was to quell the Tonghak insurrection, and Japan’s motive was to obtain a position such as would strengthen her demand for drastic treatment of Korea’s malady. In giving notice of the despatch of troops, China described Korea as her “tributary State,” thus emphasizing a contention which at once created an impossible situation. During nearly twenty years Japan had treated Korea as her own equal, in accordance with the terms of the treaty of 1876, and she could not now agree that the Peninsular Kingdom should be officially classed as a tributary of China. Her protests, however, were contemptuously ignored, and Chinese statesmen continued to apply the offensive appellation to Korea, while at the same time they asserted the right of limiting the number of troops sent by Japan to the peninsula as well as the manner of their employment.
Still desirous of preserving the peace, Japan proposed a union between herself and China for the purpose of restoring order in Korea and amending that country’s administration. China refused. She even expressed supercilious surprise that Japan, while asserting Korea’s independence, should suggest the idea of peremptorily reforming its administration. The Tokyo Cabinet now announced that the Japanese troops should not be withdrawn without “some understanding that would guarantee the future peace, order, and good government of Korea,” and as China still refused to come to such an understanding, Japan undertook the work single-handed.
The Tonghak rebellion, which Chinese troops were originally sent to quell, had died of inanition before they landed. The troops, therefore, had been withdrawn. But China kept them in Korea, her avowed reason being the presence of the Japanese military force near Seoul. In these circumstances, Peking was notified that a despatch of re-enforcements on China’s side must be construed as an act of hostility. Notwithstanding this notice, China not only sent a further body of troops by sea to encamp at Asan, but also despatched an army overland across the Yalu. These proceedings precipitated hostilities. Three Chinese warships, convoying a transport with twelve hundred soldiers on board, met and opened fire on two Japanese cruisers. The result was signal. One of the Chinese warships was captured, another was so riddled with shot that she had to be beached and abandoned; the third escaped in a dilapidated condition, and the transport, refusing to surrender, was sent to the bottom. These things happened on the 25th of July, 1894, and war was declared by each empire six days subsequently.
The Japanese took the initiative. They despatched from Seoul a column of troops and routed the Chinese entrenched at Asan, many of whom fled northward to Pyong-yang, a town on the Tadong River, memorable as the scene of a battle between a Chinese and a Japanese army in 1592. Pyong-yang offered great facilities for defence. The Chinese massed there a force of seventeen thousand men, and made preparations for a decisive contest, building parapets, mounting guns, and strengthening the position by every device of modern warfare. Their infantry had the advantage of being armed with repeating rifles, and the configuration of the ground offered little cover for an attacking army. Against this strong position the Japanese moved in two columns; one marching northward from Seoul, the other striking westward from Yuensan. Forty days elapsed before the Japanese forces came into action, and one day’s fighting sufficed to carry all the Chinese positions, the attacking armies having only seven hundred casualties and the defenders, six thousand.
The next day, September 17th, Japan achieved an equally conspicuous success at sea. Fourteen Chinese warships and six torpedo-boats, steering homeward after convoying a fleet of transports to the mouth of the Yalu River, fell in with eleven Japanese war-vessels cruising in the Yellow Sea. The Chinese squadron was not seeking an encounter. Their commanding officer did not appear to appreciate the value of sea-power. His fleet included two armoured battle-ships of over seven thousand tons’ displacement, whereas the Japanese had nothing stronger than belted cruisers of four thousand. Therefore a little enterprise on China’s part might have severed Japan’s maritime communications and compelled her to evacuate Korea. The Chinese, however, used their war-vessels as convoys only, keeping them carefully in port when no such duty was to be performed. It is evident that, as a matter of choice, they would have avoided the battle of the Yalu, though when compelled to fight they fought stoutly. After a sharp engagement, four of their vessels were sunk, and the remainder steamed into Weihaiwei, their retreat being covered by torpedo-boats.
By this victory the maritime route to China lay open to Japan. She could now attack Talien, Port Arthur, and Weihaiwei, naval stations on the Liaotung and Shantung peninsulas, where strong permanent fortifications had been built under the direction of European experts. These forts fell one by one before the assaults of the Japanese troops as easily as the castle of Pyong-yang had fallen. Only by the remains of the Chinese fleet at Weihaiwei was a stubborn resistance made, under the command of Admiral Ting. But, after the entire squadron of torpedo craft had been captured, and after three of the largest Chinese ships had been sent to the bottom by Japanese torpedoes, and one had met the same fate by gunfire, the remainder surrendered, and their gallant commander, Admiral Ting, rejecting all overtures from the Japanese, committed suicide.
The fall of Weihaiwei ended the war. It had lasted seven and a half months, and during that time the Japanese had operated with five columns aggregating 120,000 men. “One of these columns marched northward from Seoul, won the battle of Pyong-yang, advanced to the Yalu, forced its way into Manchuria, and moved towards Mukden by Feng-hwang, fighting several minor engagements, and conducting the greater part of its operations amid deep snow in midwinter. The second column diverged westward from the Yalu, and, marching through southern Manchuria, reached Haicheng, whence it advanced to the capture of Niuchwang. The third landed on the Liaotung peninsula, and, turning southward, carried Talien and Port Arthur by assault. The fourth moved up the Liaotung peninsula, and, having seized Kaiping, advanced against Niuchwang, where it joined hands with the second column. The fifth crossed from Port Arthur to Weihaiwei, which it captured.” In all these operations the Japanese casualties totalled 1005 killed and 4922 wounded; the deaths from disease aggregated 16,866, and the monetary expenditure amounted to twenty millions sterling, about $100,000,000. It had been almost universally believed that, although Japan might have some success at the outset, she would ultimately be shattered by impact with the enormous mass and the overwhelming resources of China. Never was forecast more signally contradicted by events.
CONCLUSION OF PEACE
Li Hung-chang, viceroy of Pehchili, whose troops had been chiefly engaged during the war, and who had been mainly responsible for the diplomacy that had led up to it, was sent by China as plenipotentiary to discuss terms of peace. The conference took place at Shimonoseki, Japan being represented by Marquis (afterwards Prince) Ito, and on the 17th of April, 1895, the treaty was signed. It recognized the independence of Korea; ceded to Japan the littoral of Manchuria lying south of a line drawn from the mouth of the river Anping to the estuary of the Liao, together with the islands of Formosa and the Pescadores; pledged China to pay an indemnity of two hundred million taels; provided for the occupation of Weihaiwei by Japan pending payment of that sum; secured the opening of four new places to foreign trade and the right of foreigners to engage in manufacturing enterprises in China, and provided for a treaty of commerce and amity between the two empires, based on the lines of China’s treaty with Occidental powers.
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE
Scarcely was the ink dry upon this agreement when Russia, Germany, and France presented a joint note to the Tokyo Government, urging that the permanent occupation of the Manchurian littoral by Japan would endanger peace. Japan had no choice but to bow to this mandate. The Chinese campaign had exhausted her treasury as well as her supplies of war material, and it would have been hopeless to oppose a coalition of three great European powers. She showed no sign of hesitation. On the very day of the ratified treaty’s publication, the Emperor of Japan issued a rescript, in which, after avowing his devotion to the cause of peace, he “yielded to the dictates of magnanimity, and accepted the advice of the three powers.”
But although the Tokyo Government sought to soften the situation by the grace of speedy acquiescence, the effect produced upon the nation was profound. There was no difficulty in appreciating the motives of Russia and France. It was natural that the former should object to the propinquity of a warlike people like the Japanese, and it was natural that France should remain true to her ally. But Germany’s case defied interpretation. She had no interest in the ownership of Manchuria, and she professed herself a warm friend of Japan. It seemed, therefore, that she had joined in snatching from the lips of the Japanese the fruits of their victory simply for the sake of establishing some shadowy title to Russia’s good-will.
THE CHINESE CRISIS OF 1900
In the second half of the year 1900 an anti-foreign outbreak, known as the “Boxer Rebellion,” broke out in the province of Shantung, and, spreading thence to Pehchili, produced a situation of imminent peril for the foreign communities of Peking and Tientsin. No Western power could intervene with sufficient promptness. Japan alone was within easy reach of the commotion. But Japan held back. She had fully fathomed the distrust with which the growth of her military strength had inspired some European nations, and she appreciated the wisdom of not seeming to grasp at an opportunity for armed display. In fact, she awaited a clear mandate from Europe and America, and, on receiving it, she rapidly sent a division (20,000 men) to Pehchili. Tientsin was relieved first, and then a column of troops provided by several powers, the Japanese in the van, marched to the succour of Peking. In this campaign the Japanese greatly enhanced their belligerent reputation as they fought under the eyes of competent military critics. Moreover, after the relief of the legations in Peking, they withdrew one-half of their forces, and they subsequently cooperated heartily with Western powers in negotiating peace terms, thus disarming the suspicions with which they had been regarded at first.
WAR WITH RUSSIA
From the time (1895) when the three-power mandate dictated to Japan a cardinal alteration of the Shimonoseki treaty, Japanese statesmen concluded that their country must one day cross swords with Russia. Not a few Occidental publicists shared that view, but the great majority, arguing that the little Island Empire of the Far East would never risk annihilation by such an encounter, believed that forbearance sufficient to avert serious trouble would always be forthcoming on Japan’s side. Yet neither geographical nor historical conditions warranted that confidence. The Sea of Japan, which, on the east, washes the shores of the Japanese islands and on the west those of Russia and Korea, has virtually only two routes communicating with the Pacific Ocean. One is in the north, namely, the Tsugaru Strait; the other is in the south, namely, the channel between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese island of Kyushu. Tsugaru Strait is practically under Japan’s complete control; she can close it at any moment with mines. But the channel between the Korean peninsula and Kyushu has a width of 102 miles, and would therefore be a fine open seaway were it free from islands. Midway in this channel, however, lie the twin islands of Tsushima, and the space that separates them from Japan is narrowed by another island, Iki. Tsushima and Iki have belonged to Japan from time immemorial, and thus the avenues from the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Japan are controlled by the Japanese empire. In other words, access to the Pacific from Korea’s eastern and southern coasts, and access to the Pacific from Russia’s Maritime Province depend upon Japan’s good-will.
These geographical conditions had no great concern for Korea in former days. But with Russia the case was different. Vladivostok, the principal port in the Far East, lay at the southern extremity of the Maritime Province. Freedom of passage by the Tsushima Strait was therefore a matter of vital importance, and to secure it one of two things was essential, namely, that she herself should possess a fortified port on the Korean side, or that Japan should be restrained from acquiring such a port. Here, then, was a strong inducement for Russian aggression in Korea. When the eastward movement of the great northern power brought it to the mouth of the Amur, the acquisition of Nikolaievsk for a naval basis was the immediate reward. But Nikolaievsk, lying in an inhospitable region, far away from all the main routes of the world’s commerce, offered itself only as a stepping-stone to further acquisitions. To push southward from this new port became an immediate object.
