Russia and Manchuria before the War
The year 1903, whether reckoned by the Julian or by the Gregorian
calendar, was ended before Russia realized that war was the only
possible outcome of her protracted negotiations with Japan. It is the
practice of diplomats to dissemble, and Russian statesmen, if they
knew what the issue must be--and in my opinion very few of them even
suspected war--hid it successfully from the Russian people. The Russian
peasant neither knows nor is wanted to know anything of world politics
or to take any interest in them; the military and civil officials have
no voice in the direction of the foreign policy of their country and
scarcely possess an opinion on the subject; Russian journalists are
expected to express such declarations only as are indicated by official
communications. The only articulate class, the only people in Russia
who reflect the impressions produced by the absorption of news current
in the world, is formed of those engaged in commercial and industrial
pursuits. They are aware of the movements of the peace-barometer.
To them the fluctuations in the stock markets, abroad and at home,
showed the importance foreign speculators attached to the negotiations
proceeding between Russia and Japan, but even the value of this
indication was discredited by the great confidence the Russian merchant
had in the ability of Russian statesmen to arrange with Japan, avert
an immediate crisis, and force the issue at a season Russia would find
favourable for war.
In European Russia I met no one who wanted war; many who were opposed
to it. The merchants and manufacturers had Manchuria as a free market
for their goods; imports from Japan into Manchuria, like all sea-borne
goods, were taxed, and high duties were imposed on foreign goods
brought into Siberian markets by way of the Manchurian ports and
railways.
The state of affairs in the Far East was the chief, if not the only,
topic of conversation. Moscow residents agreed that attention was
riveted upon Manchuria, and they inferred that the trans-Siberian
express trains were crowded with naval and military officers. They
argued that although four trains ran every week, the three controlled
by the State would doubtless be monopolized for Government servants,
and that my best chance would be by the train of the International
Sleeping-Car Company. I determined to leave Moscow by the first train,
one of the State expresses. At the office of the Sleeping-Car Company
I was informed that all trains were very full, and at the town office
of the State Railways I was told the same, and that I could not book
then by the next train, but might be able to do so at the station. I
sent a messenger from the hotel to buy a through ticket at once, and
he obtained it without difficulty. It will scarcely be believed that I
was the only passenger going through to the Far East. A Jew merchant of
Harbin was my only companion for days. He was utilizing the Christmas
holidays to make his return journey, and had with him many of his
purchases in Moscow, for he told me that although one should make the
journey in less than a fortnight, the time required for the conveyance
of goods was from four to five months, the average speed being less
than 120 miles a day--about five miles an hour. The third day we were
alone I called his attention to the fact that on the train and engines
there were upwards of twenty-five men all engaged in running the train;
that at great expense and with special effort the scheduled time was
being kept--for one Englishman and one Jew! We represented the two
races the Russian Government likes least; but for us the train would
have been absolutely empty.
I have crossed Siberia by railway three times, each at a different
season of the year, and not once without encountering a delay through
some breakdown. On this occasion we had a broken rail, which made us
nine hours late at Irkutsk; another in Trans-Baikalia, which delayed
us hours before reaching the Manchurian frontier, and on the Eastern
Chinese line, a military train ahead ran off the rails, blocked the
line all day, and caused us to be twelve hours behind time again at
Harbin.
The line is maintained regardless of cost, and allowance must be made
for the many difficulties to be overcome. It is true that there is no
need for so many miles of snow-sheds as the Canadian Pacific railway
has found necessary, but for thousands of versts across the steppes
snow-screens have to be set up parallel to the track, to keep the snow
from drifting over the permanent way and blocking the line. In spring
and autumn there are heavy floods, and not infrequently a “wash-out,”
in summer the unballasted track is blown away from the sleepers and
must be constantly renewed. In winter everywhere, and in summer on
many sections, the supply of water is kept up at great expense, and a
drought would threaten the running of extra traffic.
Two engines are required on heavy grades, and special twenty-wheel
locomotives are used on the hilly sections. Hot water is kept night
and day at most stations, and the trains suffer severely from the
inclement weather. The double windows are permanently frosted; often
the vestibule doors become fast, great patches of frozen snow adhere to
the roofs, the sides and panels are hidden under a thick white hoar,
and long streaming icicles hang from the roof to the bogie truck where
the water from the tank for the heating apparatus in each carriage has
splashed over during the day’s run. At every large station there is
a special gang of attendants, who attack the train vigorously on its
arrival; they use hammers and crow-bars, iron rods heated red, long
flaming torches, scalding water, and even light fires of shavings under
the carriages to free the breaks, and little by little thaw out the
working parts of the frost-bound train, wringing, as it were, tears
of anguish from the cold-hearted monster that has crossed the bleak
plateaux of Siberia in winter.
