Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (139 page)

The site of the conference was the first problem. Roosevelt at first proposed The Hague in Holland. Japan, rejecting this site, proposed Chefoo, a port on the northern coast of the Shantung Peninsula, across the Gulf of Chihli from Port Arthur. Washington was Japan’s second choice. The Russians’ first choice was Paris, but Washington was also their second choice. Roosevelt therefore settled on Washington. Just as he was informing the Russian ambassador of his decision, a cable came from Lamsdorf saying that he preferred The Hague because Washington was so distant and so hot in summer. However, Komura not only had rejected The Hague but had declared that the Japanese would not go to any site in Europe.
²⁹
Roosevelt refused to reopen the question. Lamsdorf sent a memorandum to the czar asking his opinion. Fortunately, the czar wrote in response, “I decisively do not see any objections to Washington as a place for the meeting for the preliminary discussions between our and the Japanese plenipotentiaries.”
³⁰
This ended the discussion, but the words “preliminary discussions” suggested the czar did not expect decisions of importance to emerge from the peace conference.

The time of the conference was the next problem. It would take the Japanese delegation at least a month to reach the east coast of the United States. This meant that the conference would have to take place in the summer. In order not to subject the delegates to the unbearable heat of a Washington summer, Roosevelt considered alternative, cooler sites, finally choosing the Portsmouth Navy Yard in New Hampshire. Both Japan and Russia accepted Portsmouth as the site of the conference.

Roosevelt proposed beginning deliberations during the first ten days of August in order to allow the Japanese sufficient time to reach Portsmouth. The czar, though at first reluctant to consent to peace negotiations, was now eager to have negotiations start as soon as possible, as he feared that the Japanese might take advantage of a delay to seize Sakhalin.
³¹
There was reason for this fear, for according to Kaneko, Roosevelt had recommended that Japan immediately invade Sakhalin to improve its prospects at the conference table.
³²

The choice of plenipotentiaries was not easy for either side. It
ō
Hirobumi was the obvious choice to head the Japanese delegation, but he had been known before the outbreak of war as an advocate of accommodation with Russia. His friends warned him that his sympathy for Russia would be blamed if the Japanese delegation failed to win the peace terms demanded by the public. It
ō
was fortunately spared the headache of choosing whether to serve when the emperor informed Prime Minister Katsura Tar
ō
that he needed It
ō
in T
ō
ky
ō
for consultation during the peace negotiations.
³³

The choice of Russian plenipotentiaries was complicated by the czar’s interference. Although Lamsdorf argued convincingly that a specialist on financial and economic matters was essential, Nicholas remained opposed to Witte, clearly the best-qualified man. The situation in Russia at this time took a sudden turn for the worse when there was a clash between striking workers and government troops in Odessa on June 25, followed by a mutiny aboard the battleship
Potemkin
two days later. The
Potemkin
mutiny was symptomatic of the unrest in Russia. This unrest was fostered by Japanese agents who gave money to opponents of the czar’s government (including Lenin) and were especially active in Finland and Poland, parts of the Russian Empire that yearned for independence.
³⁴

The Japanese and Russian delegates began their deliberations on August 10. On the following day the Japanese presented a formal list of twelve demands, including Russia’s recognition of Japan’s paramount political, military, and economic interests in Korea; evacuation of Manchuria by the Russian army; transference of the Port Arthur leasehold from Russia to Japan; cession of Sakhalin to Japan; payment to Japan of the expenses of the war; and restriction of Russia’s use of the railway connecting Manchuria to Vladivostok to commercial and industrial purposes.
³⁵

The Russian reaction to the Japanese demands was one of dismay. Witte told a colleague, “The Japanese conditions were more heavy than anything it was possible to expect.” In fact, however, only two of the demands caused trouble in the ensuing negotiations: the cession of Sakhalin and the payment of an indemnity. The czar asserted again and again that Russia would never pay one ruble in indemnity nor yield one square inch of Russian soil. His refusal in both instances was based on considerations of honor rather than practical policy. He wrote on an initial draft of the instructions to the Russians going to the conference, “Russia has never paid an indemnity; I shall never consent to this.” The word “never” was underlined three times.
³⁶

The czar was equally opposed to yielding Sakhalin. Russia had owned Sakhalin only since 1875 when a treaty with the Japanese gave them possession of the island in exchange for the Kuriles. Its desolation had been known to the Russians ever since the report published by Anton Chekhov, who visited the prison colony in 1890. Yet the czar, the ruler of an immense country that stretched over Europe and Asia, was ready to prolong a disastrous war in order not to give up a square inch of wasteland.

Komura Jutar
ō
also seems to have been driven by a concept of honor. In April when a cabinet conference decided on concrete terms for peace (to which the emperor gave his assent), there were only three “absolutely indispensable” items: (1) to have Russia acknowledge Japan’s complete freedom of action in Korea, (2) mutual military evacuation of Manchuria within a period to be specified, and (3) transference to Japan of Russia’s Port Arthur leasehold and the branch railway running from Port Arthur to Harbin.
³⁷
There were also four “items not absolutely indispensable but to be secured insofar as possible,” including an indemnity and the cession of Sakhalin. If Komura had been satisfied with obtaining the three “absolutely indispensable” items, the negotiations would have gone smoothly, but his insistence on an indemnity and his failure to inform the Japanese government of the czar’s willingness to compromise on Sakhalin (he was willing to divide the island between Japan and Russia) very nearly resulted in a collapse of the negotiations and a resumption of the war.
³⁸
On August 26 Komura sent a telegram to T
ō
ky
ō
announcing his intention of breaking off the negotiations.
³⁹

