Ch 31 - Prelude to War

Diminishing Options

Russian obstinacy and Japanese assertiveness in diplomatic negotiations over the future status of Manchuria pushed Japan concluded that its only remaining options were to withdraw or fight Russia to protect its position in Korea.

Despite Japan's strategic advantages, the Japanese government felt the risks of a war with Russia were still too large. Tokyo decided to pursue every possibility, no matter how small, of achieving a diplomatic settlement with Russia. War should be the last resort. By June 23, 1903, the Japanese government had developed a basic negotiating policy based on the key point that both countries would mutually accept Russian rights and interests in Manchuria and Japanese rights and interests in Korea. The underlying rationale for this position was that, over the long term, Japan had to protect its own national sovereignty from Russian pressure. Achieving that goal meant that Korea had to be kept outside Russia's sphere of influence at all costs.

In July 1903, Prince Ito Hirobumi submitted concrete terms to Russian Foreign Minister Count Vladimir Nikolaevich Lamsdorff in St Petersburg. At the heart of Ito's proposal was the Japanese demand for mutual recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria, the previously agreed upon withdrawal of Russian troops from Manchuria by October 8, 1903, and the recognition of Japan's paramountcy in Korea. It was essentially a renewal of Japan's earlier demand for recognized spheres of influence in Korea.

Prince Ito offered to relinquish all Japanese claims to the Liaodong Peninsula, including Port Arthur, and acknowledge Russia's special position with regard to its railway operations in Manchuria. In addition, he asked for permission to develop Japanese commercial activities in Manchuria in return for the equivalent concession in Korea. Russian recognition of Japan's "preponderant interests" in Korea was to be unqualified, while Japan's reciprocal recognition of Russian interests in Manchuria was to be limited in ways that would not preclude the development of the Japanese position there.

Foreign Minister Lamsdorff acceded to Japan's political and economic interests in Korea with the provision that Japan would guarantee not to use the peninsula as a staging base for military operations. He then countered with the assertion that all of Manchuria was to remain outside the sphere of Japanese interests. Furthermore, Lamsdorff claimed the presence of Russian troops in Manchuria was of no concern to Japan. He went on to propose that Korean territory north of the thirty-ninth parallel be declared a neutral zone into which neither country would be permitted to introduce troops. The negotiations between Lamsdorff and Ito remained deadlocked throughout 1903. Whenever an agreement seemed in sight, Minister Lamsdorff injected new terms, temporized, conceded a little and demanded a lot.

Despite these events however, Russia's three State Ministers, Lamsdorff, Witte and Kuropatkin, still controlled the direction of negotiations with Japan and preparations went ahead for the second phase of Russia's withdrawal from Manchuria. When General Kuropatkin traveled to Tokyo in July 1903 to get a personal feel for the situation in Japan, he discovered that the Japanese had made great progress in their military buildup. Furthermore, it appeared to Kuropatkin that the Japanese were taking the intrigues of Bezobrazov's Yalu River Timber Company along the Korean border very seriously. The Japanese viewed the attempt to reestablish timber operations in Korea as direct evidence of Russian bad faith in negotiations.

By the time War Minister Aleksei Kuropatkin returned to St Petersburg, events in Russia had taken a dramatic turn. The court had fallen under the sway of a patriotic faction led by Count Sergei Witte's rival for power in the government, Interior Minister Vyacheslav von Pleve. Whatever influence State-Secretary Bezobrazov had with the Tsar was over. Lamsdorff, Witte and Kuropatkin were still officially Russia's Chief State Ministers, but behind their backs the government suddenly announced on July 30, 1903, that the entire East Asian region had been made a single Russian province under Viceroy Admiral Evgenii Ivanovich Alekseev, Governor of Port Arthur.