There lay an obstacle in the way. The long strip of seacoast from the mouth of the Amur to the Korean frontier—an area then called the Usuri region because that river forms part of its western boundary—belonged to China, and she, having conceded much to Russia in the way of the Amur, showed no inclination to make further concessions in the matter of the Usuri. She was persuaded to agree, however, that the region should be regarded as common property, pending a convenient opportunity for clear delimitation. That opportunity soon came. Seizing the moment (1860) when China had been beaten to her knees by England and France, Russia secured the final cession of the Usuri region, which then became the Maritime Province of Siberia. Then Russia shifted her naval basis in the Pacific to a point ten degrees south from Nikolaievsk, namely, Vladivostok. Immediately after this transfer an attempt was made to obtain possession of Tsushima. A Russian man-of-war proceeded thither, and quietly began to establish a settlement which would soon have constituted a title of ownership had not Great Britain interfered. The same instinct that led Russia from the mouth of the Amur to Vladivostok prompted the acquisition of Saghalien also, which, as already related, was accomplished in 1875.
But all this effort did not procure for Russia an unobstructed avenue from Vladivostok to the Pacific or an ice-free port in the Far East. In Korea seemed to lie a facile hope of saving the maritime results of Russia’s great trans-Asian march from Lake Baikal to the Maritime Province and to Saghalien. Korea seemed to offer every facility for such an enterprise. Her people were unprogressive; her resources undeveloped; her self-defensive capacities insignificant; her government corrupt. On the other hand, it could not be expected that Japan and China would acquiesce in any aggressions against their neighbour, Korea, and it became necessary that Russia should seek some other line of communication supplementing the Amur waterway and the long ocean route. Therefore she set about the construction of a railway across Asia. This railway had to be carried along the northern bank of the Amur where engineering and economic difficulties abound. Moreover, the river makes a huge semicircular sweep northward, and a railway following its northern bank to Vladivostok must make the same detour. If, on the contrary, the road could be carried south of the river along the diameter of the semicircle, it would be a straight, and therefore a shorter, line, technically easier and economically better. To follow this diameter, however, would involve passing through Chinese territory, namely, Manchuria, and an excuse for soliciting China’s permission was not in sight. In 1894, however, war broke out between Japan and China, and in its sequel Japan passed into possession of the southern littoral of Manchuria, which meant that Russia could never get nearer to the Pacific than Vladivostok, unless she swept Japan from her path. It is here, doubtless, that we must find Russia’s true motive in inducing Germany and France to unite with her for the purpose of ousting Japan from Manchuria. The “notice to quit” gave for reasons that the tenure of the Manchurian littoral by Japan would menace the security of the Chinese capital, would render the independence of Korea illusory, and would constitute an obstacle to the peace of the Orient. Only one saving clause offered for Japan—to obtain from China a guarantee that no portion of Manchuria should thereafter be leased or ceded to a foreign State. But France warned the Tokyo Government that to press for such a guarantee would offend Russia, and Russia declared that, for her part, she entertained no design of trespassing in Manchuria. Thus, Japan had no choice but to surrender quietly the main fruits of her victory. She did so, and proceeded to double her army and treble her navy.
RUSSIA’S AND GERMANY’S REWARDS
As a recompense for the assistance nominally rendered to China in the above matter, Russia obtained permission in Peking to divert her trans-Asian railway from the huge bend of the Amur to the straight line through Manchuria. Neither Germany nor France received any immediate compensation. But three years later, by way of indemnity for the murder of two missionaries by a Chinese mob, Germany seized a portion of the province of Shantung, and forthwith Russia obtained a lease of the Liaotung peninsula, from which she had driven Japan in 1895. This act she followed by extorting from China permission to construct a branch of the trans-Asian railway from north to south, that is to say from Harbin through Mukden to Talien and Port Arthur. Russia’s maritime aspirations had now assumed a radically altered phase. Hitherto her programme had been to push southward from Vladivostok along the coast of Korea, but she had now suddenly leaped Korea and found access to the Pacific by the Liaotung peninsula. Nothing was wanting to establish her as practical mistress of Manchuria except a plausible excuse for garrisoning the place. Such an excuse was furnished by the Boxer rising, in 1900. The conclusion of that complication found her in practical occupation of the whole region. But here her diplomacy fell somewhat from its usually high standard. Imagining that the Chinese could be persuaded, or intimidated, to any concession, she proposed a convention virtually recognizing her title to Manchuria.
JAPAN’S ATTITUDE
Japan watched all these things with profound anxiety. If there were any reality in the dangers which Russia, Germany, and France had declared to be incidental to Japanese occupation of a part of Manchuria, the same dangers must be doubly incidental to Russian occupation of the whole of Manchuria. There were other considerations, also. The reasons already adduced show that the independence of Korea was an object of supreme solicitude to Japan. It was to establish that independence that she fought with China, in 1894, and the same motive led her after the war to annex the Manchurian littoral adjacent to Korea’s northern frontier. If Russia came into possession of all Manchuria, her subsequent absorption of Korea would be almost inevitable. Manchuria is larger than France and the United Kingdom put together. The addition of such an immense area to Russia’s East Asiatic dominions, together with its littoral on the Gulf of Pehchili and the Yellow Sea, would necessitate a corresponding expansion of her naval force in the Far East. With the exception of Port Arthur and Talien, however, the Manchurian coast does not offer any convenient naval base. It is only in the harbours of southern Korea that such bases can be found. In short, without Korea, Russia’s East Asian extension would have been economically incomplete and strategically defective.
If it be asked why, apart from history and national sentiment, Japan should object to Russia in Korea, the answer is, first, because there would thus be planted almost within cannon-shot of her shores a power of enormous strength and traditional ambition; secondly, because whatever voice in Manchuria’s destiny Russia derived from her railway, the same voice in Korea’s destiny was possessed by Japan, as the sole owner of the railways in the Korean peninsula; thirdly, that whereas Russia had an altogether insignificant share in the foreign commerce of Korea and scarcely ten bona fide settlers, Japan did the greater part of the oversea trade and had tens of thousands of settlers; fourthly, that if Russia’s dominions stretched uninterruptedly from the sea of Okhotsk to the Gulf of Pehchili, her ultimate absorption of northern China would be inevitable, and fifthly, that such domination and such absorption would involve the practical closure of all that immense region to the commerce and industry of every Western nation except Russia.
This last proposition did not rest solely on the fact that in opposing artificial barriers to free competition lies Russia’s sole hope of utilizing, to her own benefit, any commercial opportunities brought within her reach. It rested, also, on the fact that Russia had objected to foreign settlement at the Manchurian marts recently opened, by Japan’s treaty with China, to American and Japanese subjects. Without settlements, trade at those marts would be impossible, and thus Russia had constructively announced that there should be no trade but the Russian, if she could prevent it. Against such dangers Japan would have been justified in adopting any measure of self-protection. She had foreseen them for six years and had been strengthening herself to avert them. But she wanted peace. She wanted to develop her material resources and to accumulate some measure of wealth without which she must remain insignificant among the nations.
Two pacific programmes offered and she adopted them both. Russia, instead of trusting time to consolidate her tenure of Manchuria, had made the mistake of pragmatically importuning China for a conventional title. If, then, Peking could be strengthened to resist this demand, some arrangement of a distinctly terminable nature might be made. The United States, Great Britain, and Japan, joining hands for that purpose, did succeed in so far stiffening China’s backbone that her show of resolution finally induced Russia to sign a treaty pledging herself to withdraw her troops from Manchuria in three installments, each step of evacuation to be accomplished by a fixed date. That was one of the pacific programmes. The other suggested itself in connexion with the new commercial treaties which China had agreed to negotiate in the sequel of the Boxer troubles. These documents contained clauses providing for the opening of three places in Manchuria to foreign trade. It seemed a reasonable hope that the powers, having secured commercial access to Manchuria by covenant with its sovereign, would not allow Russia to restrict arbitrarily their privileges. Both of these hopes were disappointed. When the time came for evacuation, Russia behaved as though no promise had been given. She proposed new conditions which would have strengthened her grasp of Manchuria instead of loosening it.
NEGOTIATION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND JAPAN
China being powerless to offer any practical protest, and Japan’s interest ranking next in order of importance, the Tokyo Government approached Russia direct. They did not ask for anything that could hurt her pride or impair her position. Appreciating fully the economical status she had acquired in Manchuria by large outlays of capital, they offered to recognize that status, provided that Russia would extend similar recognition to Japan’s status in Korea; would promise, in common with Japan, to respect the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of China and Korea, and would be a party to a mutual engagement that all nations should have equal commercial and industrial opportunities in Manchuria and in the Korean peninsula. In a word, they invited Russia to subscribe the policy originally enunciated by the United States and Great Britain, the policy of the open door and of the integrity of the Chinese and Korean empires.
Thus commenced negotiations which lasted five and a half months. Japan gradually reduced her demands to a minimum. Russia never made any appreciable reduction of hers. She refused to listen to Japan for one moment about Manchuria. Eight years previously, Japan had been in military possession of the littoral of Manchuria when Russia, with the assistance of Germany and France, had expelled her for reasons which concerned Japan much more than they concerned any of these three powers. Now, Russia had the assurance to declare that none of these things concerned Japan at all. The utmost she would admit was Japan’s partial right to be heard about Korea. At the same time, she herself commenced a series of aggressions in northern Korea. That was not all. While she studiously deferred her answers to Japan’s proposals, and while she protracted the negotiations to an extent visibly contemptuous, she hastened to make substantial additions to her fleet and her army in far-eastern Asia. It was impossible to mistake her purpose. She intended to yield nothing, but to prepare such a parade of force that her obduracy would command submission. The only alternatives for Japan were war or permanent effacement in Asia. She chose war.
EXTRATERRITORIAL JURISDICTION
Before passing to the story of this war, it is necessary to refer to two incidents of Japan’s foreign relations, both of which preceded her struggle with Russia. The first was the restoration of her judicial autonomy. It has always been regarded as axiomatic that the subjects or citizens of Western countries, when they travel or reside in Oriental territories, should be exempted from the penalties and processes of the latter’s criminal laws. In other words, there is reserved to a Christian the privilege, when within the territories of a pagan State, of being tried for penal offences by Christian judges. In civil cases the jurisdiction is divided, the question at issue being adjudicated by a tribunal of the defendant’s nationality; but in criminal cases jurisdiction is wholly reserved. Therefore powers making treaties with Oriental nations establish within the latter’s borders consular courts which exercise what is called “extraterritorial jurisdiction.” This system was, of course, pursued in Japan’s case. It involved the confinement of the foreign residents to settlements grouped around the sites of their consular courts; for it would plainly have been imprudent that such residents should have free access to provincial districts remote from the only tribunals competent to control them.
