“Finally, our last answer to Japan—despatched only a few days before the declaration of war—which contained a refusal to consider a neutral zone, and admitted Japan’s right to predominate in Korea, was stated to be ‘an exhibition of generosity beyond which Russia could scarcely go.’
“After three or four days—i.e., on February 6, 1904—diplomatic relations were broken off by Japan, and so began that awful war which might have been prevented without loss of dignity to us if the Viceroy’s policy had been a little less ‘firm,’ and—it must be added—a little less eccentric.”
My opinions with regard to the relative importance of the tasks which confronted our War Department made me a convinced opponent of an active Asiatic policy.
Realizing our military unreadiness on our western frontier, and taking into account the urgent need of devoting our resources to the work of internal reorganization and reform, I thought that a rupture with Japan would be a national calamity, and did everything in my power to prevent it. Throughout my long service in Asia I had not only been an advocate of an agreement with Great Britain on that continent, but I was also certain that a peaceable delimitation of spheres of influence between us and Japan was possible.
In my opinion, the carrying of the main line of the Trans-Siberian Railway through Manchuria was a mistake. I had nothing to do with the adoption of that route, as I was then Commander of the Trans-Caspian Military District; it was also contrary to the opinion of General Dukhovski, representative of the War Department in the Far East.
[CHAPTER VII]
WHY THE JAPANESE WERE SUCCESSFUL