A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (52 page)

Katsura also brought a relative stability to politics, surviving in office for four and a half years – the longest of any Meiji prime minister. One reason for this was that another external event over-rode domestic issues – the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5.

Trouble had been brewing between Japan and Russia ever since the Tripartite Intervention of 1895. Russia had continued its expansionist policies in northeast Asia, symbolised by extensive rail tracks. In 1900 the anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion broke out in north China, and was quelled by the combined troops of eight nations including Japan and Russia. However, Russia refused to withdraw its troops after the rebellion, to the consternation of most of the other powers and Japan in particular.

The pragmatist It
wanted Japan to come to a ‘trade-off’ arrangement with Russia: Japan would recognise Russian interests in Manchuria in return for Russia recognising Japanese interests in Korea. However, Russia opposed this. So did Yamagata and Katsura, who were convinced
that war with Russia was inevitable. They preferred to secure the support of Britain. This was achieved in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of January 1902. It was an epoch-making alliance, the first ever military pact concluded on equal terms between a western and non-western nation.

The alliance did not recognise Japan’s control of Korea, though it did recognise its ‘special interests’ in that country. Nor did it mean that Britain would fight alongside Japan if and when it went to war with Russia. But it did give Japan the confidence that other western powers would be unlikely to act against it in such a war.

The resolution to go to war was made in January 1904. Japan’s military might was now considerable, with more than half its national budget since 1897 having been allotted to military expenditure. Nonetheless there were many in Japan – including in the military – who were still uncertain as to the outcome of hostilities with a major power like Russia. Not a few hoped that success in initial engagements would bring an intervention in Japan’s favour from the other powers.
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Japan broke off diplomatic relations with Russia on 6 February 1904, attacked Russian ships in Port Arthur on 8 February, and then declared war on 10 February. Over the next month Japanese troops landed in Korea, advancing north and crossing the Yalu River into Manchuria in May. At the same time, sea-borne forces landed on the Liaotung Peninsula and took Nanshan and Dairen. In August siege was laid on Port Arthur, though this did not fall till January 1905. In March 1905, after heavy fighting that saw around 70,000 Japanese casualties and a similar number of Russian casualties, Japanese troops took Mukden, the Manchurian capital, though it was not a decisive victory.

Both sides were now finding it hard to carry on. Russia was particularly disadvantaged by a revolution at home,
⁶⁶
and had to summon its Baltic Fleet. The British denied the fleet access to the Suez Canal, meaning it had to make a very long detour. In late May, when the fleet attempted to make the final leg of its marathon journey by a dash into Vladivostok, it was intercepted and destroyed in the Straits of Tsushima by the Japanese Combined Fleet, under the command of Admiral T
g
Heihachir
(1838–1934). This decisive victory put Japan in a position of strength when it secretly asked President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States to mediate.
⁶⁷

Roosevelt did mediate, successfully. It was an effective victory for Japan. The ensuing Portsmouth Treaty of September 1905 restored China’s sovereignty in Manchuria (though in practice this was to be largely nominal), recognised Japan’s interests in Korea, and gave Japan the Russian lease on the Liaotung Peninsula and much of the Russian-built South Manchurian Railway. Japan had incurred huge expenses in the war, having to borrow heavily from Britain and the United States. It was therefore anxious to obtain an indemnity from Russia. However, to the indignation of the Japanese public, this was not obtained. Instead Japan received the southern half of the island of Sakhalin (Karafuto) to the north of Hokkaid
.

The war had caused Japan much suffering in human as well as financial terms, but it had earned the nation great respect internationally. Russia was by no means the strongest of the western powers, but it was the largest, and Japan’s victory over it was a rare victory in modern times over a western nation by a non-western nation.
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Japan had now achieved its aim of matching and being taken seriously by the western powers. Far from being faced with the threat of colonisation by imperialist powers, as it had feared a few decades earlier, it was now poised to take its place amongst them. It already had Taiwan, and now it had obtained territory in Manchuria, part of Sakhalin, and in effect a free hand in Korea. Western outposts such as New Zealand were now even starting to fear colonisation by the Japanese. Japan had learned well how to play the game of becoming a world power – so far.

Japan lost no time in establishing its control over Korea. In November 1905 the Korean government was ‘persuaded’ to become a Japanese protectorate. The fact that Japanese soldiers were occupying the royal palace probably helped it make the decision. It
Hirobumi himself became resident-general. Korean officials were replaced by Japanese nationals. The Korean army was disbanded, enforcing the need for Japanese ‘protection’. Korean protests to the western world were ignored. So too were the 1,450 armed suppressions of Korean riots by Japanese troops between 1908 and 1910.
⁶⁹
The Koreans did manage to assassinate It
in 1909, but in August 1910 Japan went the next step and annexed the nation with no international opposition.

Back in Japan, the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War was similar in some ways to that of the Sino-Japanese War. The victory itself was glorious, but the government was severely criticised for the humiliation of not gaining an indemnity from Russia. There were demonstrations, with up to a thousand casualties in T
ky
alone, and martial law had to be declared.
⁷⁰
Katsura was forced to resign in January 1906.