This provision, though inserted without difficulty in the early treaties with Japan, provoked much indignation among the conservative statesmen in Kyoto. Accordingly, no sooner had the Meiji Restoration been effected than an embassy was despatched to the Occident to negotiate for a revision of the treaties so as to remove the clause about consular jurisdiction, and to restore the customs tariff to the figure at which it had stood prior to Sir Harry Parkes’ naval demonstration at Hyogo. The Japanese Government was entitled to raise this question in 1871, for the treaties were textually subject to revision in that year. No time was lost in despatching the embassy. But its failure was a foregone conclusion. The conditions originally necessitating extraterritorial jurisdiction had not, by 1871 undergone any change justifying its abolition. It is not to be denied, on the other hand, that the consular courts themselves invited criticism. Some of the great Western powers had organized competent tribunals with expert judicial officials, but others, whose trade with Japan was comparatively insignificant, were content to entrust consular duties to merchants, who not only lacked legal training but were also themselves engaged in the commercial transactions upon which they might, at any moment, be required to adjudicate magisterially.
ENGRAVING: DANJURO, A FAMOUS ACTOR, AS BENKEI IN KANJINCHO (A PLAY)
It cannot be contended that this obviously imperfect system was disfigured by many abuses. On the whole, it worked passably well, and if its organic faults helped to discredit it, there is no denying that it saved the Japanese from complications which would inevitably have arisen had they been entrusted with jurisdiction which they were not prepared to exercise satisfactorily. Moreover, the system had vicarious usefulness; for the ardent desire of Japanese patriots to recover the judicial autonomy, which is a fundamental attribute of every sovereign State, impelled them to recast their laws and reorganize their law courts with a degree of diligence which would otherwise have probably been less conspicuous. Twelve years of this work, carried on with the aid of thoroughly competent foreign jurists, placed Japan in possession of codes of criminal and civil law in which the best features of European jurisprudence were applied to the conditions and usages of Japan. Then, in 1883, Japan renewed her proposal for the abolition of consular jurisdiction, and by way of compensation she promised to throw the country completely open and to remove all restrictions hitherto imposed on foreign trade, travel, and residence within her realm.
But this was a problem against whose liberal solution the international prejudice of the West was strongly enlisted. No Oriental State had ever previously sought such recognition, and the Occident, without exception, was extremely reluctant to entrust the lives and properties of its subjects and citizens to the keeping of a “pagan” people. Not unnaturally the foreigners resident in Japan, who would have been directly affected by the change, protested against it with great vehemence. Many of them, though not averse to trusting Japan, saw that her reforms had been consummated with celerity amounting to haste, and a great majority fought simply for consular jurisdiction as a privilege of inestimable value, not to be surrendered without the utmost deliberation. The struggle that ensued between foreign distrust and Japanese aspirations often developed painful phases, and did much to intensify the feeling of antagonism which had existed between the Japanese and the foreign residents at the outset and which even to-day has not wholly disappeared. The Government and citizens of the United States of America never failed to show sympathy with Japanese aspirations in this matter, and, as a general rule, “foreign tourists and publicists discussed the problem liberally and fairly, perhaps because, unlike the foreign communities resident in Japan, they had no direct interest in its solution.”
The end was not reached until 1894. Then Great Britain agreed that from July, 1899, jurisdiction over all British subjects within the confines of Japan should be entrusted to Japanese tribunals, provided that the new Japanese codes of law should have been in operation during at least one year before the surrender of jurisdiction. Japan, on her side, promised to throw the whole country open from the same date, removing all limitations upon trade, travel, and residence of foreigners.
Tariff autonomy had been an almost equal object of Japanese ambition, and it was arranged that she should recover it after a period of twelve years, an increased scale of import duties being applied in the interval. It will be observed that Great Britain took the lead in abandoning the old system. It was meet that she should do so; for, in consequence of her preponderating commercial interests, she had stood at the head of the combination of powers by which the irksome conditions were originally imposed upon Japan. The other Occidental States followed her example with more or less celerity, and the foreign residents, now that nothing was to be gained by continuing the struggle, showed clearly that they intended to bow gracefully to the inevitable. The Japanese also took some conspicuous steps.
“An Imperial rescript declared in unequivocal terms that it was the sovereign’s policy and desire to abolish all distinctions between natives and foreigners, and that, by fully carrying out the friendly purpose of the treaties, his people would best consult his wishes, maintain the character of the nation, and promote its prestige. The premier and other ministers of State issued instructions to the effect that the responsibility now devolved on the Government, and the duty on the people, of enabling foreigners to reside confidently and contentedly in every part of the country. Even the chief Buddhist prelates addressed to the priests and parishioners of their dioceses injunctions pointing out that freedom of conscience being now guaranteed by the Constitution, men professing alien creeds must be treated as courteously as the disciples of Buddhism and must enjoy the same privileges.”*
*Brinkley, article “Japan,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
It may here be stated once for all that Japan’s recovery of her judicial autonomy has not been attended by any of the disastrous results freely predicted at one time. Her laws are excellent, and her judiciary is competent and just.
FIRST ANGLO-JAPANESE ALLIANCE
The second of the two incidents alluded to above was an alliance between England and Japan, signed on January 30, 1902. The preamble of this agreement—the first of its kind ever concluded between England and an Oriental power—affirmed that the contracting parties were solely actuated by a desire to preserve the status quo and the general peace of the Far East; that they were both specially interested in maintaining the independence and territorial integrity of the empires of China and Korea, and in securing equal opportunities in these countries for all nations; that they mutually recognized it as admissible for either of the contracting parties to take such measures as might be indispensable to safeguard these interests against a threat of aggressive action by any other power, or against disturbances in China or Korea, and that, if one of the contracting parties became involved in war in defence of these interests, the other should maintain strict neutrality and endeavour to prevent any third power from joining in hostilities against its ally. Finally, should a third power join in such hostilities, then the other contracting party promised to come to the assistance of its ally, to conduct the war in common, and to make peace by mutual agreement only. The alliance was to hold good for five years from the date of signature, but if either ally was engaged in war at such time, the alliance was to continue until the conclusion of peace.
It is unnecessary to dwell upon the influence exerted by this compact on the Russo-Japanese war. It kept the field clear for Japan and guaranteed her against a repetition of such a combination as that which must be regarded as the remote cause of the struggle.
THE EARLY PHASES OF THE WAR
Japan’s great problem in crossing swords with Russia was to obtain a safe avenue for her troops over the sea. Russia might at once have gained an overwhelming advantage had she seized and controlled the lines of communication between the Japanese islands and the continent of Asia. Her strategists can scarcely have failed to appreciate that fact, and would doubtless have acted accordingly had they obtained a few months’ leisure to mass an overwhelmingly strong fleet in the seas of China and Japan. They had such a fleet actually in esse; for, at the moment when war broke out, the Russian squadrons assembled in the East, or en route thither, comprised no less than fifty-nine fighting ships, mounting 1350 guns and manned by 18,000 men. But these figures included the Mediterranean squadron which, surprised by the outbreak of hostilities, abandoned its journey to the Pacific. Obviously, Japan’s wisest course was to anticipate the combination of Russia’s sea forces, and consciousness of that fact operated to hasten the current of events.
Port Arthur, where the bulk of the Russian Pacific squadron lay, is somewhat difficult of ingress and egress. On January 31, 1904, the operation of extracting the ships and parading them outside was commenced, being brought to a conclusion on February 3rd, whereafter the squadron steamed out to sea, and, having made a short cruise off the coast of the Shantung promontory, returned to its position on the following day. The fleet taking part in this manoeuvre consisted of twenty-six ships, and the whole Russian naval force then in eastern Asia comprised seven battle-ships, four armoured cruisers, seven protected cruisers, four gunboats, six sloops, twenty-five destroyers, two mining transports, and fourteen first-class torpedo-boats.
The Japanese, on their side, had six battle-ships, eight armoured cruisers, thirteen protected cruisers, fourteen small cruisers, nineteen destroyers, and eighty-five torpedo-boats. This enumeration shows a numerical superiority on the Japanese side, but in fighting capacity the two fleets were nearly equal. For, though the Russians possessed seven battle-ships to six Japanese, the latter had better gun-protection and greater weight of broadside fire than the former; and though Japan could muster eight armoured cruisers against Russia’s four, the latter were supplemented by five protected cruisers which ranked far above anything of the same class on the Japanese side.
THE FIRST NAVAL OPERATION
When the Russian ships returned on the 4th of February from their cruise off the Shantung promontory, they took up their stations outside Port Arthur, all the harbour lights and beacons being left in position, and no special precaution being taken except that a patrol of three torpedo-boats was sent out. Yet the Russians should have appreciated the presence of danger. For, on the 6th of February, Japan had broken off the negotiations in St. Petersburg, and had given official information of her intention to take measures for protecting her menaced interests. That signified war and nothing but war, and the “Official Messenger” of the same evening published the intimation, which was immediately communicated to Admiral Alexieff at Port Arthur.
The Russian fleet was then divided into three squadrons. The largest body lay off Port Arthur, and two very much smaller squadrons were posted, one at Chemulpo on the west coast of Korea, and another at Vladivostok. It is obvious that such division of the fleet on the eve of hostilities should have been carefully avoided. The ships should all have been held together with an extensive network of scouts so as to enable them swiftly and strongly to fall upon any Japanese transports carrying troops to the mainland, or to meet effectually and crush any attempt of the Japanese squadrons to obtain command of the sea.
On the night of February 8th-9th, three Japanese squadrons of destroyers, aggregating ten vessels, steamed across a calm, moonlit sea and delivered a torpedo attack on the Russian squadron at Port Arthur, the result being that the battle-ships Retvisan and Tsarevitch together with the cruiser Pallada were holed. These battle-ships were the most powerful vessels in the Russian squadron, and the Pallada was a first-class protected cruiser of 6630 tons’ displacement. The Japanese destroyers had left Sasebo on the 6th of February and they returned thither uninjured, having materially weakened the Russian fleet. On the day following this surprise, Admiral Togo, the Japanese commander-in-chief, engaged the remains of the Russian squadron with the heavy guns of his battle-ships at a range of eight thousand yards, and succeeded in inflicting some injury on the battle-ship Poltava, the protected cruisers Diana and Askold, and a second-class cruiser Novik. The Russians ultimately retreated towards the harbour with the intention of drawing the Japanese under closer fire of the land batteries, but the Japanese fleet declined to follow after them, and, instead, steamed away. Three days later (February 11th) another disaster overtook the Russians. The Yenisei, one of the two mining-transports included in their fleet, struck a mine and sank so rapidly in Talien Bay that ninety-six of her crew perished. The Japanese had no part at all in this catastrophe. It was purely accidental.
THE CHEMULPO AFFAIR
While these things were happening at Port Arthur, a squadron of the Japanese navy, under Admiral Uryu, escorted a number of transports to Chemulpo, the port of the Korean capital, Seoul. There the Russian protected cruiser Variag (6500 tons) together with the gunboat Korietz and the transport Sungari were lying. It does not appear that Admiral Uryu’s prime object was to engage these Russian ships. But Chemulpo having been chosen as the principal landing-place of the Japanese army corps which was to operate in Korea, it was, of course, imperative that the harbour should be cleared of Russian war-vessels. On February 8th, the Russians at Chemulpo were surprised by a summons from Admiral Uryu to leave the port or undergo bombardment at their anchorage. The vessels stood out bravely to sea, and after an engagement lasting thirty-five minutes at ranges varying from five to ten thousand yards, they were so badly injured that they returned to the port and were sunk by their own crews, together with the transport Sungari. The moral effect of the destruction of these vessels was incalculable.
