Chapter II: 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
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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.