THE EVACUATION
Unsatisfactory as the Manchurian Agreement of April 8, 1902, appeared to
Great Britain and Japan, they refrained from entering any protest
against its conclusion. They probably preferred the imperfect obligation
the Convention imposed upon the contracting parties to an indefinite
prolongation of the dangerous conditions which had prevailed. What
remained for them and for China was to watch the conduct of Russia in
Manchuria and test her veracity according to their own interpretations
of the Agreement. In the mean time, the questions which had existed
between China and the Powers were being one after another disposed of;
the distribution of the indemnities was finally agreed upon on June 14,
the Provisional Government of Tien-tsin by the Powers came to an end on
August 15, and the rendition of the city to the Chinese authorities was
accomplished. The date set for the evacuation of the southwest of the
Sheng-king Province up to the Liao River, October 8, drew on, and the
evacuation took place. The Tartar General Tsêng-chi had received an
Imperial mandate to take over from the hands of the Russians the
specified territory and its railways, even before the middle of
September,[429] and, on October 28, Prince Ching was able to state to
Sir Ernest Satow: “Their Excellencies the Minister Superintendent of
Northern Ports and the Military Governor of Mukden have now severally
reported by telegram that all the railways outside the Great Wall have
been handed back, and that the southwest portion of the Mukden
(Sheng-king) Province as far as the Liao River has been completely
evacuated by Russian troops.”[430] But what was evacuation? Some troops
may have been sent to European Russia, others to different stations in
Siberia, including the strategically important Nikolsk, near the eastern
border of Manchuria, and still others to Mongolia, where Russian forces
were reported to have suddenly increased, until in December they were
said to have numbered about 27,000.[431] No small number were also
transferred to Port Arthur[432] and Vladivostok.[433] It was, however,
alleged by several observers that the main part of the so-called
evacuation meant nothing more than the transferring of Russian troops
from Chinese towns and settlements to the rapidly developing Russian
settlements and quarters within Manchuria. It was reported from various
sources[434] that along the 2326 versts of the railroads there were
about eighty so-called depots, each two to five square miles in extent,
which had been marked out as the sites of new Russian settlements, and
in many cases as stations of the railway guards. The most important
line, connecting Port Arthur with Harbin, was studded with such depots
at every fifteen or twenty miles. In many of these depots were to be
seen extensive barracks built of brick, one at Liao-yang, for example,
being capable of holding 3000 men, and another at Mukden, in the
building of which bricks of the wall of the Chinese Temple of Earth were
surreptitiously utilized,[435] accommodating 6000. Besides the barracks,
permanent blockhouses were met with every three or four miles. The
guards of the railways, whose numbers were just at this time fixed at
30,000,[436] were recruited from the regular troops, from whom they were
distinguished by green shoulder-straps and collar-patches, and also by
higher pay, and the regular troops themselves could be contained in
large numbers in the depots and barracks and blockhouses when the
evacuation was completed.[437] At the same time, the Russians seemed to
have destroyed nearly all the forts and confiscated the guns of the
Chinese, whose defense had thus been reduced almost to nil. The military
power of the Tartar Generals at the capitals of the three Manchurian
Provinces was held under a strict surveillance of the Russian officers,
who also readily controlled highroads and rivers. It was, moreover,
uncertain how much of this control and supervision by the Russians would
be relaxed after the promised evacuation, or how much it would then be
replaced by the powerful position the Russians would hold in their own
quarters in Manchuria. The conclusion seemed inevitable to some people
that by the so-called evacuation, if it should ever take place in the
face of the enormous obstacles which the Agreement did not seek to
remove, Russia would gain a much stronger hold upon the Manchurian
territory than during the preceding period of open military
occupation.[438] It was also pointed out that the forts, docks, and
other military and naval establishments at Port Arthur, costing millions
of rubles, were not compatible with the short term of the lease of the
port, and their practical value would be seriously impaired by a true
evacuation of the rest of Manchuria.
