The Origins of the Russo-Japanese War

Ian Nish

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781138162327
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317872177
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia del siglo XX

The Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 has been seen as the turning point of the development of the modern world. Written by a specialist in Japanese diplomacy, this book has been described by the Times Higher Education Supplement as 'diplomatic history at its very best'.

Chapter 1
The First Russo-Japanese Confrontation (1894-97)

Our study must start with the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95. The areas which come into contention between Russia and Japan and lead ultimately to the Russo-Japanese war — Korea, Manchuria and northeastern China — were the battlefields of this war. While the war was fought between China and Japan, it attracted the close attention of the powers of Europe and in some cases affected their interests. It is therefore necessary to write of the campaigns of this war, the peacemaking and its consequences, even though this can be done only briefly.

The Sino-Japanese war grew out of a dispute in Korea, which had traditionally been a tributary kingdom of China. In 1894 there had been serious civil disturbances in Korea, largely between the reformers supported by Japan and the more traditional court supported by China. When the Chinese reinforced their garrison in the peninsula by sending an expeditionary force, the cabinet of Marquis Ito Hirobumi, with the army chief of staff and his deputy present, decided on 2 June to augment its own garrison there. Three days later a general headquarters (Daihon'ei), the instrument for coordination between the commands of the army and navy, was set up, a sure indication that war was approaching. On 25 July encounters began with a naval battle in which Japan attacked a Chinese convoy carrying troops to Korea and sank the Kowshing, a British transport vessel under charter to the Chinese. Japan had won command of the seas and was able to send her troop transports to Korea freely. On 23 July Japanese troops entered the royal palace in Seoul and a few days later won the battle of Asan. This was followed by the official declaration of war on 1 August. The number of Chinese and Japanese troops was greatly stepped up. The Japanese pushed north and captured P'yongyang on 16 September, driving all Chinese troops out of Korea by the end of the month. Meanwhile Japan had signed with Korea an offensive and defensive alliance.

The Japanese entered Manchuria by crossing the Yalu river on 24 October. Another army group took advantage of the decisive defeat of the Chinese Peiyang squadron to stage a landing on the Liaotung peninsula itself. On 6 November it took possession of Talienwan and a fortnight later captured Port Arthur, the base of the Peiyang squadron. Meanwhile Marshal Yamagata Aritomo, commander of the 1st army, ordered his troops to move forward on Haicheng, an important strategic position, as a prelude to a crossing of the Liao river. But Prime Minister Ito in Tokyo was far from ready to contemplate Japanese troops entering Chihli province and obtained the approval of the emperor for the recall of Yamagata for the sake of recuperating from the illness from which he was then suffering.¹ Yamagata had shown himself inclined to follow a line independent of Tokyo. By this action, the prime minister prevented the army from pursuing any intention it may have had to march on Peking. When Yamagata returned to imperial headquarters at Hiroshima on 17 December, he presented a memorandum setting out the options open to the Japanese army and recommending that the army should be landed on the Shantung peninsula where conditions would be less severe than those it was suffering in Manchuria.²

While Yamagata had to resign his command, his policy recommendations were adopted. The Shantung peninsula was attacked in mid-January; and Weihaiwei fell to the Japanese after a naval battle on 12 February. Meanwhile in Manchuria the 1st and 2nd armies joined up and captured Liaoyang, Niuchuang and the port of Yingkow (6 March). Units crossed the Liao river two days later with tough fighting. It was another of Japan's objectives to obtain from China the island of Taiwan. In preparation for this, Japanese forces occupied the neighbouring Pescadores islands late in March and stayed there, awaiting the invasion of Taiwan.

By the spring the Japanese army and navy were in effective charge of a remarkably wide area of east Asia. The army commanders like Yamagata were heroes of the successful campaign which was popular with the people at large. Yet Japan's resources and manpower were strained and her commitments were dangerously dispersed.

Peace-Making at Shimonoseki

The Chinese announced that they were sending Japan a peace delegation on 5 January 1895. The powers were genuinely anxious for the return of peace, partly out of sympathy for China, and partly out of their own self-interest. In order to overcome the uncertainty about the post-war far east, the Russians in particular wanted to learn Japan's peace terms.