DECLARATION OF WAR
On the 10th of February, the Czar and the Mikado respectively issued declarations of war. The former laid stress upon Russia’s pacific intentions in proposing revision of the agreements already existing between the two empires with regard to Korean affairs, and accused the Japanese of making a sudden attack on the Russian squadron at Port Arthur “without previously notifying that the rupture of diplomatic relations implied the beginning of warlike action.” The Japanese declaration insisted that the integrity of Korea was a matter of the gravest concern to Japan, inasmuch as the separate existence of the former was essential to the safety of the latter, and charged that “Russia, in disrespect of her solemn treaty pledges to China and of her repeated assurances to other powers, was still in occupation of Manchuria, had consolidated and strengthened her hold upon those provinces, and was bent upon their final annexation.” With regard to Russia’s accusation against Japan of drawing the sword without due notice, a distinguished British publicist made the following comment in the columns of The Times (London):
“Far from thinking the Japanese attack on the night of February 8th, two full days after the announcement of the intention to take action, was an exception to, or a deviation from, tradition and precedent, we should rather count ourselves fortunate if our enemy, in the next naval war we have to wage, does not strike two days before blazoning forth his intention, instead of two days after. The tremendous and decisive results of success for the national cause are enough to break down all the restraining influences of the code of international law and Christian morality.”
THE FIRST MILITARY OPERATIONS
From the moment when war became inevitable, the problem of absorbing interest was to determine Russia’s strategy, and it was ultimately seen that the two main groups of her forces were to be posted at Port Arthur and on the Yalu; the latter to resist an advance from Korea, and the former to defend the Liaotung peninsula, which constituted the key of the Russian position. Between the mouth of the Yalu and the Liaotung peninsula, a distance of 120 miles, there were many points where raiding parties might have been landed to cut the Russian railway. Against this danger, flying squadrons of Cossacks were employed. After the destruction of the three Russian vessels in Chemulpo and the crippling of the Port Arthur squadron, Japanese transports entered the former port and quietly landed some three thousand troops, which advanced immediately upon Seoul and took possession of it.
From that time there could be no doubt that the intention of the Japanese was to make their first attack upon the enemy by marching up the Korean peninsula, and that the capital of Korea was chosen for a base of operations because of climatic considerations. Chemulpo, however, was not the only landing-place. Fusan also served for that purpose, as subsequently did also Chinnampo, an inlet on the west coast of the peninsula. The distance from the port of Fusan to the Yalu River is four hundred miles, in round numbers, and the roads are very bad throughout the whole country. Hence the advance of the Japanese, which was made in a leisurely manner with the utmost circumspection and attention to detail, involved so much time that April had drawn to its close before the troops deployed on the banks of the Yalu. They consisted of three divisions constituting an army corps, and each division had a ration-strength of 19,000 men with a combatant strength of 14,000 sabres and rifles and thirty-six field-guns. It may be assumed, therefore, that when the Japanese First Army under General (afterwards Count) Kuroki reached the Yalu, it had a fighting-strength of between forty and fifty thousand men. There had practically been no collision during the interval of the advance from the southern extremity of the peninsula to its northern boundary. It is true that, on March 28th, a squadron of Cossacks attempted to surprise the Japanese cavalry at Chong-ju, but the essay proved a failure, and the Cossacks were driven back upon Wiju, which they evacuated without any further struggle.
The Russian plan of operations did not originally contemplate a serious stand at the Yalu. The idea was to retire gradually, drawing the Japanese into Manchuria towards the railway, and engaging them in the exceedingly difficult country crowned by the Motien Mountains. But at the last moment General Kuropatkin, Russian commander-in-chief in Manchuria, issued orders to General Sassulitch, commander of the Second Siberian Army Corps, to hold the line of the Yalu with all his strength. Sassulitch could muster for this purpose only five regiments and one battalion of infantry; forty field-guns; eight machine-guns, and some Cossacks—twenty thousand combatants, approximately. Kuroki disposed his troops so that their front extended some twenty miles along the Yalu, the centre being at Kiuliencheng, a walled town standing about 180 feet above the river. From this point southward, the right, or Manchurian, bank has a considerable command over the left, and at Kiuliencheng a tributary stream, called the Ai, joins the main river, “which thenceforth widens from 4000 to 7000 yards and runs in three channels between the islands and the mainland. The central channel is navigable by small craft, and the other channels are fordable waist-deep. The Ai River is also fordable in many places during the spring.” On the right bank of the Yalu, at the point of its junction with the Ai, the ground rises so as to command the position taken by the Russians.
The plan of the Japanese commander was to threaten an attack on the lower radius of the river; to throw two divisions against Kiuliencheng, and to use the remaining division in a wide flanking movement, crossing the river higher up. The battle took place on Sunday, the 1st of May. During the preceding nights, the Japanese placed a strong force of artillery in cleverly masked batteries, and under cover of these guns, threw seven bridges across the river, the highest upstream being thirteen miles above Kiuliencheng and the lower two being directed to the centre of the Russian position. General Kuroki then telegraphed to Tokyo that he proposed to attack at dawn on Sunday, his plan being to march one division across the fords of the Ai River, and to employ the other two, one in crumpling up the Russian left, the other in attacking Antung, where a large Russian force was in position. This programme was accurately carried out. The Japanese infantry forded the Ai breast-deep, and, swarming up the heights, drove the Russians from these strong positions. Meanwhile, the Japanese guards’ division had crossed on the left and directed its march upon Antung, while the remaining division had completely turned the Russian left flank. The fiercest struggle occurred at Homutang, where a Russian regiment and a battery of artillery made a splendid stand to save their comrades at Antung from being cut off.
The casualties on the Japanese side were 318 killed, including five officers, and 783 wounded, including thirty-three officers. The Russian casualties numbered 1363 killed and 613 prisoners, but the detail of wounded was not published. The Japanese captured twenty-one quick-firing field-guns, eight machine-guns, 1021 rifles and a quantity of ammunition, etc. The moral result of this battle can hardly be overestimated. It had never been seriously believed in Europe that a Russian army could be conquered by a Japanese in a fair fight, and probably that incredulity influenced Kuropatkin when he ordered Sassulitch to defy strategical principles by attempting to hold a radically defective position against a greatly superior force. In a moment, the Japanese were crowned with military laurels and placed on a pedestal for the world to admire. But the Japanese themselves were not deceived. They saw clearly that the contest had been between six battalions of Russians and two divisions of Japanese, a disparity of strength amply sufficient to account for the result in any circumstances.
NAVAL OPERATIONS
During the period of eleven weeks immediately subsequent to the battle of the Yalu, there were no military operations of a striking character. Japan was preparing to despatch a second army to Manchuria, and pending its shipment the chief duty to be discharged devolved upon the fleet, namely, the further crippling of the Port Arthur squadron in order to secure the transports against its enterprises. The object was promoted on the 13th of April by the loss of the Russian battle-ship Petropavlovsk. She struck one of the mines laid by the Japanese and sank in a few minutes, carrying the Russian admiral, Makaroff, together with about six hundred sailors, to the bottom.
This event, although it materially weakened the Port Arthur squadron, had nothing to do with the fixed programme of Admiral Togo, which programme was to block the narrow channel forming the entrance of Port Arthur by sinking merchant vessels in the fairway. Three attempts to accomplish this were made. The first was on February 24th; the second, on March 2nd-3rd. In the first essay, five steamers were employed, their crews consisting of seventy-seven volunteers. They failed. On the second occasion four steamers of at least two thousand tons each were sent in under the orders of Commander Hirose. On this occasion, again, the steamers failed to reach vital points in the channel, and their experience alone remained to compensate the loss of many lives. These two attempts were watched by the public with keen interest and high admiration. The courage and coolness displayed by officers and men alike elicited universal applause. But it was generally believed that the successful prosecution of such a design was impossible and that no further essay would be made. The Japanese, however, are not easily deterred. On the night of May 2nd, eight steamers, aggregating some 17,000 tons, were driven into the channel in the face of mines, batteries, and torpedoes, and five of them reached their allotted positions, so that the blocking of the harbour for the passage of large vessels was accomplished. The list of casualties proved very heavy. Out of 159 persons only eight officers and thirty-six men returned unhurt. The whole of the remainder, including twenty officers, were killed, wounded, or missing.
LANDING OF THE SECOND ARMY
On the very night after the accomplishment of this third blocking operation, a second Japanese army commenced to land at Pitszewo, eastward of the Liaotung peninsula. This was precisely the point chosen for a similar purpose by the Japanese in the war with China, ten years previously, and such close adherence to the former programme was condemned by some critics, especially as transports cannot get close to the shore at Pitszewo, but have to lie four miles distant, the intervening space consisting, for the most part, of mud flats. But the Japanese were perfectly familiar with every inch of the coast from the mouth of the Yalu to Port Arthur, and had the Russian commanders possessed equally accurate knowledge, they would have recognized that Pitszewo was designated by natural features as the best available landing-place, and knowing that, they might have made effective dispositions to oppose the Japanese there, whereas ten thousand men had been put on shore before any suspicion seems to have been roused in the Russian camp.
BATTLE OF KINCHOU
After its landing at Pitszewo, on May 5th and the following days, the Second Japanese Army, consisting of three divisions under General (afterwards Count) Oku, pushed westward, driving away the Russian detachments in the vicinity and securing the control of the Port Arthur railway. Then, at Kinchou, on the 26th of May, a great battle was fought. A little south of Kinchou lies a narrow neck of land connecting the Kwangtung promontory with the mainland. It is a neck only a mile and three-quarters broad, having Kinchou Bay on the northwest and Hand Bay on the southeast. On each side the ground near the sea is low, but along the centre of the neck a ridge rises, which culminates in a point about 350 feet above the sea. This point is known as Nanshan, and its commanding position is such that an army holding it blocks all access to the Kwangtung peninsula.
The problem for the Japanese was to obtain possession of this neck as the sole road of access to Port Arthur; while General Stossel, who commanded the Russian troops, knew that if the neck fell into Japanese hands, Port Arthur would become unapproachable by land. “The Nanshan position offered unusual advantages for defence, and had been diligently prepared for permanent occupation during many weeks. Ten forts of semi-permanent character had been built, and their armament showed that, on this occasion, the Russian artillery was vastly superior, both in calibre and in range, to the Japanese guns. Forts, trenches, and rifle-pits, covered by mines and wire entanglements, were constructed on every point of vantage and in separate tiers. Searchlights were also employed, and every advantage was taken of the proximity of a great fortress and its ample plant.”*
*The War in the Far East, by the Military Correspondent of “The
Times.”