Expecting hostilities with Japan as early as the summer of 1903, Viceroy Alekseev developed a contingency war plan which focused on taking control of the Yellow Sea from the Japanese Navy. This victory would confine Japanese troop landings to southern Korea, where he hoped Korea's miserable roads and lack of railroads would severely limit Japanese offensive operations. With the East Asia Squadron in control of the Yellow Sea, the Pacific Fleet at Vladivostok would be free to raid the Japanese islands and cut off their communications with mainland Asia.

Admiral Alekseev's appointment as Viceroy of the Far East effectively removed him from ministerial supervision and circumvented the Foreign Ministry's cautious policies in the Far East. Alekseev now reported directly to the tsar. The appointment, engineered by Bezobrazov, introduced an entirely new bureaucratic level in diplomatic negotiations with Japan. Putting a viceroy between the Russian minister in Tokyo and the Foreign Ministry in St. Petersburg caused more delays in communications and some confusion regarding foreign policy.

Japanese proposals had to be submitted to Russian Ambassador Baron Roman Rosen in Tokyo, who then forwarded the proposals to St. Petersburg for consideration. The drafted reply was then sent to Viceroy Alekseev for comment and additions or deletions. Alekseev then forwarded his work back to St. Petersburg, where the final reply was written and sent to Ambassador Rosen in Tokyo. With all the time delays inherent in this process, it's no wonder the Japanese believed the Russians were stalling negotiations.

In August 1903, Minister Hayashi Gonsuke once again issued the Japanese demand that Korea open trade ports along the Yalu River. In submitting the new demands to the Korean government, Hayashi claimed that Russian activity along the Yalu River and the strengthening of its military position in Manchuria had forced Tokyo to the conclusion that Russia was preparing for a full-scale invasion of Korea. In an effort to check the Russian advance and preserve Korea's territorial integrity, the Japanese government requested the right to move 45,000 troops into the area near the mouth of the Yalu River and to establish coastal defenses at Inchon, Pyongyang, Sinuiju and along the Yalu River.

Just weeks earlier, on July 20, the director of Korea's forestry department had reached an agreement with the Yalu River Timber Company to give the Russians another timber concession in Yongamp'o. Kojong was expected to approve the concession by August 27, but Japanese demands cause him to hesitate. On August 12, Emperor Kojong privately revealed the Japanese demands to Russian minister Pavlov. Two days later, Hayashi returned with yet another list of demands based on Japan's strong opposition to Russian timber activities along the Yalu River. If Korea approved further timber concessions in Yongamp'o, Japan would occupy an area of equal size in the area.

Soon after Hayashi submitted his demands, one of Kojong's ministers quietly informed Russian minister Pavlov that in order to calm Japanese fears regarding the timber concession in Yongamp'o, the emperor had no choice but to accede to the Japanese demand to open the port of Sinuiju. Acting under orders from Tsar Nicholas II, Foreign Minister Lamsdorff sent a telegram to Pavlov on August 22 that made it clear that it was in Russia's best interests to ensure Japan did not establish a diplomatic enclave at Sinuiju.

When Minister Pavlov revealed the contents of the telegram to Emperor Kojong, the emperor told him that Korea had not yet approved any decision to open Sinuiju to the Japanese, but if Russia failed to guarantee support for Korea, he would approve it. Pavlov's reply was ambiguous at best, offering only Russia's eternal friendship and moral support, a stance that only increased the growing dissatisfaction with Russia among Kojong's highest ministers.

On August 27, representatives of the Yalu River Timber Company learned that Korea had not approved a new timber concession in Yongamp'o. Emperor Kojong notified minister Pavlov that he had decided to postpone any decision on the matter for a few days. At the same time, one of Kojong's ministers delivered a message to Minister Hayashi at the Japanese Legation asking the Japanese to immediately submit a letter of protest to the Korean court regarding the impending timber concession. This clever tactic would give the emperor added reason for ultimately refusing to approve the timber concession altogether. Hayashi wasted no time in submitting the letter, in which he claimed that if Korea approved the timber concession in the Yongamp'o area, Japan would immediately demand that Korea open the port to Japan. To emphasize his point, Hayashi stated that if Kojong signed that agreement, Japan would break off all diplomatic relations with Korea and demand the country be opened wide to other foreign nations.

