The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 Part 44

Proceeding by boat from Perm, they worked their way into the spurs of the Urals, and then by no very long _portage_ crossed one of its lower pa.s.ses and found themselves on one of the tributaries of the Obi.

Thenceforth their course was easy. Jermak and his small band of picked fighters were more than a match for the wretchedly armed and craven-spirited Tartars, who fled at the sound of firearms. In 1581 the settlement, called Sibir, fell to the invaders; and, though they soon abandoned this rude encampment for a new foundation, the town of Tobolsk, yet the name Siberia recalls their pride at the conquest of the enemy's capital. The traditional skill of the Cossacks in the handling of boats greatly aided their advance, and despite the death of Jermak in battle, his men pressed on and conquered nearly the half of Siberia within a decade. What Drake and the sea-dogs of Devon were then doing for England on the western main, was being accomplished for Russia by the ex-pirate and his band from the Volga. The two expansive movements were destined finally to meet on the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific in the northern creeks of what is now British Columbia.

The later stages in Russian expansion need not detain us here. The excellence of the Cossack methods in foraying, pioneer-work, and the forming of military settlements, consolidated the Muscovite conquests.

The Tartars were fain to submit to the Czar, or to flee to the nomad tribes of Central Asia or Northern China. The invaders reached the River Lena in the year 1630; and some of their adventurers voyaged down the Amur, and breasted the waves of the Pacific in 1636. Cossack bands conquered Kamchatka in 1699-1700[483].

[Footnote 483: Vladimir, _Russia en the Pacific._]

Meanwhile the first collision between the white and the yellow races took place on the River Amur, which the Chinese claimed as their own. At first the Russians easily prevailed; but in the year 1689 they suffered a check. New vigour was then manifested in the councils of Pekin, and the young Czar, Peter the Great, in his longing for triumphs over Swedes and Turks, thought lightly of gains at the expense of the "celestials."

He therefore gave to Russian energies that trend westwards and southwards, which after him marked the reigns of Catharine II., Alexander I., and, in part, of Nicholas I. The surrender of the Amur valley to China in 1689 ended all efforts of Russia in that direction for a century and a half. Many Russians believe that the earlier impulse was sounder and more fruitful in results for Russia than her meddling in the wars of the French Revolution and Empire.

Not till 1846 did Russia resume her march down the valley of the Amur; and then the new movement was partly due to British action. At that time the hostility of Russia and Britain was becoming acute on Asiatic and Turkish questions. Further, the first Anglo-Chinese War (1840-42) led to the cession of Hong-Kong to the distant islanders, who also had five Chinese ports opened to their trade. This enabled Russia to pose as the protector of China, and to claim points of vantage whence her covering wings might be extended over that Empire. The statesmen of Pekin had little belief in the genuineness of these offers, especially in view of the thorough exploration of the Amur region and the Gulf of Okhotsk which speedily ensued.

The Czar, in fact, now inaugurated a forward Asiatic policy, and confided it to an able governor, Muravieff (1847). The new departure was marked by the issue of an imperial ukase (1851) ordering the Russian settlers beyond Lake Baikal to conform to the Cossack system; that is, to become liable to military duties in return for the holding of land in the more exposed positions. Three years later Muravieff ordered 6000 Cossacks to migrate from these trans-Baikal settlements to the land newly acquired from China on the borders of Manchuria[484]. In the same year the Russians established a station at the mouth of the Amur, and in 1853 gained control over part of the Island of Saghalien.

[Footnote 484: Popowski, _The Rival Powers in Central Asia_, p. 13.]

