THE LAST STATESMEN OF THE TSARDOM
Those who still imagine that individuals rather than the character of
the Tsarist State were responsible for those predatory habits and the
uniform bad faith which so long rendered a trustworthy covenant
between Russia and any other government virtually impossible, would
do well to remember that, however widely individual ministers might
differ from each other, the system invariably over-ruled the best
intentions and vitiated the most straightforward conduct of the
statesman in charge. Thus Count Lamsdorff was known to be a loyal
and veracious man, of whom it could be predicated that his assertions
were true and his promises sincere. But the former were always
liable to be belied and the latter to be violated by his master or
his colleagues. And he could not legally resign because the theory,
in the Tsardom, to which the practice inflexibly conformed was that a
minister is a civil officer whose commander-in-chief is the Emperor
and that without the Emperor's permission--or in other words until he
is dismissed from office--he may not lay down his functions.
Lamsdorff was an admirable Foreign Secretary, through whose hands all
the important State papers and into whose ears all the momentous
State secrets passed. He had served under Giers who often consulted
him, and under Lobanoff-Rostoffsky and Shishkin. During Muravieff's
tenure of office he held the post of assistant minister. By them all
he was noted as a discreet, steady, hard-working, conscientious
official, whose thorough knowledge of French and extraordinary habits
of seclusion--Lamsdorff never married--rendered him incomparably more
useful than any of his colleagues. On Muravieff's sudden death the
Emperor seemed inclined to give the succession to Izvolsky, who was
then Minister in Tokio, but had been in somewhat strained {254}
relations with the Russian Foreign Office. It appears that when the
famous invitation to all the governments of the earth to meet at the
Hague was sent out by the Tsar under peculiar circumstances which
will be unfolded in a later chapter, the Foreign Minister, Muravieff,
wrote to his cousin Izvolsky, then minister in Munich, to ask him how
the grandiose idea was received by the Bavarians. Izvolsky--who can,
I am sure, bear out what I say--knew perfectly that the Hague
Conference appeal was a shameful fraud which Muravieff and the Tsar
were practising on the world, and he refused to humour the vulgar
trickster by feigning to become ecstatic. He had the cruel
frankness, therefore, to throw cold water on Muravieff's sudden
fervour and to apprise him that in Bavaria the summons had been
warmly acclaimed only by hysterical women, Jews, and Socialists.
That response was resented by the vainglorious minister, who soon
afterwards transferred his cousin from Munich to the Far East. M.
Izvolsky, when he reached Yokohama, on his way to Tokio, learned that
Muravieff was dead. And the Tsar at once turned his eyes towards
Izvolsky, but did not wish to create an accomplished fact without
first consulting Witte, who was very keen to have a colleague in the
Foreign Office with whom he could work in harmony.
The great statesman, whose judgment of others was often at fault, had
a higher opinion of M. Izvolsky's personal independence than of his
statecraft and, what at that time was much more to the point, he was
extremely anxious that Lamsdorff should take over the post, because
he himself would then, he believed, be able to exert a general
directing influence over the entire business of the Tsardom. As a
matter of fact Izvolsky would have served his purpose better than
Lamsdorff, because being independent he would not have tolerated, as
Lamsdorff did, the formation of a secret governing board of
adventurers behind his back, who plunged the Empire into war. He
would doubtless have resigned or else obliged the Tsar to dismiss
Bezobrazoff and his confederates. Witte contrived to have devoted
agents of his own in the Ministries of War, the Marine, Justice,
Education, {255} Railways, at court, in a word he possessed a
powerful lever for every State department. And what is much more
characteristic of the man, he had a small fleet of his own, a railway
of his own, an army of his own of which he was the
commander-in-chief, and he wanted to have Manchuria as his own
domain. He built his own city Dalny and lavished enormous sums on
laying it out. Disposing of all these means of influencing the
government, Witte fancied that he could effectively hinder war and
carry out his own scheme of governance by speedy industrialisation,
railway building, technical and general education, and gradual
political reforms. This, then, was the answer which he returned to
the Tsar:
"If your Majesty desires a society man who is also an official of
experience I would suggest Count Delyanoff,[1] but if you prefer to
have a diplomatist, I think you will find no one as well fitted for
the post as Count Lamsdorff. He is an animated archive of State
documents. His drawbacks are an unconquerable aversion to society
and all that this implies, so that he will not be a dispenser of
hospitality, but even that drawback has ample compensations."
Thereupon Lamsdorff was made minister, and from that day onward he
and Witte worked in rare harmony, the latter being invariably
consulted on all questions involving important international issues.
Here then were the two most influential ministers in the Empire, at
one on the Far Eastern problem and how to tackle it, both resolved to
do everything in their power--Witte alone was thought to be
all-powerful--to hinder war, and yet the insignificant, untrained
youth who occupied the throne frustrated their every effort with the
utmost ease. To such a degree was the Tsarist State true to its
nature. One difference between Witte and Lamsdorff consisted in the
manner in which they conceived their functions. Lamsdorff was wont
to say, "I endeavour to form a sound opinion on each of {256} the
problems that are become or becoming actual and to seek for a
solution. I then lay my view before the Emperor as lucidly and also
as forcibly as I know how. And there my duty terminates. For is the
Tsar not an absolute monarch? How and why then should I insist? Why
ought I to resign merely because I differ from him? It is my duty to
stay on and render him such services as he will accept." Witte, on
the other hand, was always insistent and often dogmatic. He not only
advised but drew on the future for deterrents with which he strove to
frighten the Tsar, and his mode of carrying on a discussion was the
reverse of courtly. Only about one political question had the two
friends ever differed, and that was on the subject of Port Arthur.
