The Russian Army and the Japanese War, Vol. 1 (of 2) / Being Historical and Critical Comments on the Military Policy and Power of Russia and on the Campaign in the Far East

by A. N. Kuropatkin

“It must not be forgotten that Japan can not only quickly throw a well-organized and well-trained army of from 150,000 to 180,000 men into Korea or Manchuria, but can do this without drawing at all heavily upon her population. If we accept the German ratio of regular troops to population—namely, 1 per cent.[60]—we shall see that she can, with her 47,000,000 of people, maintain, instead of 120,000, a force of 400,000 men in time of peace, and 1,000,000 in time of war. Even if we reduce this estimate by one-quarter, Japan will be able to oppose us on the mainland with a regular army of from 300,000 to 350,000 men. If we mean to annex Manchuria, we shall be compelled to bring up our numbers to a point which will enable our troops in the Far East alone to withstand a Japanese attack.”

From the above lines it will be seen how seriously the War Department regarded such an antagonist as Japan, and how much anxiety it felt concerning possible complications with that Power on account of Korea. Still, so long as we adhered to our decision to evacuate Southern Manchuria, and not to interfere in Korean affairs, the danger of a rupture was removed. In 1900 our Government had been obliged to respect the territorial integrity of China, and the question of evacuating Manchuria had been in principle decided in the affirmative; and if we were preparing to leave the country, we certainly could not at the same time be preparing it as a theatre of military operations.

As regards the evacuation, there was a difference of opinion between Admiral Alexeieff (the Commander of the Kuan-tung district) and myself as to the importance to us of Southern Manchuria. I believed that the occupation of Manchuria would bring us no profit, and would involve us in trouble with Japan on the one side, through our nearness to Korea, and with China on the other side, through our possession of Mukden. I therefore regarded the speedy evacuation of Southern Manchuria and Mukden as a matter of absolute necessity. The Commander of the Kuan-tung district, on the other hand, whose duty it was to defend that district, thought fit to contend that a permanent occupation of Southern Manchuria would be the best guarantee of our communications with Russia. There was also a minor difference of opinion between the Finance Minister and myself with regard to the withdrawal of our troops from Northern Manchuria. He thought that it would suffice to leave the Frontier Guards only for the protection of the railway. Guided by our experience in quelling the Boxer rising in 1900, I considered it necessary, after withdrawing our troops as quickly as possible from Southern Manchuria, to remove them from all populated places in Northern Manchuria which were off the line of rail, including Kirin and Tsitsihar, and to station a small reserve at Harbin on the line itself in case of disorder. This reserve need not have been stronger than two to four infantry battalions and one battery of artillery. Moreover, I thought we ought to continue to guard communication between Harbin and Khabarovsk along the Sungari, and between Tsitsihar and Blagovieschensk, by the maintenance of a few small military posts. These differences of opinion, however, ceased to exist with the ratification of the Russo-Chinese Treaty of April 1, 1902. By the terms of that convention our troops—with the exception of those guarding the railway—were to be removed from all parts of Manchuria, Southern as well as Northern, within specified periods. This settlement of the question was a great relief to the War Department, because it held out the hope of a “return to the west” in our military affairs. In the first period of six months we were to evacuate the western part of Southern Manchuria, from Shan-hai-kuan to the River Liao; this we punctually did. In the second period of six months we were to remove our troops from the rest of the province of Mukden, including the cities of Mukden and Newchuang. The Department regarded the arrangement to evacuate the province of Mukden with approval, and made energetic preparations to carry it into effect. Barracks were hastily erected between Khabarovsk and Vladivostok for the soldiers to be withdrawn into the Pri-Amur country; the scheme of transportation was drawn up and approved; the movement of troops had begun, and Mukden had actually been evacuated, when suddenly everything was stopped by order of Admiral Alexeieff, the Commander of the Kuan-tung district. His reasons for taking such action have not, to this day, been sufficiently cleared up. It is definitely known, however, that the change in policy which stopped the withdrawal of troops from Southern Manchuria corresponded in time with the first visit to the Far East of State Councillor Bezobrazoff (retired). Mukden, which we had already evacuated, was reoccupied, as was also the city of Newchuang. The Ya-lu timber concession[61] assumed more importance than ever, and in order to give support to it and our other undertakings in Northern Korea, Admiral Alexeieff sent a mounted force with guns to Feng-huang-cheng. Thus, far from completing the evacuation of Southern Manchuria, we actually moved into parts of it that we had never before occupied. At the same time, we allowed operations in connection with the Korean timber concession to go on, despite the fact that the promoters of this enterprise were striving to give to it a political and military character contrary to instructions from St. Petersburg.

VICE-ADMIRAL ALEXEIEFF.

This unexpected change of policy alarmed both China and Japan, and there is good reason to believe that the stoppage of the evacuation of the province of Mukden was an event of supreme importance. So long as we held to our intention of withdrawing all our troops from Manchuria, confined ourselves to the protection of the line by the Frontier Guards and a small reserve at Harbin, and refrained from intruding in Korea, there was little danger of a break with Japan; but we were brought alarmingly near a rupture with that Power when, contrary to our agreement with China, we left our troops in Southern Manchuria, and entered Northern Korea in pursuit of our timber enterprise. The uncertainty as to our intentions, moreover, alarmed not only China and Japan, but even England, America, and other Powers.