For the present, then, everything seemed to favour Russia's forward policy. The tribes on the Amur were pa.s.sive; an attack of an Anglo-French squadron on Petropaulovsk, a port in Kamchatka, failed (Aug. 1854); and the Russians hoped to be able to harry British commerce from this and other naval bases in the Pacific. Finally, the rupture with England and France, and the beginning of the Taeping rebellion in China, induced the Court of Pekin to agree to Russia's demands for the Amur boundary, and for a subsequent arrangement respecting the ownership of the districts between the mouth of that river and the bay on which now stands the port of Vladivostok (May 15, 1858). The latter concession left the door open for Muravieff to push on Russia's claims to this important wedge of territory. His action was characteristic. He settled Cossacks along the River Ussuri, a southern tributary of the Amur, and, by pressing ceaselessly on the celestials (then distracted by a war with England and France), he finally brought them to agree to the cession of the district around the new settlement, which was soon to receive the name of Vladivostok ("Lord of the East"). He also acquired for the Czar the Manchurian coast down to the bounds of Korea (November 2, 1860).

Russia thus threw her arms around the great province which had provided China with her dynasty and her warrior caste, and was still one of the wealthiest and most cherished lands of that Empire. Having secured these points of vantage in Northern China, the Muscovites could await with confidence further developments in the decay of that once formidable organism.

Such, in brief, is the story of Russian expansion from the Urals to the Sea of j.a.pan. Probably no conquest of such magnitude was ever made with so little expenditure of blood and money. In one sense this is its justification, that is, if we view the course of events, not by the limelight of abstract right, but by the ordinary daylight of expediency.

Conquests which strain the resources of the victors and leave the vanquished longing for revenge, carry their own condemnation. On the other hand, the triumph of Russia over the ill-organised tribes of Siberia and northern Manchuria reminds one of the easy and unalterable methods of Nature, which compels a lower type of life to yield up its puny force for the benefit of a higher. It resembles the victory of man over quadrupeds, of order over disorder, of well-regulated strength over weakness and stupidity.

Muravieff deserves to rank among the makers of modern Russia. He waited his time, used his Cossack p.a.w.ns as an effective screen to each new opening of the game, and pushed his foes hardest when they were at their weakest. Moreover, like Bismarck, he knew when to stop. He saw the limit that separated the practicable from the impracticable. He brought the Russian coast near to the lat.i.tudes where harbours are free from ice; but he forbore to encroach on Korea--a step which would have brought j.a.pan on to the field of action. The Muscovite race, it was clear, had swallowed enough to busy its digestive powers for many a year; and it was partly on his advice that Russian North America was sold to the United States.

Still, Russia's advance southwards towards ice-free ports was only checked, not stopped. In 1861 a Russian man-of-war took possession of the Tshushima Isles between Korea and j.a.pan, but withdrew on the protest of the British admiral. Six years later the Muscovites strengthened their grip on Saghalien, and thereafter exercised with j.a.pan joint sovereignty over that island. The natural result followed. In 1875 Russia found means to eject her partner, the j.a.panese receiving as compensation undisputed claim to the barren Kuriles, which they already possessed[485].

[Footnote 485: _The Russo-j.a.panese Conflict_, by K. Asakawa (1904), p.

67; _Europe and the Far East_, by Sir R.K. Douglas (1904), p. 191.]

Even before this further proof of Russia's expansiveness, j.a.pan had seen the need of adapting herself to the new conditions consequent on the advent of the Great Powers in the Far East. This is not the place for a description of the remarkable Revolution of the years 1867-71. Suffice it to say that the events recounted above undoubtedly helped on the centralising of the powers in the hands of the Mikado, and the Europeanising of the inst.i.tutions and armed forces of j.a.pan. In face of aggressions by Russia and quarrels with the maritime Powers, a vigorous seafaring people felt the need of systems of organisation and self-defence other than those provided by the rule of feudal lords, and levies drilled with bows and arrows. The subsequent history of the Far East may be summed up in the statement that j.a.pan faced the new situation with the brisk adaptability of a maritime people, while China plodded along on her old tracks with a patience and stubbornness eminently bovine.

The events which finally brought Russia and j.a.pan into collision arose out of the obvious need for the construction of a railway from St.

Petersburg to the Pacific having its terminus on an ice-free port. Only so could Russia develop the resources of Siberia and the Amur Province.