When it became urgent Lamsdorff, who was only assistant Foreign
Secretary, held the same view as his chief, Muravieff, and was
opposed to the Minister of Finances. Subsequently Witte taunted him
with his mistake and pointed out the pernicious consequences that had
resulted from it, but Lamsdorff answered, "I grant you it was an
unwise step, and if I had to deal with the subject in the light of
what I now know, I would certainly take sides with you. But I cannot
admit that it led to war with Japan. This war was brought about by
our impolitic endeavours to grab Manchuria and Korea."
But do what they might, honest, clear-sighted, and even genial
political spirits made no deep dent on the Tsarist State. Witte with
his ideal of peace resting upon economic revival, growing industries,
larger markets, educational advance, and political training had just
as little success as Izvolsky, who boldly started from the assumption
that Russia was already a European community and that her policy,
home and foreign, ought to be shaped in accordance with that--the
nationalities being placated at home by reasonable concessions in the
direction of autonomy, and the international intercourse of the
Tsardom regulated in an equally liberal sense by removing all causes
of friction between Russia and her neighbours and by striking up
understandings with the progressive nations of the world. The
Tsardom {257} remained to the end what it had been from the first: a
predatory community, and, as the schoolmen used to put it, its action
was congruous with its nature.
When writing and working to bring about an Anglo-Russian Entente, I
took pains to set these facts candidly before the British public in a
series of review articles,[2] and among other expressions of my
opinion, which events have since confirmed, I stated that Russia's
policy "is the resultant of conditions of which some elude analysis,
most are bound up with her internal structure, and all are proof
against diplomatic reagents." ...[3] For knowing the men who
successively presided over the Foreign Office I could not ascribe to
them, but only to the mechanism which they kept going, the
pertinacity of the assaults they made upon the foundations of the
European political system and upon such ethical postulates as are
commonly supposed to militate in favour of its maintenance. In the
space of two years the Tsar's government twice deliberately
hoodwinked the British Foreign Office by means of the illusory hope
of an all-round settlement; the Foreign Minister, Lobanoff, availed
himself of a period of profound peace to organise a coalition of the
great powers against Great Britain, offering Egypt to France and
seeking to bribe Spain with Gibraltar; the war minister, Kuropatkin,
was once on the very point of taking Herat, fighting the Afghans, and
challenging their British protectors, at another time he laid a trap
to seize the persons of the Emperor and Dowager Empress of China; the
acting minister, Shishkin, in obedience to an imperial decree, was
about to seize Constantinople and cut the Gordian knot of the Near
Eastern Question without a word of warning to her Majesty's
government; in January, 1904, war with Great Britain was in sight,
and in the summer of the same year the littoral of the Baltic was
hurriedly protected against British warships, and arrangements in
Turkestan were made for an eventual campaign against India.
Thus the aggressive attitude of the Tsardom towards the {258}
European family of nations was seen to be a link in the chain of
politico-psychic necessity forged by its founders. It was the
resultant of a clearly defined set of conditions, not the creation of
the brain of a far-seeing statesman. Those who fancied that Russia's
diplomacy was uncommonly sagacious, planning ages ahead the moves
which would be made by remote posterity, and crediting Peter the
Great with what was really the work of happy accident or the
temporary success of shifty ministers, mistook a popular legend for
an historical fact. The truth is that, like most other countries,
Russia possessed many diplomatists and very few statesmen, but,
unlike them, she advanced along certain unchanging lines of action
whoever might happen to be at the head of affairs. It was an
instance of _vis inertiæ_. For her policy was traced by internal
conditions, one of which moved her to withdraw her main forces, moral
and material, from the heart of the Empire to its extremities. I
gave frequent expression to this conviction in bygone times.
"Territorial expansion," I wrote, "and not internal development is
the law which still shapes her course to-day. Hence the State grows
in extent while the well-being of the people remains stationary. The
government therefore is very wealthy, but the people exceedingly
poor. The State is ever annexing territory, while the peasants
complain that they lack soil to till. The bulky bags of gold are
lavishly spent in Korea, Manchuria, and the uttermost ends of the
globe, while the mooshik feels the pinch of poverty. In a word, the
pent-up energy of the nation runs along the line of least resistance,
which is that of territorial expansion, and every general, admiral,
ambassador, and consul knows that he may safely try to score a point
in that direction. For if he succeed he will have merited well of
his government, and if he fail he will be promptly disavowed.
"One of the practical consequences of this state of things is that
the Russian nation appears to the outsider as an agglomeration of
distinct and hostile races, religions, and interests, which have
never been blended, and are loosely linked together by obedience to
one and the same head. {259} Hence the individual lacks not indeed
patriotism, but that particular and inspiring form of it which is
engendered by the consciousness that the State is to some extent,
however small, the work of his own hands. Thus the Armenian, the
Pole, the Finn, the Hebrew, does not feel himself a Russian in the
same sense in which his compatriot in the United States feels himself
an American. He is an Armenian or a Pole first and a Russian
afterwards. Even the real Russian does not identify himself with the
State, which grows rich at his expense and pursues ideals after which
he himself has no desire to strive.
"Now to merge all these heterogeneous elements in one great nation,
as the Americans have done, is an arduous task, to be successfully
tackled only by means from which the government instinctively
recoils. For such a change presupposes the repeal not only of such
special legislation as at present exists for the different
nationalities, Poles, Caucasians, Jews, Finns, etc., but also the
removal of class privileges and disabilities, the spread of
elementary, secondary, and technical education, and the introduction
of other reforms which are eschewed as incompatible with the present
political fabric. All the surplus activity of the population,
therefore, as well as a large part of its financial resources, is
diverted into other channels and utilised for the benefit of Manchus,
Koreans, and other peoples who are neither Russian nor Christian.