On 27 January the Japanese leaders held an imperial conference (gozen kaigi) at the imperial headquarters in Hiroshima. In a lengthy report to the throne, Ito set out his strategy thus: 'If we are to announce our peace terms, we cannot be sure that it will not encourage interference from outside powers. That is almost inevitable but we cannot predict what form it will take or give assurances to prevent it.'³ The conference was reconciled to the inevitability of outside intervention without being quite sure from which quarter it would come. In the Hiroshima prefectural office on 1 February the Japanese met the Chinese peace delegates but found they did not possess sufficient plenipotentiary powers. Negotiations failed and the Chinese returned from Nagasaki to Shanghai on 12 February. In order to limit the degree of foreign involvement, the Japanese decided that the next talks should be held at Shimonoseki, a small port-town in west Japan not too far from Hiroshima, the Imperial Headquarters for the war period.

On 20 March the first meeting took place between the Chinese plenipotentiaries, Li Hung-chang and Li Ching-fong, and their Japanese counterparts, Itō and Mutsu Munemitsu, the foreign minister. After four days of negotiation Li Hung-chang, on his way back from the conference to his ship, was seriously injured by a Japanese, and the Japanese leaders agreed to grant a ceasefire, which was concluded on 30 March, and offered an armistice for twenty-one days, that is, till 20 April.⁴

On 17 April, just before the armistice was due to lapse, China accepted the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Under article II China was to cede to Japan the Island of Formosa together with all islands appertaining or belonging thereto; and the Pescadores Group. For our purposes it is more important to consider the details of the cession of Chinese territory demanded by Japan:

The southern portion of the Province of Feng-tien within the following boundaries: The line of demarcation begins at the mouth of the River Yalu and ascends that stream to the mouth of the River An-ping; from thence the line runs to Fen Huang; from thence to Haicheng, from thence to Ying Kow, forming a line which describes the southern portion of the territory. The places above named are included in the ceded territory. When the line reaches the River Liao at Ying Kow it follows the course of that stream to its mouth where it terminates. The mid-channel of the River Liao shall be taken as the line of demarcation. This cession also includes all Islands appertaining or belonging to the Province of Feng-tien situated in the eastern portion of the Bay of Liaotung and in the northern part of the Yellow Sea.⁵

As map 2 shows, this represented a substantial territory from about 80 miles up the Yalu river in the east westward to Yingkow at the mouth of the Liao river. With this as the northern limit, it contained a significant part of the Liaotung peninsula and included all islands belonging to the province. The territory included Lushun (Port Arthur), the base for China's Northern (Peiyang) fleet. It should be pointed out that this was to be handed over not as a lease but as an outright cession; that this was the territory which the Japanese armies occupied at the time; and that it did not represent the maximum aspirations of the Japanese at the outset of the negotiations. It was an area of great strategic interest, both because its ports were ice-free during winter and because it was the natural gateway to Manchuria. But it was also in an extended sense the gateway to Peking.

From early in March, China's diplomats who were resisting concessions in the only way they knew, had been making representations against the Japanese terms by leaking them and seeking the support of those opposed to Japan. It stands to reason that the versions that they circulated tended to be the initial bargaining positions of Japan. The Japanese government was forced by these tactics to communicate its own versions of the terms, initially to Russia, the United States and Britain and later to France and Germany. During weeks of imprecise parleys and rumours, a grouping of powers took shape, including Russia, Germany and France but excluding Britain, the United States and Italy. In this development Russia appears to have been the ringleader, Germany the enthusiastic supporter and France the independent-minded and reluctant follower.

Japan had been aware of the possibility of outside intervention throughout the war and certainly from early in the negotiating process. Although she could not be sure in advance which of China's friends —and most of the world's powers seemed to fall in that category — would take part, she had to make contingency plans for such an emergency. Gradually it emerged that Russia, France and Germany were planning to urge her to renounce the possession of the Liaotung peninsula on the ground that it would be a constant menace to the capital of China. It was doubtful whether the three could fight Japan on land in the short run; but they could by assembling their combined naval strength cut off Japan's land armies in Manchuria. Japan, already overstretched as the result of her war efforts over six months, did not dare to risk challenging any joint move which was in contemplation. Her position was parlous enough for her to take steps in advance to forestall, if at all possible, the threatened intervention.

Strangely Japan, as part of her tactics for preventing the intervention which her leaders expected, had tried to probe Russia's intentions. On 14 February Foreign Minister Mutsu had met Russia's representative in Tokyo, M. A. Khitrovo, and confided to him, on the assumption that intervention would be by Britain and could best be prevented by gaining the trust of the Russians, that Japan would not include among her peace terms the cession of Chinese territory. Khitrovo replied that intervention by any of the powers would depend on what territory Japan wanted, Russia having no objection to Japan's taking Taiwan. After Mutsu had given an assurance that Japan had no intention of injuring any of Russia's interests, Khitrovo was prompted to say that Russia would not object unless Japan destroyed Korean independence.⁶ The Japanese appear to have attached too much importance to these casual and probably unauthorised remarks.