It will occur to the reader that war-vessels might have been advantageously used for the attack and defence of such a position, and, as a matter of fact, Russian gunboats manoeuvred in Hand Bay on the southeastern shore of the neck. But, on the western side, the shoal waters of Kinchou Bay prevented access by Japanese vessels in the face of the heavy batteries erected by the Russians on dominating sites. This splendid position was held by a Russian army mustering ten thousand strong with fifty siege-guns and sixteen quick-firers. A frontal attack seemed suicidal but was deliberately chosen. At daybreak the battle commenced, and, after sixteen hours of incessant fighting, a Japanese infantry force turned the left flank of the Russian line and the day was won. Over seven hundred Russian dead were buried by the Japanese, and into the latter’s hands fell sixty-eight cannon of all calibres with ten machine-guns. The Japanese casualties totalled 4912.
This battle finally solved the problem as to whether Japanese infantry could hold its own against Russian. “With almost everything in its favour, a strong, fresh, and confident Russian army, solidly entrenched behind almost inaccessible fortifications and supported by a formidable and superior artillery, was, in a single day, fairly swept out of its trenches.”* The victorious Japanese pressed forward rapidly, and on the 30th of May obtained possession of Dalny, a base presenting incalculable advantages for the prosecution of an attack upon Port Arthur, which fortress it was now evident that the Japanese had determined to capture.
*The War in the Far East, by the Military Correspondent of “The
Times.”
THE BATTLE OF TELISSU
To have left the Japanese in undisturbed possession of the neck of the Liaotung peninsula would have been to abandon Port Arthur to its fate. On the other hand, the Russians ought not to have entertained any hope of their own ability to carry such a position by assault after they had signally failed to hold it in the face of attack. Nevertheless, finding it intolerable, alike to their prestige and to their sense of camaraderie, to take no measure in behalf of the great fortress and its thirty thousand defenders, they determined to march at once to its assistance. To that end celerity was all important, and on June 14th, that is to say, only eighteen days after the battle of Kinchou, a Russian army of some thirty-five thousand combatants, under the command of General Baron Stackelberg, moving down the railway to recover Kinchou and Nanshan, came into collision with the Japanese and fought the battle of Telissu. The Russian general, clinging always to the railway, advanced with such a restricted front that the Japanese, under General Oku, outflanked him, and he was driven back with a loss of about ten thousand, killed and wounded, fourteen guns, and four hundred prisoners.
NAVAL INCIDENTS
On June 15th, the very day after the Telissu victory, the Japanese met their only naval catastrophe. While their fleet was watching the enemy off Port Arthur, the battleships Hatsuse and Yashima struck mines and sank immediately. Moreover, on the same day, the cruisers Kasuga and Yoshino collided in a dense fog, and the latter vessel was sent to the bottom. As the Japanese possessed only six battle-ships, the loss of two was a serious blow, and might have emboldened the Russians to despatch a squadron from the Baltic to take the earliest possible advantage of this incident. Foreseeing this, the Japanese took care to conceal the loss of the Hatsuse and Yashima, and the fact did not become known until after the battle of Tsushima, a year later, when the Russian fleet had been practically annihilated.
Meanwhile, the Russian squadron at Vladivostok had accomplished little. This squadron consisted originally of three armoured cruisers, Gromovoi, Rossia, and Rurik, with one protected cruiser, Bogatyr. But the last-named ship ran on a rock near Vladivostok and became a total wreck in the middle of May, a month marked by many heavy losses. These cruisers made several excursions into the Sea of Japan, sinking or capturing a few Japanese merchantmen, and cleverly evading a Japanese squadron under Admiral Kamimura, detailed to watch them. But their only achievement of practical importance was the destruction of two large Japanese transports, the Hitachi Maru and the Sado Maru. In achieving this feat the Russians appeared off Tsushima in the Straits of Korea, on June 15th, and the transports which they sunk or disabled carried heavy guns for the bombardment of Port Arthur.
Of course, nothing was publicly known about the cargo of the Hitachi and her consort, but there could be no question that, in timing their attack with such remarkable accuracy, the Russians must have obtained secret information as to the movements of the transports and the nature of their cargo. Considerable criticism was uttered against Admiral Kamimura for failure to get into touch with the Vladivostok vessels during such a long interval. But much of the censure was superficial. Kamimura redeemed his reputation on the 14th of August when, in a running fight between Fusan and Vladivostok, the Rurik was sunk and the Gromovoi and Rossia were so seriously damaged as to be unable to take any further part in the war. On this occasion six hundred Russians were rescued by the Japanese from the sinking Rurik, and it was noted at the time that the Russians had made no attempt to save Japanese life at the sinking of the Hitachi Maru.
THE JAPANESE FORCES
Immediately after the landing of the army corps under General Oku and the capture of Dalny in the sequel of the battle of Kinchou, the Japanese began to pour troops into Dalny, and soon they had there three divisions under the command of General (afterwards Count) Nogi. This force was henceforth known as the Third Army, that of General Kuroki being the First, and that under General Oku, the Second. The next operation was to land another army at Takushan, which lies on the south coast of Manchuria, between Pitszewo and the estuary of the Yalu. This army was under the command of General (afterwards Count) Nozu, and its purpose was to fill the gap between the First Army and the Second. Nozu’s corps thus became the Fourth Army. In fact, the Japanese repeated, in every respect, the plan of campaign pursued by them ten years previously in the war with China.
There was one ultimate difference, however. In the latter war, the force which captured Port Arthur was subsequently carried oversea to the Shantung province, where it assaulted and took the great Chinese naval port at Weihaiwei. But the army sent against Port Arthur, in 1904, was intended to march up the Liaotung peninsula after the capture of the fortress, so, as to fall into line with the other three armies and to manoeuvre on their left flank during the general advance northward. Thus considered, the plan of campaign suggests that General Nogi and his three divisions were expected to capture Port Arthur without much delay, and indeed their early operations against the fortress were conducted on that hypothesis. But, as a matter of fact, in spite of heroic efforts and unlimited bravery on the Japanese side, Port Arthur, with its garrison of thirty thousand men, its splendid fortifications, and its powerful artillery, backed by the indomitable resolution and stubborn resistance of Russian soldiers, did not fall until the last day of 1904, and Nogi’s army was unable to take part in the great field-battles which marked the advance of the three other Japanese armies from the seacoast to the capital of Manchuria.
Step by step, however, though at heavy sacrifice of life, the Japanese fought their way through the outer lines of the Russian defences, and the end of July saw the besiegers in such a position that they were able to mount guns partly commanding the anchorage within the port. An intolerable situation being thus created for the Russian squadron, it determined to put to sea, and on August 10th this was attempted. Without entering into details of the fight that ensued, it will suffice to state briefly that the result of the sortie was to deprive the Russian squadron of the services of one battle-ship, three cruisers, and five torpedo craft, leaving to Rear-Admiral Prince Ukhtonsky, who commanded the vessels in Port Arthur, only five battle-ships, two cruisers (of which one was injured), and three destroyers. On August 18th, a gunboat; on August 23d, another battle-ship, and on August 24th another destroyer were sunk or disabled by striking Japanese mines, and it may be said briefly that the Russian squadron thenceforth ceased to be a menace to the Japanese, and that only the land forces had to be counted with.
FIELD OPERATIONS PRIOR TO BATTLE OF LIAOYANG
By the close of June the three Japanese armies under Generals Kuroki, Nozu, and Oku were fully deployed and ready to advance in unison. The task before them was to clear the Russians from the littoral of the Korean Sea and force them through the mountains of Manchuria into the valley of the Liao River. In these operations the Japanese acted uniformly on the offensive, whereas the Russians occupied positions carefully chosen and strictly fortified, where they stood always on the defensive. Five heavy engagements, beginning with Fenshuiling on the 26th of June and ending with Yangtzuling on July 31st, were fought in these circumstances, and in every instance the Japanese emerged victorious. From the commencement of the land campaign until the end of July the invading army’s casualties were 12,000, while the Russian losses, exclusive of those at Port Arthur, aggregated 28,000 killed and wounded, and 113 light siege-and field-guns, together with eighteen machine-guns, captured.
THE BATTLE OF LIAOYANG
The first great phase of the field-operations may be said to have terminated with the battle of Liaoyang, which commenced on August 25th and continued almost without interruption for nine days, terminating on the 3rd of September. In this historic contest the Russians had 220,000 men engaged. They were deployed over a front of about forty miles, every part of which had been entrenched and fortified with the utmost care and ingenuity. In fact, the position seemed impregnable, and as the Japanese could muster only some 200,000 men for the attack, their chances of success appeared very small. Desperate fighting ensued, but no sensible impression could be made on the Russian lines, and finally, as a last resource, a strong force of Kuroki’s army was sent across the Taitsz River to turn the enemy’s left flank. The Russian general, Kuropatkin, rightly estimated that the troops detached by General Kuroki for this purpose were not commensurate with the task assigned to them, whereas the Russians could meet this flanking movement with overwhelming strength. Therefore, Kuropatkin sent three army corps across the river, and by September 1st, the Japanese flanking forces were confronted by a powerful body.
Strategists are agreed that, had Kuropatkin’s plans found competent agents to execute them, the Japanese advance would have been at least checked at Liaoyang. In fact, the Japanese, in drafting their original programme, had always expected that Nogi’s army would be in a position on the left flank in the field long before there was any question of fighting at Liaoyang. It was thus due to the splendid defence made by the garrison of the great fortress that Kuropatkin found himself in such a favourable position at the end of August. But unfortunately for the Russians, one of their generals, Orloff, who had thirteen battalions under his command, showed incompetence, and falling into an ambuscade in the course of the counter-flanking operation, suffered defeat with heavy losses. The Japanese took full advantage of this error, and Kuropatkin, with perhaps excessive caution, decided to abandon his counter-movement and withdraw from Liaoyang. He effected his retreat in a manner that bore testimony to the excellence of his generalship. The casualties in this great battle were very heavy. From August 25th, when the preliminary operations may be said to have commenced, to September 3rd, when the field remained in the possession of the Japanese, their losses were 17,539, namely, 4866 in the First Army, 4992 in the Fourth, and 7681 in the Second, while the Russian casualties were estimated at 25,000.
BATTLES OF SHAHO AND OF HEIKAUTAI
On the 2nd of October, General Kuropatkin issued from his headquarters in Mukden an order declaring that the “moment for the attack, ardently desired by the army, had at last arrived, and that the Japanese were now to be compelled to do Russia’s will.” Barely a month had elapsed since the great battle at Liaoyang, and it still remains uncertain what had happened in that interval to justify the issue of such an order. But the most probable explanation is that Kuropatkin had received re-enforcements, so that he could marshal 250,000 to 260,000 troops for the proposed offensive, and that his news from Port Arthur suggested the necessity of immediate and strenuous efforts to relieve the fortress. His plan was to throw forward his right so as to outflank the Japanese, recover possession of Liaoyang, and obtain command of the railway.
He set his troops in motion on the 9th of October, but he was driven back after more than a week’s fighting. No less than 13,333 Russian dead were left on the field, and at the lowest calculation, Kuropatkin’s casualties must have exceeded 60,000 men exclusive of prisoners. There can be no doubt whatever that the Russian army had suffered one of the most overwhelming defeats in its history, and that after a fortnight’s hard marching and nine days’ hard fighting, with little food or sleep, it had been reduced by terrible losses and depressing fatigues to a condition bordering on extermination. Such was the result of Kuropatkin’s first attempt to assume the offensive. Thereafter, fully three months of complete inaction ensued, and the onlooking world occupied itself with conjectures as to the explanation of this apparent loss of time.