The purely mechanical attempts at assimilation, such as those which
are associated with the names of General Bobrikoff in Finland and
Prince Galitzin in the Caucasus, have hitherto produced only negative
results, estranging and embittering instead of conciliating and
uniting. Thus the Finns are less Russian in sentiment to-day than
they were a quarter of a century ago. The Armenians, who were once
regarded as zealous apostles of the cause of the Christian Slav in
Asia Minor, are deeply distrusted by official Russia at present. And
every new war renders it more and more difficult to reduce the motley
elements of the population to a common denominator."[4]
{260}
How utterly unavailing were the endeavours, not always systematic, of
Russia's genial statesman, Witte, to harmonise the Asiatic spirit of
the old and unchanging Tsardom with the economic necessities and
ethical tendencies of the new epoch, and to draw its peoples within
the pale of European culture, is brought home to us with irresistible
force in the government's dealings with the Far Eastern States. The
outward and visible sign of the interest taken by the Petersburg
government in the destinies of those remote countries was the resolve
to treat the project of the Trans-Siberian railways as vital, to
build the line within a relatively short period, and take it through
Manchuria. This was Witte's scheme, for which he soon obtained the
approval of Alexander III. The next link in the chain that was to
connect the interests of these two aggregates of peoples was an
understanding with China. The conversations that led to it were
conducted by the Russian statesman with the display of all the means
that strike the imagination and paralyse the reasoning powers of the
Asiatic. The history of this bargaining is an epitome of the
relations, cultural and political, between the two. The shrewd,
epigrammatic, old-world sayings of the great Manchu leader, who was
drawn to Russia by golden chains and hypnotised by fascinating
spectres, contrasted with the bold, business-like language of the
illustrious Russian. Although the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the
time was the highly gifted _causeur_ Lobanoff-Rostoffsky, whom I had
known in Vienna, it was the bluff Finance Minister who carried on the
conversations.
In his secret dispatches from Russia to the Tsung Li Yamen[5] of
Pekin, Li Hung Chang put the matter very simply before his government
and sovereign. Here is one telegram of his which was given to me
soon after it had been deciphered: "I received a visit[6] from the
Russian Finance Minister, Witte, who developed his views on the
subject of the Manchurian railway and the route which, in his
opinion, {261} had better be chosen on the score of cheapness and
expediency. Once built, he said, it would lessen the danger to be
apprehended from Japan, but China ought not to be charged with its
construction, because it would take her fully ten years. I objected
that if the choice of a company were left to Russia she would
construct it herself, and that a precedent would be created for other
powers to follow. He answered that if we dissented China would never
make the railway, and that in any case Russia is minded to extend her
line to Nipchu, and then await a favourable moment, but that she
could not renew her offer to help China. This view is Witte's, but
his ability is made much of by the Tsar. Lobanoff, whom I have met
on two occasions, has never broached this subject."
The next telegram is dated three days later and runs thus: "When an
ambassador has once presented his credentials it is not usual for him
to receive a second audience. Yet the Tsar has received me again in
his private apartment, my son, Li Chung Fang, being the only person
present. The pretext was his Majesty's wish to take over the
presents. And this is what he said, 'Russia owns vast territories
which are but thinly populated. Therefore she will not trespass upon
a foot of soil which is the property of others. Moreover, the ties
which bind her to China are very intimate. Hence her only motive in
desiring the junction of the railways through Manchuria is the quick
conveyance of troops for the purpose of affording effectual help to
China whenever the latter country is hard set. Consequently, it is
not for Russia's advantage alone that the line would serve. On the
other hand, China's resources are not sufficient to enable her to
build the railway. If she handed over the building concession to the
Russo-Chinese Bank at Shanghai, safeguarding her right of control by
means of suitable stipulations, no difficulties need be anticipated.
Such things are done in every country.' For those reasons the Tsar
requested me to weigh well the proposals, and to adopt practical
means to realise them. _He added that China could not be sure that
England and Japan would not brew trouble for {262} her very soon, but
she could at least enable Russia to come to her assistance_.[7] In
the execution of my duty, I report those words for the information of
the crown."
_Li Hung Chang to the Tsung Li Yamen_
"27th April, 1896 (old style).
"Lobanoff invited me to dine with him yesterday, and I met Witte
there. The building of the railway was put forward by both ministers
as a matter of extreme moment. Witte maintained that it could be
constructed in three years. I urged that there were obstacles in the
way, but he answered that he would obviate them by putting on extra
labour. China, he said, lacks the money to build the Manchurian
line, and it would never be even begun if she were charged with the
task of making it. It would therefore be better if the Russo-Chinese
Bank undertook it. I answered that I would refer the matter to the
crown. Respecting the Tsar's mention of help, Lobanoff told me that
he had no instructions from the crown, and that he would obtain them
by the 29th inst., and resume the conversation then. He thinks that
if China solicited the despatch of Russian troops, it is she (China)
who should undertake to provide them with food. If China were in
straits Russia should come to her assistance, and vice versa. But
the cardinal point was that railway connection should be made through
Manchuria, and the convention once ratified, a secret treaty might
then be concluded...."
Witte's power of suasion had been exerted to some effect before the
next telegram was despatched.
_Li Hung Chang to the Tsung Li Yamen_
"2nd May, 1896 (old style).
"Concerning the treaty, there is little in it to which objection
could be taken, Russia's motive being a desire to establish friendly
relations with China. If we refuse it, her dissatisfaction will be
deep and our interests will suffer in {263} consequence. Witte was
the only person who witnessed the private negotiations with Lobanoff.
