This announcement appeared at a time when we had over 100,000 men in arms in Asia. There can, therefore, be no question of our sincere intention—at that time—to evacuate Manchuria. In 1901 these promises were repeated by our Government in a similar communiqué of April 5. Neither the opposition of China nor the Anglo-Japanese Treaty concluded in 1902, which was unmistakably directed against us, were at the moment considered sufficient to warrant our abandoning all hope of fulfilling our promise to withdrew from Manchuria.
But so long ago as 1900 it had seemed doubtful whether we should be able to carry out this promise. In the first place, it was impossible to ignore entirely the advice of the authorities on the spot, who did not consider a withdrawal was either desirable or possible in our own interests. The action of the Chinese officials in Manchuria, the existence of bands of Hun-huses, and the serious military expeditions we had been forced to make in 1901—all strengthened the opinion of our commanders out there that we had been in too great haste to promise the evacuation of the country. Notwithstanding these doubts, a treaty was concluded with China in April, 1902. This was but the logical development of the official pronouncements made in 1900 and 1901. At first it was supposed that this agreement would lead to a definite settlement of our position in the Far East, but it soon became apparent that there was little ground for such hope. The immense expenditure from 1900 to 1903 on the railway, the army, and the fleet, gave birth to and nourished the fixed idea that our most vital interests would not be sufficiently guarded if we strictly observed the treaty made in April. China viewed us with suspicion, and was almost openly hostile; Japan was openly hostile; while all the other Powers distrusted us. Our foothold in Manchuria also seemed precarious, and in spite of hurrying on the construction and increasing its guards, the railway was by no means secure. Trains had to be escorted on account of the frequent raids by Hun-huses, and no trust could be placed in either the natives or their officials. All this showed that if we confined ourselves merely to protecting the line itself, it would be destroyed in many places at the first rising. Our position would then be serious in the extreme if we should be attacked on the western frontier while carrying on a war in the east. There is no doubt whatever that, if trouble had arisen in the west, and our troops had been withdrawn from Manchuria, a repetition of the Chinese disorders of 1900 might easily have occurred; our communications with the Pri-Amur would again have been interrupted, and we should have had to reconquer Manchuria.[57] With each month that passed the doubt as to our ability to carry out the terms of the treaty of April increased, and this difficult period of uncertainty turned to one of acute anxiety on account of the increasing hostility to us of China and Japan. Officially, we continued to give assurances that we should keep to our engagement, and we even carried out the first portion of it by withdrawing our troops from that part of the Mukden province up to the River Liao; but we were, as a matter of fact, already taking steps essential to our own interests, but absolutely at variance with the treaty.
Before the Boxer rising of 1900 I had expressed the opinion that Northern and Southern Manchuria possessed entirely different values for us, the greater importance of the former being due to the various considerations. In the first place, the country through which the main Siberian line passed was of special importance, because upon it depended the security of our communication, and because the experience of 1900 had shown the extreme weakness of its protection as organized by the Finance Minister. I therefore asked that a small force of four infantry battalions, one battery, and one squadron of Cossacks might be stationed on the line as a mobile reserve at Harbin, in addition to the local railway guards. Barracks for a force of this size were built, and were ready for occupation in 1903; but placing troops merely along the line itself—and a small number at that—would have been of no use if China had intended to make things unpleasant for us in Manchuria. The line would have been cut, and the culprits would never have been discovered, for the officials, who outwardly kow-towed to us, were all the time acting in accordance with instructions from Peking. The only thing we could expect was an influx of Chinese into Northern Manchuria, and the crowding of the tracts bordering on the Chinese frontier. Against this, even complete annexation of Northern Manchuria did not appear to me desirable, or likely to serve any useful purpose, as the Chinese population so annexed, possessing the rights of citizenship and settling along the left bank of the Amur, would have swamped the native population of the Amur and coast districts.[58] During the whole of the last century we had only succeeded in colonizing very sparsely with our own people that part of Siberia east of Trans-Baikalia to the sea, which means that the bonds binding it to Russia were extremely weak. In the Amur and coast districts, with a frontier of 1,600 miles bordering on China (from Trans-Baikalia to the sea), the whole population only consisted of 400,000. Northern Manchuria, of about 450,000 square miles in extent, includes the whole of the Kheilutsianski and the northern part of the Kirin provinces. According to available information, it had before the war only 1,500,000 inhabitants. This works out at three persons per square mile. The Boxer rising of 1900 indicated that, so long as the affairs of the people in Northern Manchuria continued to be controlled from Peking, we must expect risings and attempts to destroy the line, for the Chinese Government always had a ready reply to our protests: “It is the Hun-huses who are the culprits.” Nor could we regard without apprehension the increases to the Chinese forces in Northern Manchuria, and the settling of Chinese on the waste lands adjacent to the Rivers Amur and Argun, where our people had for a long time been settled. It was necessary, therefore, that we should have, in some form or other, the right of control and of generally making our own arrangements in Northern Manchuria. Without this our weakly guarded railway might be a positive disadvantage, as it added to the vulnerability of our frontier line, which makes a large bend to the north between Trans-Baikalia and the Ussuri region, the whole of the Kheilutsianski and the northern part of the Kirin province running wedgewise into our territory. Only by the security of Northern Manchuria could we feel sufficiently at ease about the Pri-Amur region to start its development.