In the sixties and seventies trans-continental railways were being planned and successfully laid in North America. But there is this difference: in the New World the iron horse has been the friend of peace; in the Far East of Asia it has hurried on the advent of war; and for this reason, that Russia, having no ice-free harbour at the end of her great Siberian line, was tempted to grasp at one which the yellow races looked on as altogether theirs.

The miscalculation was natural. The rapid extension of trade in the Pacific Ocean seemed to invite Russia to claim her full share in a development that had already enriched England, the United States, and, later, Germany and France; and events placed within the Muscovite grasp positions which fulfilled all the conditions requisite for commercial prosperity and military and naval domination.

For many years past vague projects of a trans-Siberian railway had been in the air. In 1857 an English engineer offered to construct a horse tramway from Perm, across the Urals, and to the Pacific. An American also proposed to make a railway for locomotives from Irkutsk to the head waters of the Amur. In 1875 the Russian Government decided to construct a line from Perm as far as a western affluent of the River Obi; but owing to want of funds the line was carried no farther than Tiumen on the River Tobol (1880).

The financial difficulty was finally overcome by the generosity of the French, who, as we have already seen (Chapter XII.), late in the eighties began to subscribe to all the Russian loans placed on the Paris Bourse. The scheme now became practicable, and in March 1891 an imperial ukase appeared sanctioning the mighty undertaking. It was made known at Vladivostok by the Czarevitch (now Nicholas II.) in the course of a lengthy tour in the Far East; and he is known then to have gained that deep interest in those regions which has moulded Russian policy throughout his reign. Quiet, unostentatious, and even apathetic on most subjects, he then, as we may judge from subsequent events, determined to give to Russian energies a decided trend towards the Pacific. As Czar, he has placed that aim in the forefront of his policy. With him the Near East has always been second to the Far East; and in the critical years 1896-97, when the sufferings of Christians in Turkey became acute, he turned a deaf ear to the cries of myriads who had rarely sent their prayers northwards in vain. The most reasonable explanation of this callousness is that Nicholas II. at that time had no ears save for the call of the Pacific Ocean. This was certainly the policy of his Ministers, Prince Lobanoff, Count Muravieff, and Count Lamsdorff. It was oceanic.

The necessary prelude to Russia's new policy was the completion of the trans-Siberian railway, certainly one of the greatest engineering feats ever attempted by man. While a large part of the route offers no more difficulty than the conquest of limitless levels, there are portions that have taxed to the utmost the skill and patience of the engineer.

The deep trough of Lake Baikal has now (June 1905) been circ.u.mvented by the construction of a railway (here laid with double tracks) which follows the rocky southern sh.o.r.e. This part of the line, 244 versts (162 miles) long, has involved enormous expense. In fifty-six miles there are thirty-nine tunnels, and thirteen galleries for protection against rock-slides. This short section is said to have cost 1,170,000. The energy with which the Government pushed on this stupendous work during the Russo-j.a.panese war yields one more proof of their determination to secure at all costs the aims which they set in view in and after the year 1891[486].

[Footnote 486: See an article by Mr. J.M. Price in _The Fortnightly Review_ for May 1905.]

Other parts of the track have also presented great difficulties. East of Lake Baikal the line gradually winds its way up to a plateau some 3000 feet higher than the lake, and then descends to treacherous marsh lands.

The district of the Amur bristles with obstacles, not the least being the terrible floods that now and again (as in 1897) turn the whole valley into a trough of swirling waters[487].

[Footnote 487: _Russia on the Pacific_, by "Vladimir"; _The Awakening of the East_, by P. Leroy-Beaulieu, chaps, ix. x.]

All these difficulties have been overcome in course of time; but there remained the question of the terminus. Up to the year 1894 the objective had been Vladivostok; but the outbreak of the Chino-j.a.panese War at that time opened up vast possibilities. Russia could either side with the islanders and share with them the spoils of Northern China, or, posing as the patron of the celestials, claim some profitable _douceurs_ as her reward.