He gave me to read the draft of a contract with the Russo-Chinese
Company, setting out that the capital must be Russian and Chinese
only, the merchants of other countries being eliminated from the list
of subscribers. China would receive an annual sum of a quarter of a
million dollars, whether the enterprise showed a loss or a profit.
There would also be paid to her an initial sum of two million
dollars. The line would be handed back to her fifty or eighty years
after it had been built."
It is instructive to note that one of Russia's principal levers by
which this apparently brilliant stroke of national policy was
effected was the fear of Great Britain and Japan with which she
successfully inspired China. Her sole object in making the
Manchurian railway was to shield China from the infamous designs of
the maritime powers, and her resolve to build it herself was inspired
by the wish to get it done soon enough to counteract the aggressive
moves of Japan and Great Britain, who might brew trouble very soon,
Li Hung Chang was assured. And so anxious was Russia to discharge
this friendly office for China that, unless she were permitted to do
so, she threatened to join China's enemy, Japan!
I saw and possess the treaty to which these negotiations led up. In
connection with that document an amusing incident cropped up which
brought out Lobanoff's easy-going unconcern and ready resource.
Witte, who had arranged everything with the Chinese statesman and
kept the Tsar informed of every move, at last had all the points of
the bargain in his head. Nicholas II. approved them, and said that
they were to be communicated to Lobanoff-Rostoffsky. Witte
accordingly called on his colleague and explained to him in his
emphatic staccato manner what it was that he had induced Li Hung
Chang to acquiesce in. Lobanoff listened and, having heard, at once
took a pen, wrote for a few minutes, and then read out what was a
complete and carefully-worded treaty, divided exactly into the {264}
requisite number of clauses. The first paragraph ran thus: "This
treaty is to come into force whenever in Eastern Asia Japan violates
Russian, Chinese, or Korean territory. It is stipulated that in this
event the two contracting powers shall forthwith send all their sea
and land forces then available to the front, give mutual aid to each
other, and likewise assist each other to the best of their ability in
providing ammunition and war stores." On the following day Lobanoff
was received by the Tsar, and after the audience he telephoned from
the ministry to Witte saying, "His Majesty fully approves the wording
of the treaty. I am sending you a copy." Witte, who never grudged
any pains when engaged in official work, scanned the text, and saw
that the words "whenever ... Japan violates" had been changed into
"whenever ... any power violates," etc. Witte objected to the change
for obvious reasons, and he went to the Emperor and laid the case
before him. Nicholas II. upheld the objection, and said that it must
have been merely an oversight which he would have corrected. Just
then everybody's attention was engrossed by preparations for the
coronation of Nicholas II. and many things were out of gear.
Lobanoff meeting Witte told him that the Tsar had apprised him of the
mistake, but that he had since corrected it. "The fact is," he
explained, "I wrote 'Japan' at first, but then I deliberately put the
case more generally, but on reflection I find your objection
adequate." The day on which the document was to be solemnly signed
came round. According to custom, a treaty is never read on this last
day, but is merely signed by the contracting parties. In this case
Lobanoff had to put his name first. And he was on the point of
taking his pen to do so when Witte cast his eye over the open treaty
and to his amazement noticed that the wrong wording was in the new
copy. He made a sign and apprised his colleague. Lobanoff when told
of it exclaimed, "Is it possible? Well, I'll arrange it." He
clapped his hands for the servant, who came in; then turning to Li
Hung Chang, he said, "In our country it is a traditional custom to
eat always before we sign a treaty. It is supposed {265} to bring
luck to the nations concerned. With your excellency's permission we
shall now proceed to honour the custom and also drink to the
well-being of your great country." Li Hung Chang bowed, and the
party went into the dining-room and sat down to lunch. By the time
the repast was over fresh copies of the treaty, this time properly
drafted, were on the table awaiting the signatories.[8]
Lobanoff-Rostoffsky had a decided turn and some qualifications for
historical research, and was one of the best-informed, most cultured,
and least serious of Russia's foreign secretaries. He would
sometimes conceive a grandiose plan which resembled a huge joke and,
like a child's balloon brought too near the fire, would collapse on
the first attempt to realise it. It was he who was in power when I
went to Armenia disguised as a Russian general, after having learned
from my friend the "Russian statesman" what the attitude of the
Tsardom was going to be towards the Turkish murderers of the
Armenians of Sassun. My descriptions of what I had seen in Armenia
caused a stir in England and France. Mr. Gladstone's last great
speech at Chester, devoted to the subject, held up the Sultan to the
contumely of the world. By that time it had become evident that Sir
Philip Currie's optimism was ill-founded, and that Russia's intention
was to treat the butchery as a domestic matter between the Shadow of
God and his subjects, and to let the Porte have _carte blanche_. The
British people, on the other hand, were for compelling Abdul Hamid to
draw the line of despotism at the extermination of a race, and their
view was shared by a considerable number of influential Frenchmen--De
Pressensé among others--who were bringing pressure to bear upon their
government in order to oblige it to take action. "Russia," who was
then identical with Lobanoff, entertained serious fears that France
might combine with Great Britain and thwart the Muscovite plans in
Asia Minor. Hence the minister resolved to pour out the vials of his
wrath upon the British as soon as he should have an opportunity. Nor
had he long to wait. {266} Public opinion in France was not strong
enough to force the hand of the government; the danger was dispelled,
the republic sided with the autocracy, and the Sultan decimated the
Christian Armenians with impunity. Then the Russian Foreign
Minister, determined to strike the iron while it was hot, imagined a
scheme for a continental coalition against Great Britain. He would
have satisfied France with the hope of Egypt, Spain with the
retrocession of Gibraltar, and Russia was to have Constantinople and
the command of the Dardanelles. But the plan remained a _pium
desiderium_.