Ten days later the Russian minister passed over a message from his government, asking Japan to declare that it would recognize Korean independence as a prelude to peace. Mutsu had no hesitation in recognizing the independence of Korea and drew the conclusion that this was all that Russia cared about. Certainly there was a breakdown in communication and understanding between Russia and Japan at this time. At a meeting of the Special Committee at St Petersburg on 11 April, Lobanov, the foreign minister, presented a preparatory paper which argued:

Among the Japanese peace terms is undoubtedly the occupation of the peninsula where Port Arthur is situated. This is objectionable, being a permanent threat to Peking and also Korea, whose independence the Japanese are supposed to have guaranteed. Such an occupation would also be very undesirable from the standpoint of Russian interests. But, if we were to ask Japan to give up this condition, what should we do if she turns down our request? Would we have to resort to force and would we be able to enlist the assistance of some other powers?⁷

During discussion at the meeting, the members were divided but, swayed by the arguments of Finance Minister Witte, ultimately concluded that their interests were sufficiently affected for them to resist by force in the last resort. It was decided:

to advise Japan in a friendly way not to proceed with the occupation of the southern part of Manchuria which would interfere with our interests and offer a permanent threat to peace in the far east; and if Japan refuses outright to accept this advice, to declare to Japan that we reserved complete freedom of action and would act in accordance with our interests.⁸

The foreign ministry was to use this resolution as the basis of an official approach to other governments in Europe, though unofficial soundings had, of course, been proceeding at a frenzied pace during the previous ten days. Lobanov put the special committee's resolution before the tsar on 15 April and obtained his approval after a meeting of Witte, Lobanov, War Minister Vannovskii and Grand Duke Aleksei. This was a strong and determined line of policy and, though the possibility of a Russo-Japanese war was discussed, it was rather cursorily dismissed.⁹ The proceedings do not show that it was the railway question which was the motive for Russia's action.

The Russians like the rest of the world had not expected that the war would be such a walk-over for the Japanese. Their approach was initially diplomatic and conciliatory. When in the autumn the Chinese army and navy had been trounced, Russia's posture changed. There were signs of her building up her far eastern squadron and her infantry units in Vladivostok. The value of this port as a base was enhanced by the use of ice-breaking plant so that it was not sealed off entirely by ice during the severe winter months. The Russian approach continued to be conciliatory into the spring of 1895. Inner military circles in Russia had doubts about their land forces in particular but seemed to be more confident about the effectiveness of the combined squadrons of Russia and France in east Asian waters — there was no mention of Germany. Despite their doubts, they were concerned about Japan's successful military action in taking Port Arthur and in concluding a treaty of alliance with Korea. It looked as if their own objectives in the area were being forestalled. There was of course an element of uncertainty about whether the Russians were amassing their naval strength in Chinese and Japanese coastal waters for war or merely for deterrent purposes.¹⁰

Despite the debate about Russia's true intentions, there was a considerable weight of evidence that she meant business. The Japanese, whose intelligence-gathering was devoted to this problem, clearly thought so. The Japanese estimate of Russia's strength in the area at the critical date, 23 April, was as follows:

All Russian warships in Japanese ports were placed on the alert to set sail on 24 hours' notice. Each ship kept its boilers fed day and night and crews were confined to their vessels as if to indicate that hostilities were anticipated at any moment. In Vladivostok, men of all classes were called to the colours as the reserves were sum...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Half Title
• Contents
• List of maps
• Editor's foreword
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Dedication
• Introduction
• 1. The First Russo-Japanese confrontation (1894-97)
• 2. The Far Eastern crisis (1897-98)
• 3. The road to the Open Door (1898-1900)
• 4. Confusion in China (1900)
• 5. Manchuria under Boxers and Russians (1900-1901)
• 6. Japan resists over Manchuria (October 1900-June 1901)
• 7. After the Peking Protocol (July-December 1901)
• 8. Kurino, Komura and Korea (1902-3)
• 9. Russo-Chinese convention and its aftermath (1902-3)
• 10. Japan's search for consensus (1903)
• 11. Russia's new course and renegotiation with China (1903)
• 12. Diplomatic inactivity (September-November 1903)
• 13. Final negotiations - climax and beyond (1903-4)
• 14. Final negotiations - an adversarial coda (1904)
• 15. International efforts for peace (1903-4)
• Conclusion
• Select bibliography
• Maps
• Index