In the early part of 1903 our position became extremely involved. The interests of the Pri-Amur were by this time pushed completely into the background; even General Dukhovski, its Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief, was not consulted upon the most important points concerning the Far East. Meanwhile, immense enterprises involving many millions of pounds were being created and controlled on independent lines in Manchuria, on Chinese territory. The Minister of Finance (M. de Witte) was building and managing over 1,300 miles of railway. The alignment of the northern portion was, as I have explained, fixed in direct opposition to the opinion of General Dukhovski, our chief authority in those parts, while under the orders of the Finance Minister an army corps was organized for the protection of the line. So independent, indeed, was the latter in his conduct of purely military matters that a pattern of gun for the railway guard was settled, and the gun purchased abroad without reference to the War Ministry. To assist in the economic development of the railway, M. de Witte started a fleet of sea-going merchant ships; for work on the Manchurian rivers he ran a flotilla of river steamers, some of which were armed. Vladivostok was no longer considered suitable as a terminus for a trans-continental trunk line, so, regardless of the fact that the Kuan-tung district was under the War Department and immediately under the officer commanding the troops in it (Admiral Alexeieff), Dalny was selected and created as a great port without reference to either. Huge sums were spent on this place, which adversely affected the military importance and strength of Port Arthur, as it was necessary either to fortify Dalny or be prepared for its seizure and employment by an enemy as a base of operations against us—a thing which afterwards happened. I should add that the Russo-Chinese Bank was also in the Finance Minister’s hands. Finally, M. de Witte maintained his own representatives in Peking, Seoul, etc. (Pokotiloff in Peking). It so happened, therefore, that in this year our Minister of Finance was managing in the Far East railways, a flotilla of merchant steamers, a certain number of armed vessels, the port of Dalny, and the Russo-Chinese Bank. He also had under his command an army corps. At the same time Bezobrazoff and his company were developing their concessions in Manchuria and Korea, and promoting by every possible means their timber speculation on the Ya-lu in Northern Korea. One incredible scheme of Bezobrazoff’s followed another. His idea was to utilize the Timber Company as a sort of “screen” or barrier against a possible attack upon us by the Japanese, and during 1902 and 1903 his activity and that of his adherents assumed a very alarming character. Among requests that he made of Admiral Alexeieff were to send into Korean territory 600 soldiers in civilian dress, to organize for service in the same locality a force of 3,000 Hun-huses, to support the agents of the Timber Company by sending 600 mounted rifles to Sha-ho-tzu on the Ya-lu, and to occupy Feng-huang-cheng with a detached force. Admiral Alexeieff refused some of these requests, but unfortunately consented to send 150 mounted rifles to Sha-ho-tzu, and to move a Cossack regiment with guns to the latter place. This action was particularly harmful to us, as it was taken just at the time when we were under obligations to evacuate the province of Mukden altogether. As has already been stated, instead of withdrawing, we advanced towards Korea.

The Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs, and War (de Witte, Lamsdorff, and myself), all recognized the danger that would threaten us if we continued to defer fulfilment of the promised evacuation, and, more especially, if we failed to put an end to Bezobrazoff’s activity in Korea. We three Ministers, therefore, procured the appointment of a special council, which assembled in St. Petersburg on April 18, 1903, to consider certain propositions which Bezobrazoff had made to its members in a special memorandum. These proposals had for their object the strengthening of Russia’s strategic position in the basin of the Ya-lu. We three Ministers on the committee expressed ourselves firmly and definitely in opposition to Bezobrazoff’s proposals, and all agreed that if his enterprise on the Ya-lu was to be sustained, it must be upon a strictly commercial basis. The Minister of Finance showed conclusively that, for the next five or ten years, Russia’s task in the Far East must be to tranquillize the country, and bring to completion the work already undertaken there. He said, furthermore, that although the views of the different departments of the Government were not always precisely the same, there had never been—so far as the Ministers of War, Foreign Affairs, and Finance were concerned—any conflict of action. The Minister of Foreign Affairs pointed out particularly the danger involved in Bezobrazoff’s proposal to stop the withdrawal of troops from Manchuria.

It pleased His Imperial Majesty to say, after he had listened to these expressions of opinion, that war with Japan was extremely undesirable, and that we must endeavour to restore in Manchuria a state of tranquillity. The company formed for the purpose of exploiting the timber on the River Ya-lu must be a strictly commercial organization, must admit foreigners who desired to participate, and must exclude all ranks of the army. I was then ordered to proceed to the Far East, for the purpose of acquainting myself, on the spot, with our needs, and ascertaining what the state of mind was in Japan. In the latter country, where I met with the most cordial and kind-hearted reception, I became convinced that the Government desired to avoid a rupture with Russia, but that it would be necessary for us to act in a perfectly definite way in Manchuria, and to refrain from interference in the affairs of Korea. If we permitted the schemes of Bezobrazoff and Company to continue, we should be in danger of a conflict. These conclusions I telegraphed to St. Petersburg. After my departure from that city, however, the danger of a rupture with Japan, on account of Korea, had increased considerably, especially when, on May 20, 1903, the Minister of Finance announced that, “after having had an explanation from State Councillor Bezobrazoff, he (the Minister) was not in disagreement with him so far as the essence of the matter was concerned.”

In the council held at Port Arthur, when I arrived, Admiral Alexeieff, Lessar,[62] Pavloff,[63] and I cordially agreed that the Ya-lu enterprise should have a purely commercial character; and I added, moreover, that, in my opinion, it ought to be abandoned altogether. I brought about the recall of several army officers who were taking part in it, and suggested to Lieutenant-Colonel Madritoff, who was managing the military and political side of it, that he should either resign his commission or give up employment which, in my judgment, was not suitable for an officer wearing the uniform of the General Staff. He chose the former alternative.