There is good reason to affirm that the unexpected change of policy that put a stop to the evacuation of the province of Mukden was an event of immense importance. So long as we held to our intention of withdrawing all our troops from Manchuria (except the railway guard and a small force at Kharbin), and so long as we refrained from invading Korea with our enterprises, there was little danger of a break with Japan; but we were brought alarmingly nearer to a rupture with that Power when, contrary to our agreement with China, we left our troops in southern Manchuria, and when, in the promotion of our timber enterprise, we entered northern Korea. The uncertainty, moreover, with regard to our intentions, alarmed not only China and Japan, but even England, America, and other Powers.
COUNT LAMSDORFF
FORMER RUSSIAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, WHO COÖPERATED WITH WITTE AND KUROPATKIN IN TRYING TO PREVENT WAR WITH JAPAN
Witte Creates the Port of Dalny
In the early part of 1903, our situation in the Far East became very much involved. The interests of the Pri-Amur were thrown completely into the background, and General Dukhovski, the military commander and governor-general of that territory, was wholly ignored in the consideration and decision of the most important questions of Far Eastern policy. Meanwhile, in Manchuria—on Chinese territory—enterprises involving many millions of rubles were undertaken and carried on by virtue of authority that was wholly special. The Minister of Finance (M. Witte) was building and managing there a railroad about two thousand versts in length; he had the direction of a whole army corps of railway guards; he was trying to increase the economic importance of the railway by running in connection with it a fleet of sea-going steamers; he had on the Manchurian rivers a flotilla of smaller vessels, some of which carried guns and gunners; and in military matters he was so independent of the War Department that, without consulting the latter, he even selected and purchased abroad the artillery for the railway guard. Vladivostok, as a terminus, no longer seemed to satisfy the requirements of an international transit line, so, regardless of the fact that the province of Kwang-tung was subject to the authority of the provincial commander, M. Witte, without consulting either the latter or the Minister of War, located and created therein the spacious port of Dalny. The enormous sums of money spent there only lessened the importance and weakened the strength of Port Arthur, because it was necessary either to fortify Dalny, or prepare to have it seized by an enemy and used as a base of operations against us—a thing that afterward happened. Finally, the Minister of Finance managed the affairs of the Russo-Chinese Bank, and had at Peking, Seoul, and other points, his own agents (in Peking, Pokotiloff).
Incredible Schemes of Promoter Bezobrazoff
It thus appears that in 1903 M. Witte controlled or directed in the Far East not only railroads, but corps of troops, a fleet of commercial steamers, armed river boats, the port of Dalny, and the Russo-Chinese Bank. At the same time, Bezobrazoff and his company were developing their enterprises in Manchuria and Korea, and promoting, by every possible means, their timber speculation on the Yalu. One incredible scheme of Bezobrazoff followed another; and in the summer of 1903 there was submitted to me for examination a project of his which provided for the immediate concentration in southern Manchuria of an army of 70,000 men. His aim was to utilize the timber company as a means of creating a sort of "screen," or barrier against a possible attack upon us by the Japanese, and in 1902-1903 his activity, and that of his adherents, assumed a very alarming form. Among the requests that he made of Admiral Alexeieff were, to send into Korean territory six hundred soldiers in civilian dress; to organize for service in the same locality a force of three thousand Khunkhuzes[3]; to give the agents of the timber company the support of four companies of chasseurs (six hundred mounted riflemen) to be stationed at Shakhedze, on the Yalu; and to occupy Feng-wang-cheng with a body of troops capable of acting independently. Admiral Alexeieff denied some of these requests, but, unfortunately, he consented to station one company of chasseurs (one hundred and fifty mounted riflemen) at Shakhedze, and to send a regiment of Cossack cavalry, with field guns, to Feng-wang-cheng. These measures were particularly serious and injurious to us, for the reason that they were taken at the very time when we were under obligations to evacuate the province of Mukden altogether.