On August 28 the prime minister held a meeting of cabinet members and three
genr
ō
—It
ō
Hirobumi, Yamagata, and Inoue Kaoru. Although they regretted that Russia had failed to respond to Japanese efforts to reach a compromise, they agreed that the only alternative to continuing negotiations was war. They recognized that it might not be difficult to capture Harbin before the year was out but that this would require additional military forces, and Japan lacked the financial reserves to equip and send them into the field. Moreover, even supposing that Harbin and, eventually, Vladivostok were captured, this would still not deal Russia the coup de grâce. They concluded, after hours of debate, that it was essential to make peace, even if it meant Japan would have to abandon an indemnity and the acquisition of Sakhalin.
⁴⁰

That afternoon a meeting of the three
genr
ō
and cabinet ministers was held in the presence of the emperor. They decided to cable Komura that although the cabinet was aware of both the Russian refusal to compromise and the great difficulty of continuing negotiations, military and economic conditions compelled Japan to negotiate for peace, regardless of the loss of an indemnity and Sakhalin. In any case, Japan’s basic objective in fighting the war—the settlement of important problems relating to Korea and Manchuria—had been achieved. Komura was directed to yield first on the indemnity, asking in return that the Japanese occupation of Sakhalin be accepted as a fait accompli. If the Russians refused to budge on Sakhalin, Komura should ask President Roosevelt to recommend to the Japanese that they withdraw their claim for territory for the sake of peace and humanity.
⁴¹
This last was obviously intended as a face saving device to spare the Japanese the embarrassment of unilaterally withdrawing their claim.

Members of the Japanese delegation were so shaken by these instructions, which seemed to be a confession of defeat at the conference table, that they began to weep and sob. On August 28 Witte also received a discouraging telegram. Lamsdorf relayed the czar’s words: “Send Witte my order to end discussion in any case. I prefer to continue the war than to await gracious concessions on the part of Japan.”
⁴²
The two Russian delegates, Witte and Rosen, disagreed about whether to obey this imperial command. Witte decided to ignore it and to repeat his offer to make peace by giving up the southern half of Sakhalin.

At a secret meeting held on August 29, Witte agreed to the cession, and Komura, following instructions from T
ō
ky
ō
, accepted the arrangement. They also agreed on the withdrawal of troops from Manchuria and the disposition of the Manchurian railways.
⁴³
All problems had been settled. When Witte emerged from the conference room, he announced that peace had been achieved, that the Japanese had agreed to everything.
⁴⁴

Later that morning at the formal session, Komura, following instructions, asked for the whole of Sakhalin. Witte refused, whereupon Komura stated that Japan, for the sake of peace and humanity, would accept the Russian offer to divide the island at the fiftieth parallel. This was just so much playacting for the benefit of spectators, but the session ended with Witte’s recommendation that immediate steps be taken to conclude an armistice, lest soldiers be unnecessarily killed. The peace treaty was not signed by Komura and Witte until September 5. In the meantime, word that a settlement had been reached quickly spread. The czar was stunned to learn of the agreement. He wrote in his diary, “At night there came a telegram from Witte with the news that the negotiations about peace have been brought to an end. All day after that I went around as in a trance.”
⁴⁵

The Russians’ first reactions were almost all unfavorable, none more so than those of the English wife of a Russian prisoner: “Peace of the new diplomacy! Peace of the Twentieth Century! Peace as she is made in America! Peace as she is hammered out at the American Cronstadt! All the traditions are broken with. Japan and Russia have not made peace—nor wanted it. Oh, no! That terrible American President,
Il Strenuoso
, he has made it. He wanted it, he would have it. And I believe him capable of locking the conferees in a room and starving them into obedience.”
⁴⁶

Most Russians who had not actually witnessed the fighting thought it was absurd that peace should be made when the Russian armies in Manchuria were in better condition to fight the Japanese than ever before. The American ambassador to Russia, George Meyer, wrote in his diary that although Roosevelt had earned the gratitude of the world for his role in the peace negotiations, he should not expect gratitude from the Russians, who believed that without his interference they would have won the war.
⁴⁷
But a Russian officer who had held a high position on the general staff throughout the war said that the two armies were so strong and so dug in that an attack by either would almost certainly end in disaster and terrible losses.

The Russian delegates did not doubt that they had performed a miracle. They had managed to avoid paying an indemnity, and the only territory they had yielded was half of a bleak island that the Japanese had already occupied. It is small wonder that they drank champagne toasts at the celebration after the signing.

The Japanese did not attend the celebration. Komura and his colleagues had signed a treaty quite against their own wishes because they had been so ordered, and they could easily imagine the stormy reception they would receive after their return to Japan.

The happiest person was probably President Roosevelt. Praise came from France, Germany, and even England, although some Britons at first expressed astonishment that their ally Japan had yielded so much. Just at this time, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was renewed for five years, and one publication stated that the reassurance the Japanese received by the renewal caused them to moderate their peace terms. Whatever criticism was made of Roosevelt, it quickly subsided, and he received telegrams of thanks from both Meiji and Nicholas. Just before the peace treaty was signed, he wrote the American minister in Peking, “I was pro-Japanese before, but after my experience with the peace commissioners I am far stronger pro-Japanese than ever.”
⁴⁸
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his efforts to end the war.

When the provisions of the peace treaty were published in the Japanese press, there was a great outcry. A “people’s mass meeting” was planned for September 5 at Hibiya Park to discuss the rejection of the treaty and the impeachment of the cabinet ministers, but the police would not permit demonstrators to enter the park. The protesters, some 30,000 in number, broke through the barricades erected around entrances to the park, and the outnumbered police could not control them. Troops were called out to protect the palace, ministries, and foreign legations.