The Korean government informed Minster Pavlov in September that a final decision on the Yongamp'o timber concession had been entrusted to the Korean State Council. Pavlov's reaction was direct. Since signing the agreement was being delayed through no fault of the Yalu River Timber Company, the Russian government would assume the agreement was approved and allow the company to initiate logging operations regardless of whether the State Council signed the actual agreement or not. The agreement was never signed.

The Japanese continued to aggressively push Korea to open the port of Sinuiju to Japanese trade. On October 15, Minister Hayashi added the demand that the port of Yongamp'o be immediately opened to Japan. The matter was handed over to the Korean State Council for deliberation. On the day the council was scheduled to debate the issue of opening new ports however, all the state councilors, acting under secret orders from the emperor, suddenly "took ill." The meeting was never held, which left the decision to open Yongamp'o unresolved.

In St. Petersburg, General Aleksei Kuropatkin asked to be relieved from his duties in August 1903. Finance Minister Witte fell from grace at almost the same time, partly because of Bezobrazov's maneuvering, but largely because his financial policies were blamed for the economic depression gripping Russia. Witte's removal weakened the whole administrative apparatus in Manchuria. Further increasing the confusion was the creation of a Far Eastern Committee in St Petersburg in September 1903, headed by Bezobrazov's cousin, Russian Navy Captain A.M. Abaza. The added layers of Russian authority in the region not only complicated negotiations with the Chinese and Japanese governments, but caused numerous delays and magnified mutual suspicions.

In St. Petersburg on August 12, Japanese Minister Kurino Shinichiro presented Foreign Minister Lamsdorff the outline of a six-point agreement between the two countries that expressed a willingness to afford Russia special rights to continue development of the Manchurian railways in exchange for recognition of Japan's dominant influence in Korea and its right to extend commercial operations into Manchuria. The Russian Foreign Ministry saw evidence in the proposed agreement that Japan ultimately intended to link the Korean Railway with the Chinese Eastern Railway at the Yalu River near Sinuiju and wanted to erase all previous agreements between the two countries regarding the Korean question.

Russian Ambassador Rosen submitted a counter-proposal in Tokyo in September 1903 that dealt only with the Korean question. The proposal reflected the Russian government's adamant position that Manchuria, in all respects, remained outside Japan's sphere of interest, a matter they considered to be the sole responsibility of Russia and China.

In their counter-proposal to the Rosen offer, the Japanese continued to assert the linkage between the Korean and Manchurian problems. Russia responded on December 11, 1903, with a counter-proposal to Tokyo that appeared quite similar to its original position that Manchuria and Korea were two separate issues. The Japanese government thoroughly reviewed the Russian document on December 16-17 and ultimately rejected it.

The Japanese government felt Russia's new stance was both discomforting and unreliable. On December 21, Japan offered yet another compromise, but with a twist. They agreed not to build any military facilities that could threaten the freedom of navigation through the Korea Straits, but added the idea of creating a 50 kilometer-wide neutral zone on either side of the Yalu River along the Korean-Manchurian frontier. The proposal would allow Japanese troops to be stationed in Korea, but would restrict Russian troops from entering the neutral zone. In the view of Russian military officers, the only real concession in this proposal was the agreement not to use the peninsula for military facilities. The Russians submitted their response on January 6, 1904, a document that, with minor modifications, was a repeat of Russia's original position. Once again, the Russians made no mention of Manchuria.

Russia not only failed to carry out the final phase of its agreed withdrawal from Manchuria by October 8, 1903, it also ignored all Japanese offers to peacefully settle the issue of Manchurian sovereignty and the division of spheres of influence in Manchuria and Korea. Russia and Japan exchanged eight major proposals and counter-proposals on Manchuria and the question of Korean neutrality between August 1903 and January 1904 with no agreement.