She chose the latter alternative, and, in the opinion of some of her own writers, wrongly. The war proved the daring, the patriotism, and the organising skill of the j.a.panese to be as signal as the sloth and corruptibility of their foes. Then, for the first time, the world saw the utter weakness of China--a fact which several observers (including Lord Curzon) had vainly striven to make clear. Even so, when Chinese generals and armies took to their heels at the slightest provocation; when their battleships were worsted by j.a.panese armoured cruisers; when their great stronghold, Port Arthur, was stormed with a loss of about 400 killed, the moral of it all was hidden from the wise men of the West. Patronising things were said of the j.a.panese as conquerors--of the Chinese; but few persons realised that a new Power had arisen. It seemed the easiest of undertakings to despoil the "venomous dwarfs" of the fruits of their triumph over China[488].

[Footnote 488: See the evidence adduced by V. Chirol, _The Far Eastern Question, _chap, xi., as to the _ultimately_ aggressive designs of China on j.a.pan.]

The chief conditions of the Chino-j.a.panese Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 17, 1895) were the handing over to j.a.pan the island of Formosa and the Liaotung Peninsula. The latter was very valuable, inasmuch as it contained good ice-free harbours which dominated the Yellow Sea and the Gulf of Pechili; and herein must be sought the reason for the action of Russia at this crisis. Li Hung Chang, the Chinese negotiator, had already been bought over by Russia in an important matter[489], and he early disclosed the secret of the terms of peace with j.a.pan. Russia was thus forewarned; and, before the treaty was ratified at Pekin, her Government, acting in concert with those of France and Germany, intervened with a menacing declaration that the cession of the Liaotung Peninsula would give to j.a.pan a dangerous predominance in the affairs of China and disturb the whole balance of power in the Far East. The Russian Note addressed to j.a.pan further stated that such a step would "be a perpetual obstacle to the permanent peace of the Far East." Had Russia alone been concerned, possibly the j.a.panese would have referred matters to the sword; but, when face to face with a combination of three Powers, they decided on May 4 to give way, and to restore the Liaotung Peninsula to China[490].

[Footnote 489: _Manchu and Muscovite, _by B.L. Putnam Weale, p. 60.]

[Footnote 490: Asakawa, _op. cit. _p, 76.]

The reasons for the conduct of France and Germany in this matter are not fully known. We may safely conjecture that the Republic acted conjointly with the Czar in order to clinch the new Franco-Russian alliance, not from any special regard for China, a Power with which she had frequently come into collision respecting Tonquin. As for Germany, she was then entering on new colonial undertakings; and she doubtless saw in the joint intervention of 1895 a means of sterilising the Franco-Russian alliance, so far as she herself was concerned, and possibly of gaining Russia's a.s.sent to the future German expansion in the Far East.

Here, of course, we are reduced to conjecture, but the conjecture is consonant with later developments. In any case, the new Triple Alliance was a temporary and artificial union, which prompt and united action on the part of Great Britain and the United States would have speedily dissolved. Unfortunately these Powers were engrossed in other concerns, and took no action to redress the balance which the self-const.i.tuted champions of political stability were upsetting to their own advantage.

The effects of their action were diverse, and for the most part unforeseen. In the first place, j.a.pan, far from being discouraged by this rebuff, set to work to perfect her army and navy, and with a thoroughness which Roon and Moltke would have envied. Organisation, weapons, drill, marksmanship (the last a weak point in the war with China) were improved; heavy ironclads were ordered, chiefly in British yards, and, when procured, were handled with wonderful efficiency. Few, if any, of those "disasters" which are so common in the British navy in time of peace, occurred in the new j.a.panese navy--a fact which redounds equally to the credit of the British instructors and to the pupils themselves.