Thus, however profound the changes that might come over the rest of
Europe, Russia's craving for aggrandisement was chronic and
insatiable, and any man who rose up and undertook to gratify it,
whether he was a narrow-minded minister, an army officer, or a simple
bureaucrat, represented the Tsardom. I commented thirteen years ago
on the significant fact "that Russia must pursue a policy of
expansion in virtue of the sum total of her internal conditions, and
that she is represented at a given moment by the man or men who are
most effectually contributing to the realisation of that policy."[9]
For some years General Kuropatkin was one of these individuals, and
during that period he forced upon his colleagues a forward policy of
such an aggressive character that pursued by any power but Russia it
would have soon culminated in war. It was he, for instance, who
insisted on the seizure of Port Arthur against the advice of the
majority of the ministers whom the Tsar had consulted, and it was his
pleading which was finally successful. Thus the views of the other
official representatives of the Empire, some of whom were men of
insight and experience, seemed but as dust in the balance when
weighed against the opinion of the man who was bent on helping his
master, the ruler of one-sixth of the earth, to govern one-fifth.
While his star was yet in the ascendant, he noted without alarm or
misgiving the symptoms of the storm which the Boxers were preparing.
Indeed, Catholic missionaries, who are well-informed, asserted that
the {267} Muscovite authorities were well aware of the troubles
brewing in China, and watchful subjects of the dowager empress of the
celestial kingdom aver that Buddhist priests, who owed allegiance to
the Tsar, went about from place to place fomenting the discontent and
inflaming the passions of the people. Hence Russia being the friend
might play the profitable rôle of onlooker. It was she who had
warned the unsophisticated Chinese against the secret schemes of
Great Britain, Japan, and the United States, and it was from her
troops that the Manchu dynasty and the Chinese people would
eventually expect and receive timely succour. But when it turned out
that the Boxers were making no invidious distinctions between Muscovy
and the maritime powers, Russia was alarmed.
General Kuropatkin, whose notions of China and the Chinese were
unobscured by a knowledge of confusing facts, elaborated a scheme of
policy towards that country which was accepted and partly carried out
by Nicholas II. He was wont to assure his friends that the periodic
popular movements against foreigners there might be aptly likened to
troublesome symptoms in the arm of a human being arising from the
presence of a splinter in the brain. Remove the splinter and the
jerky movements in the arm will forthwith cease. Now the Manchu
dynasty, he would add, is the splinter, and if Russia once seizes
that, the administrative machine will work quite smoothly, responding
to the slightest touch of the St. Petersburg government. And the
practical corollary which the general drew from this theory was that
Pekin must be taken and the emperor and empress seized. This was the
"splinter theory" to which he won over the Foreign Minister,
Muravieff, and the Tsar, with the result that Russian troops were
despatched to co-operate with those of the other powers against Taku
and Pekin. If the wily dowager empress and the weak-willed Bogdykhan
had not prudently quitted the capital in time, the course of their
lives, as well as that of Chinese history, would have run very
differently. But when the Russian forces reached their destination,
the "splinter" had worked its way to a distant {268} part of the body
politic, and was beyond the reach of the Muscovite surgeon.
Baffled in her attempt to get hold of the heads of the Manchu
dynasty, Russia reverted to her traditional policy of friendship for
the Middle Empire. She withdrew her embassy to Tientsin, in
accordance with the wishes of the Chinese court, urged the other
powers to follow her example, protested her affection for China, and
solemnly declared that she neither needed nor coveted any territory
there, and by way of proving her disinterestedness promised to
evacuate Manchuria. These tranquillising assurances were repeated
after the Anglo-German agreement was concluded on the 16th October,
1900.
One of the lessons which this seemingly wavering policy teaches--the
only lesson which concerns diplomacy at present--is that whatever
else might change, the fundamental policy of Russia was immutable.
So powerful was the Tsarist system and so well equipped for the
gratification of its rapacious instincts that any individual, however
insignificant or contemptible, was able, with its alliance, to
nullify the most strenuous exertions of a genial statesman to
transform it congruously with the requirements of the new age. Now
of all foreign secretaries, Muravieff was unquestionably the most
uneducated and shallow-brained. He could not write half a dozen
sentences, French or Russian, without making egregious grammatical or
orthographical mistakes. He could not carry on conversation for ten
minutes without displaying the pettiness of his mind and the
coarseness of his wit. About international relations his ideas were
misty and incoherent. Yet this cross between a ninny and a buffoon
frustrated Witte's well-laid scheme of Far Eastern policy with the
help of Kuropatkin, the Minister for War. "In some ways," Witte told
me, "Muravieff reminded one of the German Chancellor Von Bülow, but I
need hardly add that cultural requirements did not constitute one of
them. Indeed, it was well nigh impossible to talk with him on any
serious topic. Not only did he lack breadth of view, but he lacked
cultural varnish, working {269} capacity, industry, knowledge of
languages, everything. His one qualification for the office was his
apprenticeship at Copenhagen, but that was considered adequate, and
he was set over Russia. It was he who marred my Far Eastern policy;
not he alone, of course, but in league with others.
"My intention was to take the railway through Manchuria to
Vladivostok, and my objects were primarily economic, not political.
That the latter would eventually follow from the former is obvious,
but I set my face against annexations, wars, and other acts
calculated to culminate in these. I give little for mere shadows. I
contrived to carry the Emperor with me until Muravieff arrived on the
scene and then a new constellation appeared with him. They induced
the Tsar to take the railway south to Port Arthur and thus to make
the trans-Siberian a manifest instrument of invasion. You know the
sequel. Remember that within a twelvemonth of this impolitic
decision Russian troops were being landed at Port Arthur,[10] and
Muravieff issued his famous communication to the powers respecting
the needs and the means of securing general peace and disarmament. I
need not tell you that neither that document nor the idea it embodies
was Muravieff's, still less, alas! had the alleged aim anything to do
with the real purpose of the invitation thus solemnly sent out to the
nations of the earth."