Emperor Kojong, who had followed the progress of negotiations with great interest, moved to separate his country from any potential clash between the two powers. He came to believe that the heated negotiations between Russia and Japan would not produce results advantageous to Korea. He made it a priority to maintain friendly relations with the Russians in order to counter Japanese efforts to impose their will on Korea. To do this, he believed that Korea's neutrality would have to be officially recognized by the international community. Kojong sent a royal envoy to the Russian Legation on January 14, 1904, to inform Minister Pavlov that he desired the world be told that Korea would remain neutral in any conflict between Russia and Japan. Pavlov agreed to telegraph the emperor's message to the outside world through the Russian and French legations in Shanghai. The Japanese refused to accept Korea's self-proclaimed neutrality.

The Japanese government concluded that Russia had no intention of seeking a diplomatic settlement to the Manchuria and Korean Peninsula issues, but had been merely stalling for time to continue their military buildup in Manchuria. Dejected by the failure of their diplomatic efforts, Japanese leaders began to consider the war option. In a final attempt to settle the matter, the Meiji emperor ordered one last effort for peace on January 12. Four days later, in compliance with the emperor's directive, Japan's foreign minister made a verbal request to Ambassador Rosen in Tokyo that negotiations be resumed.

The Russian government forwarded a new counter-proposal to Ambassador Rosen in Tokyo on February 3, 1904, which, for the first time, expressed a willingness to discuss Manchuria as part of the Russo-Japanese negotiations. Russia finally acquiesced to all Japanese demands regarding the Korean question, including recognition of Japan's dominant interests in Korea, not opposing Japanese commercial and industrial activities in Korea and acknowledging Japan's right to send its troops to Korea. Russia remained unyielding however, on the matter of both parties agreeing to guarantee Korea's independence and territorial integrity. Unfortunately, the Japanese government intentionally held up the telegram to Ambassador Rosen at the Nagasaki telegraph office.

With the last link in the Trans-Siberian Railway nearing completion and Japanese intelligence reports of military preparations in Manchuria and at Port Arthur, the Japanese government realized that the more time Japan spent pursuing diplomacy, the tougher its military options would become. Further delays would only benefit the Russians. Now, with the British Navy as an ally, it became clear to the Japanese they had only two options left:  either back down completely or fight. The Japanese lost all patience and decided to let the military settle the matter. Japan would choose the time and the place.

The sharp conflict of interests between Russia and Japan boiled down to a single central issue;  the fate of Korea and the Liaodong Peninsula. Russia was the only regional power capable of mounting a serious challenge to Japan over Korea, but to defeat them, Russia would have to successfully invade the Japanese islands. That would require taking absolute command of the Yellow Sea early in the war. Furthermore, if Russia ever hoped to succeed in a land invasion of Japan, the Russian Navy would have to dominate the East Sea. Fortunately for Russia, a defeat at sea would not be a disaster, since its principal objective was merely to resist being pushed out of Manchuria and Port Arthur and it had a large land army already available to hold on to both.

Russia controlled the two naval bases at Port Arthur and Vladivostok, but they were separated by exceptionally long and rather primitive lines of supply and communication. Russia completely controlled its land routes of supply, but its industrial base for producing war materiel lay thousands of miles to the west. The overland transportation routes were barely adequate for routine supply and virtually useless for the carriage of heavy items such as large 50-ton naval guns. In a major war effort against Japan in Korea, such long supply lines meant that Russian troops would have to endure an exhausting train ride lasting weeks just to reach the theater of operations.

Owing to the long distance between Russian ports in the Baltic Sea and Port Arthur, resupply by sea was an even greater problem. Port Arthur and Vladivostok were isolated from each other by the undesirable obstruction of the Korean Peninsula. With the Russian Far East Fleet divided between Port Arthur and Vladivostok, Japan had the freedom to attack either base. The only sea link between these two naval bases passed through the Tsushima Strait. Because of the direct threat posed by the Japanese occupation of Korea, no Russian tsar could rest easy until Korea was completely under Russian control.