The surprising developments of the Far Eastern Question were soon to bring the new armaments to a terrible test. j.a.pan and the whole world believed that the Liaotung Peninsula was made over to China in perpetuity. It soon appeared that the Czar and his Ministers had other views, and that, having used France and Germany for the purpose of warning off j.a.pan, they were preparing schemes for the subjection of Manchuria to Russian influence. Or rather, it is probable that Li Hung Chang had already arranged the following terms with Russia as the price of her intervention on behalf of China. The needs of the Court of Pekin and the itching palms of its officials proved to be singularly helpful in the carrying out of the bargain. China being unequal to the task of paying the j.a.panese war indemnity, Russia undertook to raise a four per cent loan of 400,000,000 francs--of course mainly at Paris--in order to cover the half of that debt. In return for this favour, the Muscovites required the establishment of a Russo-Chinese Bank having widespread powers, comprising the receipt of taxes, the management of local finances, and the construction of such railway and telegraph lines as might be conceded by the Chinese authorities.

This in itself was excellent "brokerage" on the French money, of which China was a.s.sumed to stand in need. At one stroke Russia ended the commercial supremacy of England in China, the result of a generation of commercial enterprise conducted on the ordinary lines, and subst.i.tuted her own control, with powers almost equal to those of a Viceroy. They enabled her to displace Englishmen from various posts in Northern China and to clog the efforts of their merchants at every turn. The British Government, we may add, showed a singular equanimity in face of this procedure.

But this was not all. At the close of March 1896, it appeared that the grat.i.tude felt by the Chinese Andromeda to the Russian Perseus had ripened into a definite union. The two Powers framed a secret treaty of alliance which accorded to the northern State the right to make use of any harbour in China, and to levy Chinese troops in case of a conflict with an Asiatic State. In particular, the Court of Pekin granted to its ally the free use of Port Arthur in time of peace, or, if the other Powers should object, of Kiao-chau. Manchuria was thrown open to Russian officers for purposes of survey, etc., and it was agreed that on the completion of the trans-Siberian railway, a line should be constructed southwards to Talienwan or some other place, under the joint control of the two Powers[491].

[Footnote 491: Asakawa, pp. 85-87.]

The Treaty marks the end of the first stage in the Russification of Manchuria. Another stage was soon covered, and, as it seems, by the adroitness of Count Ca.s.sini, Russian Minister at Pekin. The details, and even the existence, of the Ca.s.sini Convention of September 30, 1896, have been disputed; but there are good grounds for accepting the following account as correct. Russia received permission to construct her line to Vladivostok across Manchuria, thereby saving the northern detour down the difficult valley of the Amur; also to build her own line to Mukden, if China found herself unable to do so; and the line southwards to Talienwan and Port Arthur was to be made on Russian plans.

Further, all these new lines built by Russia might be guarded by her troops, presumably to protect them from natives who objected to the inventions of the "foreign devils." As regards naval affairs, the Czar's Government gained the right to "lease" from China the harbour of Kiao-chau for fifteen years; and, in case of war, to make use of Port Arthur. The last clauses granted to Russian subjects the right to acquire mining rights in Manchuria, and to the Czar's officers to drill the levies of that province in the European style, should China desire to reorganise them.[492]

[Footnote 492: Asakawa, chap. ii.]

But the protector had not reaped the full reward of his timely intervention in the spring of 1895. He had not yet gained complete control of an ice-free harbour. In fact, the prize of Kiao-chau, nearly within reach, now seemed to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from his grasp by Kaiser Wilhelm. The details are well known. Two German subjects who were Roman Catholic missionaries in the Shan-tung province were barbarously murdered by Chinese ruffians on November 1, 1897. The outrage was of a flagrant kind, but in ordinary times would have been condoned by the punishment of the offenders and a fine payable by the district. But the occasion was far from ordinary. A German squadron therefore steamed into Kiao-chau and occupied that important harbour.