_The Hague Conference Mystification_
It is always instructive and sometimes unedifying to trace momentous
and lasting reforms to their veritable sources. The action and its
sequel linked by the causal nexus sometimes turn out to be two
ethical contraries. The revelation may be calculated to provide
pabulum for the cynic and inspire the unbiassed with a feeling akin
to contempt for the past. To strip such a seemingly noble act as the
convocation of the world's first peace parliament of those
associations of moral and humanitarian sentiments which had raised it
to high rank among the achievements of the nineteenth century, {270}
savours of wanton iconoclasm. But history has to do with facts, not
romance, and, where the former are well established, cannot choose
but assign to them their proper place among the factors of progress.
Concerning the origin of the first Hague Conference, the period of
public deception has lasted longer than one would have thought
possible, considering that several years ago[11] I did my best to
disabuse the world, to reveal the prosaic motive underlying it, and
to set forth the order of events as they occurred. But mankind
prefers romance to reality, poetry to history. _Mundus vult decipi;
decipiatur_. Enthusiastic publicists in London, Paris, and Vienna
lavished tributes of unmeasured praise upon the Russian Tsar and
commemorated gratefully, in passing, one or other of his supposed
inspirers, and in particular my old friend Jean Bloch and the Empress
Alexandra Feodorovna. But all agreed that whoever may have created
and diffused the subtle atmosphere of enthusiasm for lofty and
generous aims which must have pervaded the imperial court of
Peterhof, it was the noble-minded sovereign who lived and worked in
its centre, that focussed the forces of righteousness in the world,
and gave them their full momentum.
From this pleasing picture the reality was, alas, widely different.
It reminds me of the dastardly bomb-thrower who when carrying an
infernal machine to blow up a palace dropped it on the doorstep, was
knocked senseless by the explosion, was then rescued, taken care of,
healed, and signally rewarded because it was charitably assumed that
he was a passer-by who having noticed the explosive laid down or seen
it smoking had risked his life in an heroic attempt to throw it into
the street. What happened at the court of Nicholas II. that
Eastertide of 1898 was briefly this:
At the beginning of the year, the Tsar, despite the protests of his
Finance Minister, Witte, had, as we saw, despatched a squadron to
Port Arthur under the pretext that China must be protected against
her enemies. In truth, China's spokesmen were actually and vainly
beseeching the {271} Petersburg Foreign Office to display its
friendship in some less aggressive shape. Russian marines were
landed in Port Arthur, the anger of the Japanese was raised to
boiling point, and the civilised world caught a glimpse of the
hypocrisy and perfidy of the Tsardom. Storm clouds hung black and
dense on the horizon. China was then the "sick man" whose demise,
supposed to be impending, aroused the keenest interest and brought
out the least creditable traits of national character. True, the
British House of Commons had passed a resolution affirming that the
independence of China was a postulate of vital moment to British
commerce, but the one element that could have lent weight to such a
declaration--readiness to fight for the principle involved--being
absent, continental politicians merely shrugged their shoulders and
passed on. The Tsardom had frightened and wheedled and bribed China
into granting her a lease of Port Arthur--the ice-free port on the
Pacific--France had followed suit and extorted concessions in Yunnan
and along the Yangtse. Even Italy was itching for a coaling station,
a railway compact, or some other trophy to show that she too was a
factor in the larger concerns of the globe. Spain and the United
States were waging a newspaper war against each other, and their
respective governments were at their wits' end to hold popular
passions in check. In South Africa the air was thick with sinister
omens and Kruger's policy, spontaneous or constrained, was
embittering the foreigners and disquieting the government of Great
Britain. The French nation was riven in twain by the historic
Dreyfus trial which had divided the people into clericals and
atheists, nationalists and republicans, Dreyfusards and
anti-Dreyfusards.
The calmest, most active, and most thriving populations were those of
the Central Empires. But their governments were industriously
preparing for the "Day" when it would rain metal. Germany, ever
ahead of the world in things military--and not only in these--had
successfully completed the laborious and costly process of
manufacturing new and improved artillery and supplying it to the
army. This was a great stride forward in the race of armaments, and
it was {272} also a warning to all the other competitors in the game
of war preparations. Russia and Austria, true to their reputations
and their past, were behindhand. Neither empire had made any
improvement in field or heavy guns. They were both alive to the
necessity of imitating the Germans, but unlike the frog in the fable,
that sought to blow itself out to the size of the bull and burst in
the exertion, they hesitated and would fain have postponed the
sacrifices involved.
One day, Count Muravieff, the most empty-headed of the Tsar's
advisers, who had succeeded M. Shishkin at the Russian Foreign
Office, called on Witte who, like a masculine Fate, was spinning the
threads of Russia's existence in his finance department. They were a
curious pair, men of two distinct types, one might almost say of two
different species, the one form without substance, the other
amorphous reality. Witte had conceived an intense feeling, more akin
to contempt than to hatred, for the nonentity who had upset his Far
Eastern plans and gone far to mar his general policy without
comprehending either. Muravieff produced a document, waved it
theatrically before his colleague, said that it had been drawn up by
the War Minister, Kuropatkin, read with close attention by the
Emperor, and sent on for the Finance Minister to peruse and report on.
"I suppose it is a demand for more money for war materials?"
Muravieff smiled but said nothing. "Unless it is for something
necessary I really cannot and will not give another rouble."