Now, Northern Manchuria is not next to Korea, and our permanent occupation of it would consequently not have threatened complications with Japan, nor were there in it important European interests which might have been disturbed. It was, however, undoubtedly important to China, with whom its forcible annexation by us might lead to complications. It therefore devolved upon us to find some method of consolidating our position in this region which would not cause a rupture with China. Thus I was strongly in favour of including Northern Manchuria in some way or the other within our sphere of influence; but I was at the same time absolutely opposed to any quasi-political or military enterprise in Southern Manchuria.
This region, up to the Kuan-tung district, includes the whole of the Mukden and the southern part of the Kirin province. Though only one-quarter the size of Northern Manchuria, the population was more than 8,000,000. This works out at more than seventy souls per square mile, as compared with about three for the latter. Mukden, sacred to the Chinese dynasty, might always be a source of misunderstanding with China, and our contact with Korea for 533 miles might easily lead to complications with Japan.
Southern Manchuria, contracting in a wedge-shape, borders on Kuan-tung, and has only 530 odd miles on the Korean frontier. The occupation of it, therefore, would necessitate having two fronts, one towards Korea and one towards China. If an enemy were superior at sea, he could threaten a landing along the 400-mile-long coast of Southern Manchuria. A landing in Newchuang,[59] for example, would have taken all our troops south of that place in the rear. In discussing possible solutions of this problem, it might be suggested—in the event of any unfriendly action on the part of China—that we should obtain possession of Manchuria in the same way as we had secured the Kuan-tung Peninsula. If we did, this would secure our communication with the latter. Being convinced, as I have said, that the inclusion of Northern Manchuria within our sphere followed as the natural consequence of running the Siberian main line through Manchuria, I felt equally sure that any kind of annexation of Southern Manchuria would be dangerous.
In a special memorandum upon the Manchurian question which I submitted to the Tsar in October, 1903, I expressed myself as follows:
“If we do not touch the boundary of Korea, and do not garrison the country between it and the railway, we shall really prove to the Japanese that we have no intention of seizing Korea as well as Manchuria. They will then in all probability confine themselves to the peaceful furtherance of their interests in the Peninsula, and will neither enter into a military occupation of it nor greatly increase the strength of their home army. This will relieve us of the necessity of augmenting our numbers in the Far East, and of supporting the heavy burden otherwise necessary even should there be no war. If, on the other hand, we annex Southern Manchuria, all the questions that now trouble us and threaten to set the two nations by the ears will become more critical. Our temporary occupation of certain points between the railway and Korea will become permanent, our attention will be more and more attracted to the Korean frontier, and our attitude will confirm the Japanese in their suspicions that we intend to seize that peninsula.
“That our occupation of Southern Manchuria will lead to a Japanese occupation of Southern Korea there cannot be the slightest doubt; but beyond that all is uncertain. One thing, however, is certain. If Japan takes this step, she will be compelled rapidly to increase her military strength, and we, in turn, shall have to reply by enlarging our Far Eastern force. Thus two nations whose interests are so different that they would seem destined to live peaceably, will begin a contest in time of peace, in which each will try to surpass the other in preparations for war. We Russians can only do this at the expense of our strength in the west, and of the vital interests of the people at large—all for the sake of portions of a country which really has no serious importance for us. Moreover, if other Powers take part in this rivalry, the struggle for military supremacy is liable at any moment to change into a deadly conflict, which may not only retard the peaceful development of our Far Eastern possessions for a long time, but may result in a set-back to the whole Empire.
“Even if we should defeat Japan on the mainland—in Korea and Manchuria—we could not destroy her, nor obtain decisive results, without carrying the war into her territory. That, of course, would not be absolutely impossible, but to invade a country with a warlike population of 47,000,000, where even the women participate in wars of national defence, would be a serious undertaking even for a Power as strong as Russia. And if we do not utterly destroy Japan—if we do not deprive her of the right and the power to maintain a navy—she will wait for the first convenient opportunity—till, for instance, we are engaged in war in the west—to attack us, either single-handed or in co-operation with our European enemies.