Yet the chief reason was very simple. The weather in central Manchuria at the close of the year is such as to render military manoeuvres almost impossible on a large scale, and this difficulty is greatly accentuated by the almost complete absence of roads. In fact, the reasons which induced Kuropatkin to defy these obstacles, and renew his outflanking attempts after the beginning of the cold weather, have never been fully explained. The most probable theory is that held by Japanese strategists, namely, that he desired to find some opening for the vigorous campaign which he intended to pursue in the spring, and that his attention was naturally directed to the region between the Hun and the Liao rivers, a region unoccupied by either army and yet within striking distance of the bases of both. Moreover, he had received nearly three whole divisions from Europe, and he looked to these fresh troops with much confidence. He set his forces in motion on the 25th of January, 1905. Seven Russian divisions were engaged, and the brunt of the fighting was borne by two Japanese divisions and a brigade of cavalry. Two other divisions were engaged, but the part they acted in the fight was so subordinate that it need scarcely be taken into account. The Russians were finally driven back with a loss of some twenty thousand killed, wounded, or prisoners. This battle of Heikautai was the last engagement that took place before the final encounter.
PORT ARTHUR
The relief of Port Arthur had ceased to be an important objective of Kuropatkin before he planned his Heikautai attack. The great fortress fell on the last day of 1904. It was not until the middle of May that the Kinchou isthmus and Dalny came into Japanese hands, nor was the siege army under General Nogi marshalled until the close of June. During that interval, General Stossel, who commanded, on the Russian side, availed himself of all possible means of defence, and the investing force had to fight for every inch of ground. The attack on the outlying positions occupied fully a month, and not till the end of July had the Japanese advanced close enough to attempt a coup de main. There can be no doubt that they had contemplated success by that method of procedure, but they met with such a severe repulse, during August, that they recognized the necessity of recourse to the comparatively slow arts of the engineer. Thereafter, the story of the siege followed stereotyped lines except that the colossal nature of the fortifications entailed unprecedented sacrifice of life on the besiegers’ part. The crucial point of the siege-operations was the capture of a position called 203-Metre Hill. This took place on November 30th after several days of the most terrible fighting ever witnessed, fighting which cost the Japanese ten thousand casualties. The importance of the hill was that it furnished a post of observation whence indications could be given to guide the heavy Japanese artillery in its cannonade of the remaining Russian ships in the harbour.
Nothing then remained for the Russians except to sink the ships, and this they did, so that Russia lost a squadron which, all told, represented an outlay of over thirty millions sterling—$150,000,000. In a telegram despatched to his own Government on January 1st, General Stossel said: “Great Sovereign, forgive! We have done all that was humanly possible. Judge us; but be merciful. Eleven months have exhausted our strength. A quarter only of the defenders, and one-half of them invalids, occupy twenty-seven versts of fortifications without supports and without intervals for even the briefest repose. The men are reduced to shadows!” On the previous day Stossel had written to General Nogi, declaring that further resistance would merely entail useless loss of life considering the conditions within the fortress. The total number of prisoners who surrendered at the fall of the fortress was 878 officers and 23,491 men, and the captured material included 546 guns; 35,252 rifles; 60 torpedoes; 30,000 kilograms of powder; 82,670 rounds of gun-ammunition; two and a quarter million rounds of small-arm ammunition; a number of wagons; 1,920 horses; four battle-ships; two cruisers; fourteen gunboats and torpedo-craft; ten steamers; thirty-three steam launches, and various other vessels. These figures are worthy of study, as one of General Stossel’s alleged reasons for surrendering was scarcity of ammunition.
MISHCHENKO’S RAID
The capture of Port Arthur meant something more than the fall of a fortress which had been counted impregnable and which had dominated the strategical situation for fully seven months. It meant, also, that General Nogi’s army would now be free to join their comrades beyond the Liao River, and that Kuropatkin would find his opponents’ strength increased by four divisions. It became, therefore, important to ascertain how soon this transfer was likely to be effected, and, if possible, to interrupt it by tearing up the railway. Accordingly, on January 8th, General Mishchenko’s division of Cossacks, Caucasians, and Dragoons, mustering six thousand sabres, with six batteries of light artillery, crossed the Hun River and marched south on a five-mile front. Throughout the war the Cossacks, of whom a very large force was with the Russian army, had hitherto failed to demonstrate their usefulness, and this raid in force was regarded with much curiosity. It accomplished very little. Its leading squadrons penetrated as far south as Old Niuchwang, and five hundred metres of the railway north of Haicheng were destroyed, a bridge also being blown up. But this damage was speedily restored, and as for the reconnoitring results of the raid, they seem to have been very trifling.
THE BATTLE OF MUKDEN
After the battle of Heikautai, which cost the Russians twenty thousand casualties and exposed the troops to terrible hardships, Kuropatkin’s army did not number more than 260,000 effectives. On the other hand, he could rely upon a constant stream of re-enforcements from Europe, as the efficiency of the railway service had been enormously increased by the genius and energy of Prince Khilkoff, Russian minister of Ways and Communications. In fact, when all the forces under orders for Manchuria had reached their destination, Kuropatkin would have under his command twelve army corps, six rifle-brigades, and nine divisions of mounted troops, a total of something like half a million men. Evidently the Japanese would not have acted wisely in patiently awaiting the coming of these troops. Moreover, since the break-up of winter would soon render temporarily impossible all operations in the field, to have deferred any forward movement beyond the month of March would have merely facilitated the massing of Russian re-enforcements in the lines on the Shaho, where the enemy had taken up his position after his defeat at Heikautai. These considerations induced Marshal Oyama to deliver an attack with his whole force during the second half of February, and there resulted a conflict which, under the name of the “battle of Mukden,” will go down in the pages of history as the greatest fight on record.
It has been claimed by the Russians that Kuropatkin was thinking of assuming the offensive when the Japanese forced his hand; but however that may be, the fact is that he fought on the defensive as he had done throughout the whole war with two exceptions. Nevertheless, we may confidently assert that at no previous period had the Russians been so confident and so strong. According to the Japanese estimate, the accuracy of which may be trusted, Kuropatkin had 376 battalions, 171 batteries, and 178 squadrons; representing 300,000 rifles, 26,000 sabres and 1368 guns, while the defences behind which these troops were sheltered were of the most elaborate character, superior to anything that the Japanese had encountered during the previous battles of the field-campaign. On the other hand, the Japanese also were in unprecedented strength. Up to the battle of Heikautai, Kuropatkin had been confronted by only three armies, namely, the First, Second, and Fourth, under Generals Kuroki, Oku, and Nozu, respectively. In the middle of February, these numbered three, four, and two divisions, respectively. But there had now been added a considerable number of reserve brigades, bringing up the average strength of most of the divisions to from 22,000 to 25,000 men. Further, in addition to these armies, two others were in the field, namely, the Third, under General Nogi, and the Fifth, under General Kawamura. General Nogi’s force had marched up from Port Arthur, but General Kawamura’s was a new army formed of special reservists and now put in the field for the first time.
The Russians occupied a front forty-four miles in extent and from five to six miles in depth. They did not know, apparently, that General Kawamura’s army had joined Oyama’s forces, nor did they know where Nogi’s army was operating. The Japanese programme was to hold the Russian centre; to attack their left flank with Kawamura’s army, and to sweep round their right flank with Nogi’s forces. The latter were therefore kept in the rear until Kawamura’s attack had developed fully on the east and until the two centres were hotly engaged. Then “under cover of the smoke and heat generated by the conflict of the other armies on an immense front, and specially screened by the violent activity of the Second Army, Nogi marched in echelon of columns from the west on a wide, circling movement; swept up the Liao valley, and bending thence eastward, descended on Mukden from the west and northwest, giving the finishing blow of this gigantic encounter; severing the enemy’s main line of retreat, and forcing him to choose between surrender and flight. To launch, direct, and support four hundred thousand men engaged at such a season over a front one hundred miles in length was one of the most remarkable tasks ever undertaken on the field of battle by a modern staff.”
Of course, all these events did not move exactly as planned, but the main feature of the great fight was that Kuropatkin, deceived by Kawamura’s movement, detached a large force to oppose him, and then recalled these troops too late for the purpose of checking General Nogi’s flanking operation. The fighting was continuous for almost two weeks, and on the morning of March 16th, the Russians had been driven out of Mukden and forced northward beyond Tiehling. In fact, they did not pause until March 20th, when Linievitch, who had succeeded Kuropatkin in the chief command, was able to order a halt at Supingchieh, seventy miles to the north of Mukden. “The Russian losses in this most disastrous battle included, according to Marshal Oyama’s reports, 27,700 killed and 110,000 wounded,” while an immense quantity of war material fell into the hands of the victors. The Japanese losses, up to the morning of March 12th, were estimated at 41,222.
THE BATTLE OF TSUSHIMA
From the outset, both sides had appreciated the enormous preponderance that would be conferred by command of the sea. It was in obedience to this conviction that the Russian authorities were in the act of taking steps to increase largely their Pacific squadron when the outbreak of war compelled them to suspend the despatch of re-enforcements. They did not, however, relinquish their preparations. Evidently, any vessels sent to the scene of combat after fighting had begun must be competent to defend themselves against attack, which condition entailed strength to form an independent squadron. The preparations to acquire this competence involved a long delay, and it was not until the 16th of October, 1904, that Admiral Rozhdestvensky left Libau with some forty ships. The world watched this adventure with astonished eyes. Thitherto Great Britain, equipped as she is with coaling-stations all round the globe, had been the only power thought capable of sending a large fleet on an ocean voyage. Rozhdestvensky’s squadron consumed over three thousand tons of coal daily when steaming at a reduced speed, and how this supply was to be kept up in the absence of ports of call, no one was able to conjecture. The difficulty was ultimately overcome by the very benevolent character which the neutrality of certain powers assumed, and in May, 1905, the Baltic squadron, as the vessels under Rozhdestvensky were called, made its appearance in Far Eastern waters.
It had been supposed that the Russians would seek to envelop their movements in obscurity, but they seem to have appreciated, from the outset, the absurdity of endeavouring to conceal the traces of a fleet of forty vessels steaming along the routes of the world’s commerce. They therefore proceeded boldly on their way, slowly but indomitably overcoming all obstacles. It will be observed that the date of their departure from Libau was just two months after the last attempt of the Port Arthur squadron to escape to Vladivostok. Doubtless, this sortie, which ended so disastrously for the Russians, was prompted in part by anticipation of the Baltic fleet’s approaching departure, and had the Port Arthur squadron, or any considerable portion of it, reached Vladivostok before Rozhdestvensky’s coming, Admiral Togo might have been caught between two fires. The result of the sortie, however, dispelled that hope. Long before Rozhdestvensky reached the Far East, he fell into touch with Japanese scouts, and every movement of his ships was flashed to the enemy. That Vladivostok was his objective and that he would try to reach that place if possible without fighting, were unquestionable facts. But by what avenue would he enter the Sea of Japan? The query occupied attention in all the capitals of the world during several days, and conjectures were as numerous as they were conflicting. But Admiral Togo had no moment of hesitation. He knew that only two routes were possible, and that one of them, the Tsugaru Strait, could be strewn with mines at very brief notice. The Russians dare not take that risk. Therefore Togo waited quietly at his base in the Korean Strait and on the 27th of May his scouts reported by wireless telegraphy at 5 A.M., “Enemy’s fleet sighted in 203 section. He seems to be steering for the east channel.”