The Baikal ferry was presumed to be the weakest link in the through
chain of railway communication. At this date both of the ice-breakers
were running daily, but were needing their periodical overhauling in
dock. The larger steamer was capable of putting seven trains, or seven
thousand men, across the lake every two days. The _Angara_ could be
counted upon to ferry across five hundred men every day. If goods were
taken instead of troops, there would be an appreciable lessening of the
number of voyages owing to the delay in loading and discharging. The
_Baikal_ can accommodate on deck twenty-four loaded trucks, or covered
vans, and as these are simply run on board and off again on to the
rails, a complete train can have quick despatch.
The ice was over three feet in thickness, but the _Angara_, much the
smaller of the two steamers, not only crossed in good time, but on
several occasions went out of the track, and cut a new road through the
solid virgin ice of the lake.
In order to continue the traffic without interruption whilst the
steamers were laid up, a horse ferry had been organized, and the
contractors had undertaken to convey across the lake on sledges at
least 750 tons of goods daily.
The railway across the lake was from the first fraught with danger
owing to the enormous cracks always found in the lake-ice. The railway
round the lake was being constructed with great speed, and would be
ready for traffic early in 1905; but it has already been opened.
I am still of the opinion that the Trans-Siberian State Express trains
afford the most comfortable railway travelling in the world. The cars
are as luxurious but not so sumptuous as the Pullman Palace cars of
America. They are wider, and give more accommodation; and as the trains
are run solid through from Moscow to Irkutsk, meals are provided at
every hour of the day, and it is not necessary to breakfast before
seven one morning and after nine the next, as sometimes happens on the
American through trans-continental routes. The piano in the saloon is
a welcome addition; the exercising apparatus is useful, and the bath a
convenience. The observation car was not much frequented in winter, and
the _raison d’être_ of the photographer’s dark room, with its dishes
and trays, has departed, now that all photographing along the route is
strictly prohibited.
Siberia is little altered the last three years; but in Manchuria there
have been notable changes. The border-town of Manchuria, five miles
east of the frontier, has been created by the railway. It possesses
not only some fine brick buildings but a great market, intended for
dealings with the Mongols in the produce of the great plains. The whole
district is marked out into lots, like a new town that is booming in
the west of America, and in addition there is a detached native town
already inhabited.
The agricultural settlements of western Manchuria have developed
rapidly, and appear to be thriving. They have also increased in number.
It is interesting to note that Manchuria was exploited under the
direction of General Grodekov, formerly administrator of Tashkand
district, and the same method of founding Russian colonies was followed
in Manchuria. Russian subjects obtain free grants of agricultural land,
and, in some instances, of town lots. Elsewhere the Russian Government
is obtaining high prices for building-sites in towns, and everywhere
high rents to occupiers are the rule. In western Manchuria the tenure
of land by the nomad tribes of Mongol graziers is of the slightest, and
at present they seem to benefit by relinquishing the land in exchange
for the better market the Russian settlements supply. In central Asia
the landowners dispossessed of their domains by the Russian settlers
made certain charges against the governor, and forwarded them to St.
Petersburg. The charges were neither examined nor entertained; the
villagers were punished and the governor promoted to a better post
under the Crown.
Throughout Manchuria the Eastern Chinese Railway, following the lead of
the Russo-Chinese bank and of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, has
undertaken other work than transporting passengers and goods; through
it the Russian Government has been exploiting the territory, trading,
and deriving revenue from the direct development of the natural
resources of the country.
Another change is the increase of military establishments along the
railway route. The greatest is at Fu-li-ahdé, where the line crosses
the Nonni, below Tsitsikar. Here the Russians have large barracks,
extensive fortifications and a military colony. Everywhere, too,
block-houses were in course of erection. The intention was to have
them all along the route within three miles of each other. Up to the
present time those finished are closest together between Pogranichnaya
and Harbin, and on the branch line between Harbin and Port Arthur.
The first to be erected were near large native towns, but the chain
is almost complete now. They are of one type: a two-storied building,
capable of accommodating a hundred men.
