On the 20th of June (July 3, N. S.) the council expressed its judgment with regard to this question as follows: "In view of the extraordinary difficulties and enormous administrative expenses that the annexation of Manchuria would involve, all the members of the council agree that it is, in principle, undesirable; and this conclusion applies not only to Manchuria as a whole, but also to its northern part."
2. The Korean question.
On the 19th of June (July 2, N. S.) the council decided that the occupation of the whole of Korea, or even of the northern part, would be unprofitable to Russia, and therefore undesirable. Our activity in the basin of the Yalu, moreover, might give Japan reason to fear a seizure by us of the northern part of the peninsula. On the 24th of June (July 7, N. S.) the council invited Actual State Councillor Balasheff and Lieutenant Colonel Madritoff, of the General Staff, to appear before it, and explain the status of the Yalu enterprise. From their testimony it appeared that the business was legally organized, the company holding permits from the Chinese authorities to cut timber on the northern side of the Yalu, and a concession from the Korean Government covering the southern side. Although the enterprise lost, to some extent, its provocative character, after the conclusions of the St. Petersburg council of April 5, 1903 (April 18, N. S.) became known in the province of Kwang-tung, its operations could not yet be regarded as purely commercial. Its affairs were managed by Lieutenant Colonel Madritoff, of the General Staff, although that officer was not officially in service.
After consideration of all the facts presented, the members of the council came to the conclusion that "although the Russian Timber Company really appears to be a commercial organization, its employment of officers of the active military service to do work that has military importance undoubtedly gives to it a politico-military aspect." The council, therefore, acknowledged the necessity of "taking measures, at once, to give the enterprise an exclusively commercial character, to exclude from it officers of the regular army, and to commit the management of the timber business to persons not employed in the service of the Empire." On the 24th of June (July 7, N. S.) these conclusions were signed by all the members of the council, including State Councillor Bezobrazoff.
It is evident, from the facts above set forth, that the statement in which M. Roslavleff charges the members of the council with signing minutes of proceedings that gave the Bezobrazoff adventure a place among useful imperial enterprises is fiction. Upon what it was based we do not know. The duty of immediately carrying into effect the conclusions of the council rested upon Admiral Alexeieff, by virtue of the authority given to him. The thing that he had to do, first of all, and that he was fully empowered to do, was to recall our force from Feng-wang-cheng and the company of chasseurs from the Yalu. Why this was not done I do not know. Personally, I did not allow Lieutenant Colonel Madritoff to continue his connection with the timber company as an officer of the General Staff, and I may add that he and other officers who associated themselves with the enterprise did so without consulting me.
But no matter how effective might be the measures taken by Admiral Alexeieff to give the Yalu enterprise a purely commercial character, I still feared that this undertaking, which had obtained world-wide notoriety, would continue to have important political significance. In my report of July 24, 1903 (August 6, N. S.), which was presented to the Emperor upon my return from Japan, I therefore expressed the opinion that an end should be put to the operations of the timber company, and that the whole enterprise should be sold to foreigners.
"Must We Break the Russian Empire?"
The thought that our interests in Korea, which were of trifling importance, might bring us into conflict with Japan, caused me incessant anxiety during my stay in the latter country. On the 13th of June, 1903 (June 26, N. S.), when I was passing through the Inland Sea, on my way to Nagasaki, I wrote in my diary:
"If I were asked to express an opinion, from a military point of view, with regard to the comparative importance of Russian interests in different parts of the Empire, and upon different frontiers, I should put my judgment into the form of a pyramidal diagram, placing the least important of our interests at the top and the most important at the bottom, as follows:
