Russia absolutely refused to admit Japan's right to have anything whatever to say concerning Manchuria—the land which eight years before was hers by right of conquest, and from which Russia for her own purposes had ejected her. Admiral Alexieff was Viceroy of the Eastern Provinces, and to him the Tsar confided the issues of peace or war. Confident in her enormous weight and military prestige, Russia undoubtedly believed that the Japanese must in the end submit. But after five months of fruitless negotiations the patience of the Government at Tokio was exhausted. On Feb. 8, 1904, the Japanese fleet made a sudden descent upon Port Arthur. This act, so audaciously planned, resulted in the destruction of battle-ships, cruisers, torpedo-boats—nine in all—to which were added the day following two more battle-ships, destroyed at Chemulpo.
[Illustration: Scene during the Russo-Japanese War: Russian soldiers on the march in Manchuria.]
There was dismay and grief at St. Petersburg. The Tsar, realizing that he had been misled regarding the chances of peace and also the military strength of the foe, recalled Admiral Alexieff from Port Arthur. Admiral Makaroff, Russia's military hero and ablest commander, succeeded him. Just as his invigorating influence was being felt in awakened energy and courage, there came another disaster more terrible than the first. The Petropavlovsk, flag-ship of the fleet, coming in contact with a submarine mine or boat, was torn to pieces and sank in two minutes, with all on board, including Admiral Makaroff and his entire staff of seventeen officers.
Still benumbed by these crushing blows, the Russians were bewildered by the electrical swiftness with which the campaign developed, moving on lines almost identical with those in the war with China, ten years before. A miracle of discipline and minute perfection in method and detail, the Mikado's army of little men first secured control in Korea, then the command of the sea. Then one army division crossed the Yalu with three converging lines, moving toward Mukden, pressing a retreating army before them. Then, still moving in the grooves of the last war, there was a landing of troops at Pitsewo, threatening Dalny and Port Arthur, the latter already isolated, with railroad and telegraphic lines cut. Seeing the capture of Dalny was imminent, without a pause the Russians mined the harbor, docks and defences which had cost millions of dollars, and the city created by fiat was by fiat doomed to destruction.
Behind this life and death struggle with a foreign foe, another struggle nearer home was being profoundly affected by these unexpected calamities. An unpopular war cannot afford to be an unsuccessful one. This clash with Japan was distinctly the outcome of bureaucratic ambitions and policy. It had not one single issue in which the people who were fighting its battles and bearing its burdens were even remotely interested. And then again—a despotism must not show signs of weakness. Its power lies in the fiction of its invincibility. Liberals and Progressives of all shades, wise and not wise, saw their opportunity. Finns and Poles grew bolder. The air was thick with threats and demands and rumors of revolt.
At this critical moment M. Von Plehve, the leader of the party of reaction, the very incarnation of the spirit of old Russia, of Pobiedonostseff and the Holy Synod, was in power.
In 1903 there had occurred a shocking massacre of Jews at Kishineff. This culmination of a prolonged anti-Semitic agitation was quickly followed by an imperial edict, promising, among other reforms, religious liberty for all. With M. de Witte, the leader of the progressive party, to administer this new policy, a better day seemed to be dawning. But under the benumbing pressure of autocratic influences, and with his characteristic infirmity of purpose, the Tsar almost immediately removed M. de Witte, replacing him with M. Von Plehve, in whose hands the reforming edict became practically inoperative, and in fact all reforms impossible.
On June 15, 1904, General Bobrikov, the recently appointed Russian Governor of Finland, was assassinated by the son of a Finnish Senator within the walls of the Senate. Quickly following this, July 28th, M. Von Plehve was killed on the streets of St. Petersburg by the explosion of a dynamite bomb. The Tsar, recognized the meaning of these events, and quickly appointed Prince Mirski, known by his liberal tendencies, to Von Plehve's place in the Ministry of the Interior. One of the first acts of the new minister was the authorizing of a meeting of all the Presidents of the Zemstvos for consultation over national conditions. When it is recalled that the Zemstvo is a Peasants' Court, that it is a representative assembly of the humblest class in the Empire, and a gift which accompanied emancipation bestowed for their own protection—when this is remembered, we realize the full significance of this act of M. Von Plehve's successor. This first conference of the heads of the Zemstvos, which met at Moscow, Nov., 1904, by permission of Prince Mirski, contained the germ of a representative government. It was an acknowledgment of a principle hitherto denied; a recognition never before made of the right of the people to come together for the purpose of discussing measures of governmental policy.