So far as the immediate interests of foreign nations, aside from the
general principle of the integrity of the Chinese Empire, were
concerned, nothing was more to be desired than a speedy evacuation of
the treaty port of Niu-chwang, where the Russians had maintained a
provisional government since August 5, 1900.[439] At the conclusion of
the Agreement of April, 1901, M. Lessar delivered a _note verbale_ to
the Chinese Government, stating that Niu-chwang would be restored as
soon as the Powers terminated their administration of Tien-tsin, and
that, if the latter event did not take place before October 8, then
Niu-chwang would be surrendered to China in the first or second month
after that date.[440] The rendition of Tien-tsin was accomplished by the
Powers on August 15, but the restoration of Niu-chwang not only did not
follow it, but seemed to be indefinitely delayed for the trivial reasons
presented one after another by the Russian authorities: that, for
instance, one or two foreign gunboats were present in the harbor;[441]
that the Chinese had refused to agree to the constitution of a sanitary
board;[442] and that the Chinese Tao-tai detailed to receive back the
civil government of the port had not arrived from Mukden, where, it has
been discovered, he had been detained by the Russians much against his
will.[443] Up to the present time, the maritime customs dues at this
important trade port have been paid to the Russo-Chinese Bank, and, for
a large sum thus received, the Bank is said to have paid to the Chinese
authorities neither the amount nor the interest.[444]
-----
Footnote 429:
_China, No. 2 (1904)_, No. 65, inclosure 2.
Footnote 430:
_Ibid._, No. 66, inclosure.
Footnote 431:
The _Tō-A Dōbun-kwai Hōkoku_, No. 38 (January, 1903), pp. 105–106.
Footnote 432:
E. g., 400 men from (probably) Shan-hai-kwan, June 24.—_China, No. 2
(1904)_, No. 58, inclosure. Also some from Liao-yang, in
August.—_Ibid._, No. 61, inclosure.
Footnote 433:
E. g., from Kin-chou-Fu early in September.—_Ibid._, No. 62,
inclosure.
Footnote 434:
Cf. Dr. Morrison’s articles in _The Times_, January 3 (p. 8) and 14
(p. 5), 1903.
Footnote 435:
_China, No. 2 (1904)_, No. 56, inclosure (Hosie to Satow).
Footnote 436:
_Ibid._, No. 63, inclosure (Hosie to Satow, September 9).
Footnote 437:
Cf. _ibid._, No. 61, inclosure (Hosie to Satow, August 21), which
says: “I have the honor to report that a considerable town, to consist
of some 300 cottages, of which about 100 have already been built, is
in course of construction on both sides of the Russian railway to the
immediate northwest of the city of Liao-yang Chou. These cottages,
which when completed will occupy a large piece of land bought from the
Chinese proprietors by the Railway Company, are intended for the
residence of railway employees and of the artisans who will be engaged
at the cleaning and repairing shops to be established at this
important depot.
“While this foreign town is growing outside, the Chinese Government
buildings inside the city of Liao-yang are being rapidly evacuated, in
many cases the only vestige of the Russian occupation being a solitary
sentry keeping guard over the property. Russian troops are also being
withdrawn from Liao-yang and conveyed by rail to Port Arthur.”
A more direct testimony came from the Russian diplomats, probably M.
Lessar himself, who, even so late as at the beginning of September,
1903, or a month before the end of the stipulated period for the
complete evacuation of Manchuria, intimated to Prince Ching that the
reason for the delay of the actual evacuation was “that the barracks
for the railway guards were not ready.”—_China, No. 2 (1904)_, No.
156.
Footnote 438:
The _Novoe Vremya_ itself declared toward the end of the year 1902
that, contrary to the popular notion that Russia was evacuating
Manchuria, she was just beginning to consolidate her influence in that
region.
As regards the number of the Russian troops left in Manchuria after
the first period of evacuation, we have the following authoritative
statement by Count Cassini, Russian Ambassador to the United States:
“Faithfully adhering to the terms of her treaty with China respecting
Manchuria, she [Russia] had withdrawn the major portion of her troops
from that province until _between 60,000 and 70,000_ only
remained.”—The _North American Review_ for May, 1904, pp. 682–683. It
is not clear whether this number included the Russian soldiers
stationed outside of the Chinese quarters.
Footnote 439:
See pp. 144–145, above.
Footnote 440:
_China, No. 2 (1904)_, pp. 38 and 42.
Footnote 441:
_Ibid._, Nos. 72, 74, 75, 111, 112.
Footnote 442:
_Ibid._, Nos. 131, 132.
Footnote 443:
_Ibid._, Nos. 70, 122, 130, 131.
Footnote 444:
The _Kokumin_, May 30, 1904; a Peking correspondence. Also see _China,
No. 2 (1904)_, Nos. 44, 46–48, 69, 73, 96, 99, 102, 105, 124.