A compound is surrounded by a high wall, with two round towers, looped
for musketry, diagonally opposite each other, and so commanding all
four walls of the quadrangle. Another point: there are two qualities of
brick in common use throughout Manchuria, red and blue, the blue being
the more durable. The station buildings are mostly of red brick, the
military quarters and block-houses mostly of the blue variety. Stone is
freely used in districts where it is easily obtainable in quantities
suited to building purposes.
Harbin has grown almost beyond recognition. Old Harbin, still the
administrative and military centre, has changed but little, and is,
if possible, rowdier and more blatantly banal than formerly; but the
New Town, China Town, Lower Harbin, the Sungari Pristan, and the Middle
Town, now contain massed buildings of fine proportions, where but four
years ago, there was only an uncultivated plain, and all indicate the
growing wealth and increased trade of the commercial capital of the new
Manchuria.
In this district many square miles of arable land are under
cultivation, and the wheat grown is milled in the vicinity. So enormous
is the supply that I met an agent travelling to Singapore and India,
in the hope of finding there a market for some of the surplus from the
Harbin district.
As the 1904 crops have been properly harvested, and by this date
probably are milled also, the Russian army in Manchuria ought not next
year to be short of its staple food. The wealth derived at little cost
of labour from the land is so enormous that the inhabitants are already
comparatively rich. Prices are high. My travelling companion, the Jew
merchant, informed me that he could journey to Moscow, buy what be
needed there at retail prices in the shops, take them to Harbin, and
not only defray the cost of his journey from the profits, but secure a
satisfactory surplus.
Journeying farther east improvements are visible all along the route.
The Southern Ussuri district of the Primorski territory has been
developed. Nikolskoe has become an important military centre. Barracks
to accommodate 20,000 men are in course of construction, and more land
has been brought under cultivation. Vladivostok has grown and improved;
it possesses a new cathedral, many new government buildings, three
theatres and several additions to its business streets. Additional
barracks have also been erected at Vladivostok, and its importance has
increased rather than diminished since it ceased to be a free port.
There is no lack of amusement, gaiety, and “life” at Vladivostok, but
the port has an appreciable commerce which gives it staidness and
stability. It is not entirely a naval station as Port Arthur was, nor
so absolutely in the hands of the naval and military commandants. It
has a severe climate; in January it was painfully cold and out of
doors life scarcely enjoyable. The harbour was frozen over solid,
with the exception of the track kept open by the daily voyages of the
Danish ice-breaker, _Nadejni_. The _Rossia_, _Rurik_, and _Gromoboi_,
lay alongside the ice, gangways from the ships’ sides giving access
thereto. The Cardiff steam coal from the British colliers, then
discharging in port, was being carted across the ice to the cruisers.
The defences of the fortress had not been materially strengthened.
Several new batteries had been prepared, for the most part on the
land side, and they face the east, but the guns for them were lying
at the harbour level, and those in the new forts were not mounted.
On board the men-of-war, even in the dockyards, and on shore there
was a general slackness. In the depth of winter, Vladivostok is not
one of the busiest ports in the world. New Year festivities rather
than war were uppermost in the minds of the society people to whom
the existence of forts and batteries assured security apart from the
apparently impenetrable barrier of the ice-girt coast. I learned that
Vladivostok had not in hand at that time sufficient supplies to feed
the garrison and inhabitants for a fortnight. They were dependent upon
the stores and granaries in the neighbourhood of Nikolskoe, four to
five hours distant by railway. In short, the defences of the place were
so incomplete, and its resources so shallow, that I quite believed a
Japanese Intelligence officer when he told me they could capture the
port in a week.
The Russian military authorities were so slack and so confident in
the strength of their fortress that when a Japanese squadron made a
surprise visit in March, the guns still lay at the foot of the new
forts, batteries were unmanned, and thus but a very feeble reply
could be made to the Japanese bombardment, which, fortunately for
Vladivostok, was not heavy, and damaged principally the Linevich fort.
Harbin is one of the coldest towns in Manchuria, and there the snow
lies deep for months. Port Arthur is 607 miles to the south by railway,
and in a different climate. The line crosses the Sungari for the second
time at Da-la-Chiao, about seventy miles from the great bridge at
Harbin. Tehling is forty miles north of Mukden; the Chinese town of
10,000 inhabitants is some miles from the railway station and Russian
settlement, for in almost every instance the line has been constructed
through unoccupied, but not uncultivated, country on the flat plain
west of the hill range. Fengtien province is densely populated, and
the flat land is carefully tilled by the industrious, thrifty Chinese.