Muravieff muttered something about the necessity of breaking the eggs
if you wish to make an omelette. Witte took the paper. He had
guessed aright: it was a roundabout demand for a very large sum of
money. The form in which it was put seemed to him at first but the
sugar-coating of the pill. Witte frowned as he read the report:
France and Germany, Kuropatkin wrote, having stolen a march on the
other powers by providing their armies with the improved guns,
Austria and Russia could not and would not lag behind. But the cost
was deterrent, and was all the more to be dreaded that other and
heavier expenses would have to be incurred very shortly, almost {273}
simultaneously. Neither Russia nor Austria is wealthy. The
populations of both empires are heavily enough taxed already. They
and their respective governments would therefore, no doubt, welcome
any arrangement in virtue of which they could escape the taxation
which the re-arming of the national forces would entail. But how
could one devise an effective plan? Could not one hit upon some
simple compromise that would commend itself to both governments all
the more readily that the two empires belong so to say to opposite
camps? Whether you multiply or divide both the divisor and the
dividend by the same number, the quotient undergoes no change. Apply
that proposition to the case in point. Whether Russia and Austria go
to the expense of supplying their armies with the improved guns or
leave their artillery as it is, the final result, if the two groups
of powers went to war, would be the same. Why then should they not
agree between themselves to keep the money in their respective
treasuries? If we in Russia plunge into the expense, the Austrians
will vie with us and neither they nor we shall have scored an
advantage over the other, yet we shall both be much the poorer. The
Minister of Finance, who is the money-provider of the Empire and has
an interest in keeping down its expenditure, may be able to utilise
this suggestion.
That was the gist of Kuropatkin's message to the Emperor.
Witte replied with some warmth that the suggestion was not practical
and ought not to have been made. "Just think it out," he said. "As
an abstract proposition, Austria and Russia can well be imagined
falling in with General Kuropatkin's expedient. But put the
invitation in a concrete shape to the official representatives of the
Austrian government and try to picture to yourself what would follow.
Suspicion would at once be aroused as to the real motive of the
device. Do you fancy they would accept our explanation? Nowise.
They would infer either that our impecuniosity bordered on
insolvency, and therefore that they could not do better than
intensify it by obliging us to invest in the improved artillery, or
else they would conjecture that we {274} were preparing to embark on
some unavowed and unavowable enterprise directed against them, for
which funds were needed, and that one of our methods of raising them
was by economising on the new ordnance. In neither case would they
close with our offer, and in either we should have injured our credit
abroad. These are some of the reasons why I cannot entertain General
Kuropatkin's project favourably. I need hardly add that if the
defences of the Empire really call for the outlay in question, the
War Minister has only to say so and I, as Finance Minister, will find
the money and eschew all dangerous expedients for getting it."
Witte while thus talking turned the subject over in his mind and
contemplated it from various angles of vision, giving utterance to
his thoughts as they arose. He was anxious to save as much of the
public money as he could, but it was impossible to allow his
government to approach the statesmen of the Ballplatz with a
suggestion as puerile as that framed by Kuropatkin. That was
self-evident. How then could the Tsar's wish to act upon that
suggestion and his own desire to economise be realised? That was the
problem, and it must be solved on the lines--considerably widened if
needs were, but not otherwise changed--of the War Minister's scheme.
"In other words," Witte explained to me, "I knew that what was wanted
was some ruse by means of which we could get Austria to stay her hand
and discuss disarmament in lieu of investing in the improved gun.
Within these limits then I had to work. I walked up and down the
room for some time in silence, pondering the different aspects of the
matter and giving utterance to my half-formed thoughts as they
emerged into the realm of consciousness. They centred naturally and
necessarily around my old pet idea of a league of pacific nations
vying with each other in trade, industry, science, arts, inventions,
and I said to myself that even if the opportunity had not yet come to
draw nearer to that, there would be no harm in setting the powers
talking about it. And that started me."
{275}
Witte's ideal, I may say in passing, was not identical with the
League of Nations of the latter-day socialists, nor was his way of
achieving it their way. But a never-fading cloud-picture in that
mechanico-mystical style, rudimentary and defective if you will, not
comprehensive enough for an ideal, nor thorough enough for a viable
organism, and with all the tangled roots of the militarist order of
things about it, but still a generous dream capable of drawing him
onward and upward to a better political or social ordering than the
one over which he presided, floated constantly in his mind. I cannot
assert that it had much influence over his policy, indeed I know that
it had not. He was much too shrewd a statesman, too clever a judge
of human character, to be hastily sanguine about the coming of the
League of Nations. He was not sufficiently naïve to imagine that in
the minds even of the foremost peoples of the earth consciousness of
their common paramount interest in a stable peace and a compact
system of international law was sufficiently sharp to nerve them to
the sacrifices involved in political consolidation and social
advance. Moreover, being conversant with the potent elements of
obstruction in his own country and in Germany, he was patient and not
over-hopeful.
Witte grudged every rouble he had to spend on armaments.[12] He
loathed the very name of war and was never weary of denouncing it.
"It is my conviction," he wrote in my wife's album, "that the burden
of armaments without limitations may become more irksome than war
itself." To assert that the groundwork of his policy was the
avoidance of war does not commit me to approval of his political
aims, or of the means by which he would fain have accomplished them.
His most vigorous exertions were made to safeguard peace, and the war
that first marked his failure also ruined his career and undid his
whole life-work.
Pursuing the train of reflections started by Kuropatkin's memorandum,
the Finance Minister reflected that if in lieu of saving a few
million pounds on their artillery for the {276} benefit of two needy
peoples it were possible, as it would be one day, to economise the
countless sums of money that were being annually squandered on
armaments generally, then the game would indeed be worth the candle.