There is reason to think that Germany had long been desirous of gaining a foothold in that rich province. The present writer has been a.s.sured by a geological expert, Professor Skertchley, who made the first map of the district for the Chinese authorities, that that map was urgently demanded by the German envoy at Pekin about this time. In any case, the mineral wealth of the district undoubtedly influenced the course of events. In accordance with a revised version of the old Christian saying: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of--the Empire," the Emperor William despatched his brother Prince Henry--the "mailed fist"

of Germany--with a squadron to strengthen the Imperial grip on Kiao-chau. The Prince did so without opposition either from China or Russia. Finally, on March 5, 1898, the Court of Pekin confirmed to Germany the lease of that port and of the neighbouring parts of the province of Shan-tung.

The whole affair caused a great stir, because it seemed to prelude a part.i.tion of China, and that, too, in spite of the well-meaning declarations of the Salisbury Cabinet in favour, first, of the integrity of that Empire, and, when that was untenable, of the policy of the "open door" for traders of all nations. Most significant of all was the conduct of Russia. As far as is known, she made no protest against the action of Germany in a district to which she herself had laid claim. It is reasonable, on more grounds than one, to suppose that the two Powers had come to some understanding, Russia conceding Kiao-chau to the Kaiser, provided that she herself gained Port Arthur and its peninsula.

Obviously she could not have faced the ill-will of j.a.pan, Great Britain, Germany, and the United States--all more or less concerned at her rapid strides southward; and it is at least highly probable that she bought off Germany by waiving her own claims to Kiao-chau, provided that she gained an ideal terminus for her Siberian line, and a great naval and military stronghold. It is also worth noting that the first German troops were landed at Kiao-chau on November 17, 1897, while three Russian warships steamed into Port Arthur on December 18; and that the German "lease" was signed at Pekin on March 5, 1898; while that accorded to Russia bears date March 27[493].

[Footnote 493: Asakawa, p. 110, note.]

If we accept the naive suggestion of the Russian author, "Vladimir," the occupation of Kiao-chau by Germany "forced" Russia "to claim some equivalent compensation." Or possibly the cession of Port Arthur was another of the items in Li Hung Chang's bargain with Russia. In any case, the Russian warships entered Port Arthur, at first as if for a temporary stay; when two British warships repaired thither the Czar's Government requested them to leave--a request with which the Salisbury Cabinet complied in an inexplicably craven manner (January 1898). Rather more pressure was needed on the somnolent mandarins of Pekin; but, under the threat of war with Russia if the lease of the Liao-tung Peninsula were not granted by March 27, it was signed on that day. She thereby gained control of that peninsula for twenty-five years, a period which might be extended "by mutual agreement." The control of all the land forces was vested in a Russian official; and China undertook not to quarter troops to the north without the consent of the Czar. Port Arthur was reserved to the use of Russian and Chinese ships of war; and Russia gained the right to erect fortifications.

The British Government, which had hitherto sought to uphold the integrity of China, thereupon sought to "save its face" by leasing Wei-hai-wei (July 1). An excuse for the weakness of the Cabinet in Chinese affairs has been put forward, namely, that the issue of the Sudan campaign was still in doubt, and that the efforts of French and Russians to reach the Upper Nile from the French Congo and Southern Abyssinia compelled Ministers to concentrate their attention on that great enterprise. But this excuse will not bear examination. Strength at any one point of an Empire is not increased by discreditable surrenders at other points. No great statesman would have proceeded on such an a.s.sumption.

Obviously the balance of gain in these shabby transactions in the north of China was enormously in favour of Russia. She now pushed on her railway southwards with all possible energy. It soon appeared that Port Arthur could not remain an open port, and it was closed to merchant ships. Then Talienwan was named in place of it, but under restrictions which made the place of little value to foreign merchants. Thereafter the new port of Dalny was set apart for purposes of commerce, but the efficacy of the arrangements there has never been tested. In the intentions of the Czar, Port Arthur was to become the Gibraltar of the Far East, while Dalny, as the commercial terminus of the trans-Siberian line, figured as the Cadiz of the new age of exploration and commerce opening out to the gaze of Russia.