There is little snow, and it lies but a short time on the plains,
where all through the winter the winds raise great clouds of dust from
the village roads thronged with carts hauling produce to the railway
stations and ports. The hills and the hill passes hold the snow, and a
winter campaign there would entail many hardships, but on the plain,
in the cold bracing air with a frozen surface giving a passable road
everywhere, fighting might be continued with fewer delays from climatic
changes than in the summer season with its frequent heavy rains.
The south and west gates of Mukden are only about two miles from
the railway station and barracks; the Imperial Tombs are between the
city and the line, although the latter now runs direct, the détour
originally constructed having been abandoned since 1901.
Mukden, 275 miles from Port Arthur, is a quadrangular city, about four
square miles in extent. The outer wall is of mud, the middle wall of
earth faced with brick, and fifty feet in height; the inner wall has
red gates and corresponds to the Forbidden City of Peking, being the
administrative and executive centre with the old Royal Palace, the
residence of the Tartar General and that of the Russian Commissary.
The town is more generally and more densely populated than is Peking
and its inhabitants must number nearly a million. There is, or was,
a Russian hotel and restaurant in the town, having four small and
very dirty, ill-furnished rooms for travellers. The Chinese inns
were better, and the _Green Dragon_ near the East Gate became the
headquarters of the newspaper correspondents. The mission stations
are near the Bund, on the Hun-khé river, and, as elsewhere in China,
are the finest residences in the town. The Russians never maintained
a large garrison within the town, but had sentries and guards at each
gate and at the Russian establishments, with Cossack and infantry
patrols of the streets. The gates were closed at sundown.
A few miles south of Mukden the railway crosses the Sakhé river; next
the colliery district of Yentai is reached, and, further south, the
station of Liaoyang. The capital of ancient Korea and one of the most
picturesque walled cities of North China, is a few versts east of the
railway. Haicheng, is a celebrated mission station further south.
Tashichiao, where a branch line leads to Newchwang, is 106 miles south
of Mukden, and 168 miles north of Port Arthur.
Kinchow is on the north-west of the narrow isthmus which connects the
Kwan-tung peninsula with the mainland. The line runs first near the
east, then along the western shore; from the train both shores could
be seen fringed with ice, in some places a band only a few hundred
yards in width, in others stretching out to sea apparently for miles.
Here and there were rugged hills, their tops white-crowned and the
higher reaches of the ravines blocked with ice and snow. These ravines,
widened and worn by flood waters, constitute deep, crooked gullies
traversing all the flat land between the hill sides, and the sea,
affording excellent shelter for infantry and rendering the use of
cavalry almost impossible.
At Nangalin the line branches, running eastward to Dalny, and winding
south, and westwards through intermittent cultivation, to the rocky
promontory on which Port Arthur lies. The line runs right through to
the water-front, opposite the Tiger’s Tail, and to the west of Signal
Hill, and east of the New Town. No station has yet been constructed;
temporary sheds afford some slight shelter for passengers and goods.
Such is the real terminus of the great Trans-Continental railway system.
All along the route the people most concerned in the political
disagreement between Russia and Japan were the trading classes. They
feared war, for war would interfere with commerce and might mean
financial ruin to them. They, almost to a man, expressed themselves as
opposed to the forward policy of Russia. The newer settlers professed
to have little fear of the industrial competition of the yellow races;
but the older settlers in eastern Siberia still cling to the earlier
policy, which had for its object the ousting of Chinese, Koreans and
Japanese from the territories more recently occupied by Russia. Few
could comprehend the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and all accepted it
as a purely political combination effected by England in order to
thwart the plans of Russia in the Far East, and consequently evidence
of the inborn hostility of the Briton to Russia. One merchant, an
ardent admirer of Leo Tolstoy’s teaching, asked me how it was that
the English people had such an inveterate hatred of Russians. I
explained to him that there was no ill feeling existent against the
Russian people, only against the policy of the Russian Government,
and therefore against the Russian soldiers, who were the tools used
in making the policy effectual. “Ah,” said he, “the soldiers? They
are a different people.” In Russia, more than in any country, there
is a detachment of the people from the army, and from the executive
government it represents. People were anxious to explain that they
disassociated themselves completely from everything the Government was
doing by its executive officials, the servants of the Crown.