In the historic action which ensued, Rozhdestvensky had under his command eight battle-ships, nine cruisers, three coast-defence ships, nine destroyers, an auxiliary cruiser, six special-service steamers, and two hospital ships. Togo’s fleet consisted of five battle-ships (one of them practically valueless), one coast-defence vessel, eight armoured cruisers, ten protected cruisers, twenty destroyers, and sixty-seven torpedo-boats. Numerically, the advantage was on the Japanese side, although in first-class fighting material the disparity was not remarkable. As for the result, it can only be called annihilation for the Russian squadron. Out of the thirty-eight ships composing it, twenty were sunk; six captured; two went to the bottom or were shattered while escaping; six were disarmed and interned in neutral ports to which they had fled; one was released after capture, and of one the fate is unknown. Only two escaped out of the whole squadron. This wonderful result justifies the comment of a competent authority:
“We can recognize that Togo is great—great in the patience he exercised in the face of much provocation to enter upon the fight under conditions less favourable to the success of his cause; great in his determination to give decisive battle despite advice offered to him to resort to methods of evasion, subterfuge, and finesse; great in his use of not one but every means in his power to crush his enemy, and great, greatest perhaps of all, in his moderation after victory unparalleled in the annals of modern naval war.
“The attitude of the Japanese people in the presence of this epoch-making triumph is a sight for men and gods. They have the grand manner of the ancients, and their invariable attitude throughout the war, whether in the hour of victory or in that of disappointment, has been worthy of a great people. No noisy and vulgar clamour, no self-laudation, no triumph over a fallen enemy, but deep thankfulness, calm satisfaction, and reference of the cause of victory to the illustrious virtue of their Emperor.”*
*The War in the Far East, by the Military Correspondent of “The
Times.”
The Japanese losses in the two-days’ fighting were three torpedo-boats, and they had 116 killed and 538 wounded.
PEACE RESTORED
After the battles of Mukden and Tsushima, which were great enough to terminate the greatest war, the Russians and the Japanese alike found themselves in a position which must either prelude another stupendous effort on both sides or be utilized to negotiate peace. Here the President of the United States of America intervened, and, on the 9th of June, 1905, the American minister in Tokyo and the ambassador in St. Petersburg, instructed from Washington, handed an identical note to the Japanese and the Russian Governments respectively, urging the two countries to approach each other direct. On the following day, Japan intimated her frank acquiescence, and Russia lost no time in taking a similar step. Two months nevertheless elapsed before the plenipotentiaries of the two powers met, on August 10th, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Russia sent M. (afterwards Count) de Witte and Baron Rosen; Japan, Baron (afterwards Marquis) Komura, who had held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs throughout the war, and Mr. (afterwards Baron) Takahira. The Japanese statesmen well understood that much of the credit accruing to them for their successful conduct of the war must be forfeited in the sequel of the negotiations. For the people of Japan had accustomed themselves to expect that Russia would recoup a great part, if not the whole, of the expenses incurred by their country in the contest, whereas the ministry in Tokyo knew that to look for payment of indemnity by a great State whose territory has not been invaded effectively or its existence menaced must be futile.
Nevertheless, diplomacy required that this conviction should be concealed, and thus Russia carried to the conference a belief that the financial phase of the discussion would be crucial. Baron Komura’s mandate was, however, that the only radically essential terms were those formulated by Japan prior to the war. She must insist on securing the ends for which she had fought, since she believed them to be indispensable to the peace of the Far East, but beyond that she would not go. The Japanese plenipotentiaries, therefore, judged it wise to submit their terms in the order of the real importance, leaving their Russian colleagues to imagine, as they probably would, that the converse method had been adopted, and that everything prefatory to questions of finance and territory was of minor consequence.
The negotiations, commencing on the 10th of August, were not concluded until the 5th of September, when a treaty of peace was signed. There had been a moment when the onlooking world believed that unless Russia agreed to ransom the island of Saghalien by paying to Japan a sum of 120 millions sterling,—$580,000,000, the conference would be broken off. Nor did such an exchange seem unreasonable, for were Russia expelled from the northern part of Saghalien, which commands the estuary of the Amur, her position in Siberia would have been compromised. But Japan’s statesmen were not disposed to make any display of territorial aggression. The southern half of Saghalien had originally belonged to Japan and had passed into Russia’s possession by an arrangement which the Japanese nation strongly resented. To recover that portion of the island seemed, therefore, a legitimate ambition. Japan did not contemplate any larger demand, nor did she seriously insist on an indemnity. Thus, the negotiations were never in real danger of failure.
The Treaty of Portsmouth recognized Japan’s “paramount political, military, and economic interests” in Korea; provided for the simultaneous evacuation of Manchuria by the contracting parties; transferred to Japan the lease of the Liaotung peninsula, held by Russia from China, together with that of the Russian railways south of Kwanchengtsz and all collateral mining or other privileges; ceded to Japan the southern half of Saghalien, the fiftieth parallel of latitude to be the boundary between the two parties; secured fishing-rights for Japanese subjects along the coasts of the seas of Japan, Okhotsk, and Bering; laid down that the expense incurred by the Japanese for the maintenance of the Russian prisoners during the war should be reimbursed by Russia, less the outlays made by the latter on account of Japanese prisoners, by which arrangement Japan obtained a payment of some four million sterling $20,000,000, and provided that the contracting parties, while withdrawing their military force from Manchuria, might maintain guards to protect their respective railways, the number of such guards not to exceed fifteen per kilometre of line. There were other important restrictions: first, the contracting parties were to abstain from taking, on the Russo-Korean frontier, any military measures which might menace the security of Russian or Korean territory; secondly, the two powers pledged themselves not to exploit the Manchurian railways for strategic purposes, and thirdly, they promised not to build on Saghalien or its adjacent islands any fortifications or other similar works, or to take any military measures which might impede the free navigation of the Strait of La Pérouse and the Gulf of Tatary.
The above provisions concerned the two contracting parties only. But China’s interests also were considered. Thus, it was agreed to “restore entirely and completely to her exclusive administration” all portions of Manchuria then in the occupation, or under the control, of Japanese or Russian troops, except the leased territory; that her consent must be obtained for the transfer to Japan of the leases and concessions held by the Russians in Manchuria; that the Russian Government should disavow the possession of “any territorial advantages or preferential or exclusive concessions in impairment of Chinese sovereignty or inconsistent with the principle of equal opportunity in Manchuria,” and that Japan and Russia “engaged reciprocally not to obstruct any general measures common to all countries which China might take for the development of the commerce and industry of Manchuria.”
This distinction between the special interests of the contracting parties and the interests of China herself, as well as of foreign nations generally, is essential to clear understanding of a situation which subsequently attracted much attention. From the time of the Opium War (1857) to the Boxer rising (1900), each of the great Western powers struggled for its own hand in China, and each sought to gain for itself exclusive concessions and privileges with comparatively little regard for the interests of others and with no regard whatsoever for China’s sovereign rights. The fruits of this period were permanently ceded territories (Hongkong and Macao); leases temporarily establishing foreign sovereignty in various districts (Kiao-chou, Weihaiwei, and Kwang-chow); railway and mining concessions, and the establishment of settlements at open ports where foreign jurisdiction was supreme. But when, in 1900, the Boxer rising forced all the powers into a common camp, they awoke to full appreciation of a principle which had been growing current for the past two or three years, namely, that concerted action on the lines of maintaining China’s integrity and securing to all alike equality of opportunity and a similarly open door, was the only feasible method of preventing the partition of the Chinese empire and averting a clash of rival interests which might have disastrous results. This, of course, did not mean that there was to be any abandonment of special privileges already acquired or any surrender of existing concessions. The arrangement was not to be retrospective in any sense. Vested interests were to be strictly guarded until the lapse of the periods for which they had been granted, or until the maturity of China’s competence to be really autonomous.
A curious situation was thus created. International professions of respect for China’s sovereignty, for the integrity of her empire, and for the enforcement of the open door and equal opportunity co-existed with legacies from an entirely different past. Russia endorsed this new policy, but not unnaturally declined to abate any of the advantages previously enjoyed by her in Manchuria. Those advantages were very substantial. They included a twenty-five-year lease—with provision for renewal—of the Liaotung peninsula, within which area of 1220 square miles Chinese troops might not penetrate, whereas Russia would not only exercise full administrative authority, but also take military and naval action of any kind; they included the creation of a neutral territory on the immediate north of the former and still more extensive, which remained under Chinese administration, and where neither Chinese nor Russian troops might enter, nor might China, without Russia’s consent, cede land, open trading marts, or grant concessions to any third nationality; and they included the right to build some sixteen hundred miles of railway (which China would have the opportunity of purchasing at cost price in the year 1938, and would be entitled to receive gratis in 1982), as well as the right to hold extensive zones on either side of the railway, to administer these zones in the fullest sense, and to work all mines lying along the lines.
Under the Portsmouth treaty these advantages were transferred to Japan by Russia, the railway, however, being divided so that only the portion (521.5 miles) to the south of Kwanchengtsz fell to Japan’s share, while the portion (1077 miles) to the north of that place remained in Russia’s hands. China’s consent to the above transfers and assignments was obtained in a treaty signed at Peking on the 22nd of December, 1905. Thus, Japan came to hold in Manchuria a position somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, she figured as the champion of the Chinese empire’s integrity and as an exponent of the new principle of equal opportunity and the open door. On the other, she appeared as the legatee of many privileges more or less inconsistent with that principle. But, at the same time, nearly all the great powers of Europe were similarly circumstanced. In their cases, also, the same incongruity was observed between the newly professed policy and the aftermath of the old practice. It was scarcely to be expected that Japan alone should make a large sacrifice on the altar of a theory to which no other State thought of yielding any retrospective obedience whatever. She did, indeed, furnish a clear proof of deference to the open-door doctrine, for instead of reserving the railway zones to her own exclusive use, as she was fully entitled to do, she sought and obtained from China a pledge to open to foreign trade sixteen places within these zones.
