In the Far East we had little trouble for many years. Though our frontier with China was 6,000 miles long, it was not till 1880—twenty-seven years ago—that the increase in Japan’s military power and the awakening of China compelled us to think about strengthening our position in that quarter.
In 1871, when the western provinces of China[39] were convulsed by the Mohammedan rebellion, we occupied the province of Kuldja in order to safeguard our own borders. The inhabitants—the Dunganites and Taranchites—who had previously completely defeated the Chinese and some of the Kalmuits, gave us very little trouble, and laid down their arms on our definite promise to make them Russian subjects. But while our soldiers were doing their work on the spot, our diplomats in their offices miles away, without consulting any of those with local knowledge, such as Kaufmann or Kolpakovski, thought fit to promise the Chinese that as soon as they quelled the revolt and arrived as far as Kuldja, that province could be restored to them. As a matter of fact, we hoped, of course, that they would be unable to defeat Yakub Beg, and so would never gain possession of Kashgaria, and yet we were helping them towards this very object. The position was a curious one, and in 1876, when I, as Russian envoy, was in Yakub Beg’s camp near Kurlia[40] negotiating as to the delimitation of the boundary of Fergana, just conquered by us, he himself remarked on it. He very justly reproached me with the fact that while I was dealing with him, another officer of the General Staff, one Lieutenant-Colonel Sosnovski, was, with the knowledge of the Russian authorities, supplying the Chinese troops moving against him. His statement was absolutely correct. After Yakub Beg’s sudden death the Chinese quickly got possession of the whole of Kashgaria, advanced up to the southern edge of Kuldja, and asserted their rights to that province also. While Kaufmann urged most strenuously that we ought not to return the province to them, we procrastinated. In 1878, when I was at the head of the Asiatic Section of the General Staff, I put a memorandum before my Chief, Count Heyden, in which I pointed out the great strategic value of Kuldja to us. I also stated that, if we felt bound by our loosely given engagement to return this province to China, we should most certainly be justified in demanding compensation for the expenses incurred by us during our eight years’ occupation. I suggested a sum of £10,000,000 in gold, as being suitable and also opportune for the construction of the Siberian Railway. My contention was supported by Kaufmann, but our diplomatists were against it. A special committee, consisting of M. Giers, Minister for Foreign Affairs; Admiral Grieg, Minister of Finance; Generals Kaufmann, Obrucheff, and myself, under the presidency of Count Milutin, was appointed to go into the question by the Emperor Alexander II. M. Giers and Admiral Grieg were in favour of returning Kuldja to China without demanding any compensation. Admiral Grieg asserted that Russia was in no particular need of money, and both Ministers held that we were bound by the promise to China—a promise lightly made by our diplomats without the knowledge of the men on the spot—while the other engagement made with the Dunganites and Taranchites in 1871 could be forgotten. After prolonged discussions, it was decided to return Kuldja to China, and to ask for £500,000 as compensation. The member who was most opposed to obtaining a large sum of money from China was, of all people, the Finance Minister; he apparently overlooked the possibility that would be conferred by this sum of carrying out the construction of the Siberian Railway ten years sooner. For this oversight we paid later. Meanwhile the Chinese assumed a stiff attitude, and threatened to seize Kuldja, moving troops towards it to Urumchi, Manas, Kunia-Turfan, and other points. We, in reply, hastily strengthened our position by sending up troops from Tashkent towards Kuldja. In 1880 we fortified the Barokhorinski ridge, separating it from parts of Chinese Turkestan in the occupation of the Chinese. I was in command of our advanced guard, and saw how gladly our troops would have obeyed the order to advance. They were disgusted at the thought of having to abandon the splendid country of which we had been in occupation for nearly ten years, and at the idea of breaking faith with the people to whom we had promised protection, who were even then crowding round our camps in alarm at the rumour that we were going to hand them over to the Chinese. Of course, at the time this question was decided we entertained a very exaggerated idea of the value of the Chinese troops themselves, and also of China’s military resources.
Events afterwards moved rapidly. We commenced the construction of the railway through Manchuria, and occupied the Kuan-tung Peninsula, thus alarming not only China, but Japan.
Thus, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century matters became more involved on all sides. Not only did we have to meet the preparations of Austria and Germany on the west, and threatened trouble in our frontier districts near Roumania, Turkey, and Afghanistan, but from 1896 to 1900 we had, in addition, to face the problem of safeguarding the position we had suddenly—and, for the War Department, unexpectedly—taken up in the Far East in our advance to the Pacific Ocean. The magnitude of the task of protecting 11,000 miles of frontier, and of keeping up forces so as to be in a position to fight different combinations of no less than nine adjacent States, conveys some idea of the colossal expense involved.
[CHAPTER IV]
Deductions drawn from the work of the army in the past 200 years, which may serve as some guide for the line our military policy should take in the beginning of the twentieth century.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the energies of the country were mainly absorbed in expansion and consolidation. In the prosecution of these objects we were engaged in many wars, and the experience thereby gained should help to indicate what is in store for the War Department in the future. The following appear to be the principal deductions that can be drawn from the past:
1. The duties in connection with our movement towards the shores of the Baltic and Black Seas, the expansion of Russian territory to the west (White Russia, Little Russia, Poland), to the south (Caucasus), to the east (Central Asia), were carried out by the army. From the analysis of our frontiers already made in [Chapter II.], it will be seen that, thanks to what has been done, Russia is in no need of any further increase of territory. This conclusion is in the highest degree important and satisfactory. At the same time, our military position does not now compare so favourably as formerly with that of our neighbours, principally owing to our lack of railways, and our western frontiers are exposed to great danger through the perfect state of preparation of Germany and Austria.