The army officers believed war to be imminent; they knew of no way in
which it could be averted with honour to Russia. They thought a winter
campaign would be most advantageous to them, whilst declaring that a
spring campaign was more probable.
In Port Arthur every one expected war. If they knew it from no other
event, the crowd of newspaper war correspondents from England and
the United States must have indicated by their very presence in the
port that an appeal to arms was foreseen abroad. Withal, the Russians
pursued their fatuous policy, and even so late as the last week of
January dispatched from Port Arthur a regiment of Cossacks and two
regiments of infantry to the interior, thus strengthening the force
threatening Korea.
It was at this period that I went on board one of the finest
battleships in the harbour and conversed with one of the officers
of the fleet on the probability of war. In his opinion war would be
avoided; but after some argument, he admitted that war was possible.
“But we will not fight,” he added significantly. I was so astonished
at this remarkable assertion, that I asked him if he did not mean that
Russia would not make war. “I mean we, the navy, will not fight,” he
repeated. “Of course, as you say, the Japanese may make war; I may be
killed even, but we will not fight.” He spake calmly, even sadly, and
soon brought the conversation politely to a termination. As events
proved, the officer was right, and particularly right with regard to
that ship, which of all the fleet was probably poorest in defence, and
never once attacked.
The Russian military authorities knew that war threatened, and made
such preparations as they could in anticipation of an early outbreak
of hostilities. If men and stores in excess of usual movements had
been directed towards Manchuria, the act would have been construed
by the Japanese as indicating a hostile intent, and of itself would
have constituted a _casus belli_. To increase very materially the
military force at the disposal of the Viceroy would have incommoded him
seriously in dealing with the Japanese contentions. War could have been
diverted, or at least delayed, if Russia had promptly abandoned her
aggressive policy in the Far East, if only for a time. As it was the
“Forward” party had attempted too much on the slight military resources
at their disposal in Manchuria.
Opinions differ as to the number of troops east of Lake Baikal in
January last. From information I obtained, the Russians had increased
their force during the autumn of 1903 by about 50,000 men; they had in
Manchuria and eastern Siberia, in the month of January, about 200,000
men, which force was being increased by new arrivals to the average
number of 400 men every day. This force was distributed as follows:--
In Port Arthur 20,000
Outside Port Arthur: Inchentse, Nangalin, etc. 5,000
At Dalny and Talienwan 6,000
At Feng-Huang-Cheng 1,250
At Antung-Hsun 500
At or near Kaichiao, etc. 300
At Waffientien, Kinchow, Tashichiao, and Yingkow 1,000
On the Yalu River 5,000
At Haicheng 3,000
At and near Liaoyang 4,000
Along the Peking Road to the Yalu 8,000
At Mukden 600
At and near Tehling and vicinity of Mukden 3,000
At Kuan Chentse and Kirin 2,500
At Vladivostok 12,000
At Nikolskoe, Spasskaya, etc. 6,000
In Eastern Siberia, N.W. of Vladivostok 8,000
At Harbin 4,000
At Fu-li-ahdé 1,000
At Blagoveshchensk, Stretensk and Chita 8,000
Railway Guards 70,000
Reserves in camp 31,000
_En route_ 2,000
--------
Total force 202,150
The Railway Guards include the riflemen who accompanied each train;
the patrol for about 1,400 miles of railway line; the garrisons of
the block-houses at each tenth verst; and the details posted at every
railway station and siding. The number is probably understated. At the
commencement of the war the patrols were doubled and the number of
guards was increased.
Russian military opinion seemed to indicate that the garrisons in
Manchuria were sufficient for defensive purposes. The troops were being
advanced towards the Yalu, that is to say, the Korean frontier, and the
largest offensive force was being concentrated in Fengtien Province
along the old Peking highway from Liaoyang to the mountain passes on
the Manchurian side of the Yalu; thither munitions and stores were
being conveyed all through the winter, averaging in January about 700
tons a day.
The Russian authorities grossly underrated the strength of their enemy.
Not only the civilians, but the military and naval officers, were
confident that Russia would win, and win easily. The Russians had a
supreme contempt for the “yellow monkeys,” and only officers of the
highest rank regarded the coming conflict as anything more serious
than a “walk over” for Russia. Even in the Far East, the tone was
buoyant; people were in high spirits, they spake in glad tones of war,
business was brisk, and about everything there was the true ring of
self-confidence, come what might.