But all that could be done in his lifetime would be to prepare men's
minds for the general reception of these notions, and in particular
for the axiom that the one deadly enemy to cultural advance is
militarism. Witte did not deny the fine side of patriotism, nor
would he have done aught to weaken the sentiment, neither would he
leave his own country inadequately prepared for the war which he knew
was coming. "But I often think," he said, turning to Muravieff,
"that the unexampled prosperity of the United States of America is a
direct effect of its immunity from militarism. Suppose each of the
States there were independent as are those of Europe, would the
revenue of North America exceed its expenditure as it does to-day?
Would trade and industry flourish there as they now do? On the other
hand, suppose Europe could contrive to disband the bulk of her land
forces, do with a mere nominal army, and confine her defences to
warships, would she not thrive in an unprecedented way and guide the
best part of the globe? Can that ever be accomplished? Who knows?"
The conversation ended thus: "Does his Majesty wish the money for the
new weapon to be provided, or is it on the War Minister's plan that
he lays the chief stress?" "He desires that General Kuropatkin's
scheme should be discussed in council. It has taken his fancy. And
he asked me to get your general impression in advance. I am sure he
means to carry out the idea in some shape, and he hopes you will
design a practical one." "Well, in that case," Witte remarked with a
smile, "say that I approve the principle underlying it, but I would
apply it not to Austria and Russia only, but to all the nations of
the globe. In this way we should avoid invidious distinctions and
leave no ground for misgivings. A proposal of this kind might be
addressed to all nations, great and small; it would be welcomed by
many. Whether the few would put off ordering the new {277} artillery
is another matter. But if that be the theme to which I am to compose
variations, you have them now. There can be none other."
Muravieff then left, and Witte said no more about the matter until he
attended the special council at which Count Lamsdorff as Assistant
Minister of Foreign Affairs appeared beside Count Muravieff. As soon
as General Kuropatkin had read and explained his project, Witte
criticised it sharply. A lively debate ensued in the course of which
the two Ministers of Foreign Affairs endorsed Witte's view
unreservedly, whereupon the scheme was negatived and dropped.
Then, to the amazement of those present, Muravieff calmly took out a
sheet of paper and read the rough draft of a circular to the powers
on the subject of the limitation of armaments. It was Witte's
proposal put in diplomatic phraseology by the Foreign Office. It was
approved unanimously by all present. Witte recognised the fruit of
his suggestion, and smiled at the humanitarian wrappings which had
thus been vouchsafed to Kuropatkin's simple ideas, for he knew that
the whole scheme was a piece of hypocrisy and guile. That rough
draft--in its finished form the work of Lamsdorff--was ratified by
the Tsar and subsequently[13] handed to all the foreign diplomatic
representatives accredited to the court of St. Petersburg. Soon
afterwards Witte, when making his usual weekly report to the Emperor,
behaving like one of the sceptical Roman augurs, paid him a handsome
tribute for the warmth with which he had taken up the great
humanitarian idea. And Nicholas II. accepted the tribute as well
deserved. In this first circular the object of the conference was
described as "a possible reduction of the excessive armaments which
weigh upon all nations." And the way to effect it was "by putting a
limit to the progressive development of the present armaments." But
in view of the recent improvements in artillery, of the uncertain
situation, and of disturbing elements which continued to agitate the
political spheres,[14] the Russian government {278} took no further
steps for a while. People hoped or feared that the matter would not
be proceeded with further. But after some months' reflection and
groping, the programme was modified, and instead of calling for a
reduction of armaments, all that was now asked for was the
maintenance of the budgetary sums allotted for them at a level which
for a certain term of years must not exceed that of the year 1898-9.
There would in all probability have been no Hague Conference if
General Kuropatkin had asked in the ordinary way for the necessary
credit to enable him to follow the example of his German colleague
and supply the Russian army with the new gun. It is equally probable
that if Witte had simply accepted or rejected the War Minister's
suggestion of a "deal" with Austria, the peace conference would not
have been convoked or thought of. With a touch of that irony which
generally accompanied his frank talks about the Tsar with an intimate
friend like myself, Witte, who was sentimental rather than cynical,
remarked that the Tsar's peace proposal was one of the greatest
mystifications known to history, and at the same time a beneficent
stimulus. However high we may rate the contributory causes of the
peace movement inaugurated by Nicholas II., history will retain the
decisive fact that the motive of its prime author was to hoodwink the
Austrian government and to enable the Tsar's War Minister to steal a
march on his country's future enemies.
This is not the place to pass in review the proceedings at the first
Hague Conference, the inner history of which I outlined at the time.
It rendered real statesmen, of whom there were two still living, one
undeniable service: it enabled them to see that the abyss between the
two groups of people into which the civilised world is divided was
unmeasured--perhaps immeasurable.
[1] A Russianised Armenian, shallow, snobbish, and time-serving. He
was my chief when I occupied the Chair of Comparative Philology at
the University of Kharkoff, but I had known him through Kossowicz and
Philippoff many years before, when he occupied the post of Director
of the Imperial Library.
[2] Cf., for instance, the article entitled "The Obstacles to an
Anglo-Russian Convention," _Contemporary Review_, June and July, 1904.
[3] _Contemporary Review_, July, 1904, p. 41.
[4] _Contemporary Review_, July, 1904, p. 45.
[5] The Chinese equivalent of our Foreign Office.
[6] On 21st April, 1896 (old style).
[7] It ought to be superfluous to state that the italics are mine.
[8] This happened in Moscow.
[9] _Contemporary Review_, July, 1904, p. 59.
[10] In the year 1897.
[11] In the year 1907.
[12] So did his successor in the Finance Ministry, Kokofftseff.
[13] On the 24th August, 1898.
[14] Cf. Count Muravieff's communication to the ambassador of the
French Republic (11th January, 1899).
{279}