For the rest, however, the inconsistency between the past and the present, though existing throughout the whole of China, was nowhere so conspicuous as in the three eastern provinces (Manchuria); not because there was any real difference of degree, but because Manchuria had been the scene of the greatest war of modern times; because that war had been fought by Japan in the cause of the new policy, and because the principles of the equally open door and of China’s integrity had been the main bases of the Portsmouth treaty, of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and of the subsequently concluded ententes with France and Russia. In short, the world’s eyes were fixed on Manchuria and diverted from China proper, so that every act of Japan was subjected to an exceptionally rigorous scrutiny, and the nations behaved as though they expected her to live up to a standard of almost ideal altitude. China’s mood, too, greatly complicated the situation. She had the choice between two moderate and natural courses; either to wait quietly until the various concessions granted by her to foreign powers in the evil past should lapse by maturity, or to qualify herself by earnest reforms and industrious developments for their earlier recovery. Nominally she adopted the latter course, but in reality she fell into a mood of much impatience. Under the name of a “rights-recovery campaign” her people began to protest vehemently against the continuance of any conditions which impaired her sovereignty, and as this temper coloured her attitude towards the various questions which inevitably grew out of the situation in Manchuria, her relations with Japan became somewhat strained in the early part of 1909.
JAPAN IN KOREA AFTER THE WAR WITH RUSSIA
Having waged two wars on account of Korea, Japan emerged from the second conflict with the conviction that the policy of maintaining the independence of that country must be modified, and that since the identity of Korean and Japanese interests in the Far East and the paramount character of Japanese interests in Korea would not permit Japan to leave Korea to the care of any third power, she must assume the charge herself. Europe and America also recognized that view of the situation, and consented to withdraw their legations from Seoul, thus leaving the control of Korean foreign affairs entirely in the hands of Japan, who further undertook to assume military direction in the event of aggression from without or disturbance from within. But in the matter of internal administration, she continued to limit herself to advisory supervision. Thus, though a Japanese resident-general in Seoul, with subordinate residents throughout the provinces, assumed the functions hitherto discharged by foreign ministers and consuls, the Korean Government was merely asked to employ Japanese experts in the position of counsellors, the right to accept or reject their counsels being left to their employers.
Once again, however, the futility of looking for any real reforms under this optional system was demonstrated. Japan sent her most renowned statesman, Prince Ito, to discharge the duties of resident-general; but even he, in spite of patience and tact, found that some less optional methods must be resorted to. Hence, on the 24th of July, 1907, a new agreement was signed, by which the resident-general acquired initiative as well as consultative competence to enact and enforce laws and ordinances; to appoint and remove Korean officials, and to place capable Japanese subjects in the ranks of the administration. That this constituted a heavy blow to Korea’s independence could not be gainsaid. That it was inevitable seemed to be equally obvious. For there existed in Korea nearly all the worst abuses of medieval systems. The administration of justice depended solely on favour or interest. The police contributed by corruption and incompetence to the insecurity of life and property. The troops were a body of useless mercenaries. Offices being allotted by sale, thousands of incapables thronged the ranks of the executive. The Emperor’s Court was crowded by diviners and plotters of all kinds, male and female. The finances of the Throne and those of the State were hopelessly confused. There was nothing like an organized judiciary. A witness was in many cases considered particeps criminis; torture was commonly employed to obtain evidence, and defendants in civil cases were placed under arrest. Imprisonment meant death or permanent disablement for a man of means. Flogging so severe as to cripple, if not to kill, was a common punishment; every major offence from robbery upwards was capital, and female criminals were frequently executed by administering shockingly painful poisons. The currency was in a state of the utmost confusion. Extreme corruption and extortion were practised in connexion with taxation. Finally, while nothing showed that the average Korean lacked the elementary virtue of patriotism, there had been repeated proofs that the safety and independence of the empire counted for little with political intriguers. Japan must step out of Korea altogether or effect drastic reforms there.
She necessarily chose the latter alternative, and the things which she accomplished between the beginning of 1906 and the close of 1908 may be briefly described as the elaboration of a proper system of taxation; the organization of a staff to administer annual budgets; the re-assessment of taxable property; the floating of public loans for productive enterprises; the reform of the currency; the establishment of banks of various kinds, including agricultural and commercial; the creation of associations for putting bank-notes into circulation; the introduction of a warehousing system to supply capital to farmers; the lighting and buoying of the coasts; the provision of posts, telegraphs, roads, and railways; the erection of public buildings; the starting of various industrial enterprises (such as printing, brick making, forestry and coal mining); the laying out of model farms; the beginning of cotton cultivation; the building and equipping of an industrial training school; the inauguration of sanitary works; the opening of hospitals and medical schools; the organization of an excellent educational system; the construction of waterworks in several towns; the complete remodelling of the Central Government; the differentiation of the Court and the executive, as well as of the administrative and the judiciary; the formation of an efficient body of police; the organization of law-courts with a majority of Japanese jurists on the bench; the enactment of a new penal code, and drastic reforms in the taxation system.
In the summer of 1907, the resident-general advised the Throne to disband the standing army as an unserviceable and expensive force. The measure was, doubtless desirable, but the docility of the troops had been overrated. Some of them resisted vehemently, and many became the nucleus of an insurrection which lasted in a desultory manner for nearly two years; cost the lives of 21,000 insurgents and 1300 Japanese, and entailed upon Japan an outlay of nearly a million sterling. Altogether, what with building 642 miles of railway, making loans to Korea, providing funds for useful purposes and quelling the insurrection, Japan was fifteen millions sterling $72,000,000 out of pocket on Korea’s account by the end of 1909. She had also lost the veteran statesman, Prince Ito, who was assassinated at Harbin by a Korean fanatic on the 26th of October, 1909.*
*Encylopaedia Britannica, (11th Edition); article “Japan,” by
Brinkley.
ANNEXATION OF KOREA
Japan finally resolved that nothing short of annexation would suit the situation, and that step was taken on August 22, 1910. At what precise moment this conviction forced itself upon Japan’s judgment it is impossible to say, She knows how to keep her counsel. But it was certainly with great reluctance that she, hitherto the exponent and champion of Korean independence, accepted the role of annexation. The explanation given by her own Government is as follows:
-”In its solicitude to put an end to disturbing conditions, the Japanese Government made an arrangement, in 1905, for establishing a protectorate over Korea and they have ever since been assiduously engaged in works of reform, looking forward to the consummation of the desired end. But they have failed to find in the regime of a protectorate sufficient hope for a realization of the object which they had in view, and a condition of unrest and disquietude still prevails throughout the whole peninsula. In these circumstances, the necessity of introducing fundamental changes in the system of government in Korea has become entirely manifest, and an earnest and careful examination of the Korean problem has convinced the Japanese Government that the regime of a protectorate cannot be made to adapt itself to the actual condition of affairs in Korea, and that the responsibilities devolving upon Japan for the due administration of the country cannot be justly fulfilled without the complete annexation of Korea to the Empire.”
“Thus the dynasty of sovereigns, which had continued in an unbroken line from 1392, came to an end with the independence of this country, whose national traditions and history had extended over four thousand years, whose foundation as a kingdom was coeval with that of the Assyrian empire; and the two last living representatives of the dynasty exchanged their positions as Imperial dignitaries for those of princes and pensioners of Japan.”* Since that drastic step was taken, events seem to have fully justified it. Under the able management of Count Terauchi, the evil conditions inimical to the prosperity and happiness of the people are fast disappearing. Comparative peace and order reign; and there appears to be no reason why the fruits of progressive civilization should not ultimately be gathered in Japan’s new province as plentifully as they are in Japan herself.
*The Story of Korea, by Longford.
SITUATION IN 1911
The unstable element of the East Asian situation to-day is the position occupied by Japan and Russia in Manchuria. Both powers possess privileges there which will not be easily surrendered, and which are likely, sooner or later, to prove incompatible with China’s autonomy. It was apprehended at the outset that Russia would not long consent to occupy the place assigned to her by the Treaty of Portsmouth, and that she would quickly prepare for a war of revenge. Her statesmen, however, showed as much magnanimity as wisdom. On July 30, 1906, they signed with Japan a convention pledging the contracting parties to respect all the rights accruing to one or the other under the Portsmouth Treaty. If international promises can be trusted, continuous peace is assured between the two powers. Russia, however, is not only doubling the track of her Siberian Railway, but is also building a second line along the Amur; while Japan will soon command access to central Manchuria by three lines; one from Dalny to Kwanchengtsz; another from Fusan via Wiju to Mukden, and a third from the northeastern coast of Korea via Hoiryong, on the Tumen, to Kilin.
These developments do not suggest that when the lease of Liaotung and the charter of the railways mature—in twenty-five years and thirty years, respectively, from the date of their signature—either Japan or Russia will be found ready to surrender these properties. Meanwhile, the United States of America is gradually constituting itself the guardian of China’s integrity in Manchuria, and the citizens of the Pacific slope, under the influence of the labour question, are writing and speaking as though war between the great republic and the Far Eastern empire were an inevitable outcome of the future. This chimera is unthinkable by anyone really familiar with the trend of Japanese sentiment, but it may encourage in China a dangerous mood, and it helps always to foster an unquiet feeling. On the whole, when we add the chaotic condition into which China is apparently falling, it has to be admitted that the second decade of the twentieth century does not open a peaceful vista in the Far East.
STEADY-POINTS
There are, however, two steady-points upon the horizon. One is the Anglo-Japanese treaty: not the treaty of 1902, spoken of already above, but a treaty which replaced it and which was concluded on August 12, 1905. The latter document goes much further than the former. For, whereas the treaty of 1902 merely pledged each of the contracting parties to observe neutrality in the event of the other being engaged in defence of its interests, and to come to that other’s assistance in the event of any third power intervening belligerently, the treaty of 1905 provides that:
“Whenever in the opinion of either Japan or Great Britain, any of the rights and interests referred to in the preamble of this agreement are in jeopardy, the two Governments will communicate with one another fully and frankly, and will consider in common the measures which should be taken to safeguard those menaced rights or interests.”
“If, by reason of unprovoked attack or aggressive action, wherever arising, on the part of any other power or powers, either contracting party should be involved in war in defence of its territorial rights or special interests mentioned in the preamble of this agreement, the other contracting party will at once come to the assistance of its ally, and will conduct the war in common, and make peace in mutual agreement with it.”
The “rights and interests” here referred to are defined as follows in the preamble:
“The consolidation and maintenance of the general peace in the regions of eastern Asia and of India.”
“The preservation of the common interests of all powers in China by insuring the independence and integrity of the Chinese empire and the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations in China.”
“The maintenance of the territorial rights of the high contracting parties in the regions of eastern Asia and of India, and the defence of their special interests in the said regions.”
This remarkable agreement came into force from the date of its signature, and its period of duration was fixed at ten years. During its existence the two powers, England and Japan, are pledged to use all endeavours for maintaining not only peace in the East, but also the independence and integrity of China. The significance of such a pledge is appreciated when we recall the dimensions of the British navy supplemented by the Japanese, and when we further recall that Japan, with her base of operations within easy reach of the Asiatic continent, can place half a million of men in the field at any moment. The second steady-point is China’s financial condition. She is the debtor of several Western nations, and they may be trusted to avert from her any vicissitude that would impair her credit as a borrower. Prominent among such vicissitudes is the dismemberment of the country.