The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (81 page)

·37·
End-game

The war in the East, meanwhile, had been going badly for the Russians. When, seven months earlier, the Japanese launched their surprise attack on Port Arthur, few people believed that they stood a chance against the awesome might of Tsar Nicholas. In addition to his powerful Pacific fleet, he had a million-strong regular army, supported by twice that number of reservists, to call on, while Japan had only 270,000 regulars and 530,000 reservists. The Russians were quite confident, therefore, that they could swiftly crush this upstart Asiatic nation of ‘yellow apes’, as they called the Japanese, which had dared to challenge them. After all, they had immense experience of warfare in Asia, and no one there had managed to withstand their onslaught.

In their initial attack on the great Russian naval base of Port Arthur, the Japanese had clearly hoped to destroy their fleet, as they were to do with the American Pacific fleet thirty-seven years later at Pearl Harbor. In the event, their ten destroyers only managed to damage three battleships, albeit one seriously, as they lay at anchor in the roads. In a second attack a few hours later another battleship and three cruisers were damaged, while off the Korean coast a fourth cruiser and a gunboat were sunk. Despite heavy fire from the Russian shore batteries, the Japanese warships, led by the brilliant Admiral Togo, got off singularly lightly. But even if they had failed to sink the Russian Pacific fleet, they had gravely undermined its morale. The following day both governments declared war on one another. The conflict was to last eighteen months, and lead indirectly to the fall, thirteen years later, of the Russian monarchy.

From then on, little seemed to go right for the Russians. Very early on they lost both their commander-in-chief and their flagship when the latter struck a mine which the Japanese had laid in the approaches to Port Arthur. Soon the Russians found themselves virtually imprisoned in the heavily defended naval base, as the Japanese, through superior tactics and leadership, made themselves masters of the sea. On land, too, the Japanese rapidly began to gain the upper hand, inflicting a series of defeats on the Russians, albeit often at great cost to themselves in lives. In May Russian troops were defeated on the Yalu river, and the following month the Japanese occupied the commercial port of Dalny, only twenty miles from Port Arthur. At St Petersburg, meanwhile, it had been decided to send the Russian Baltic fleet half-way round the world to the Far East in a desperate attempt to relieve beleaguered Port Arthur.

It was during this epic voyage that the Russian warships became involved in a bizarre international incident which raised Russophobia in Britain to fever pitch and very nearly led to war between the two powers. As a result of faulty intelligence, nervousness and inexperience, Russian sailors opened fire in fog in the North Sea on a fleet of Hull trawlers, believing them, incredibly, to be Japanese torpedo boats. One was sunk, five others were hit, and there were a number of casualties. In the panic of the moment, the Russian warships even fired on one another. Then, convinced that they had successfully fought off a Japanese attack, they continued on their way. While London remonstrated angrily with St Petersburg over what became known as the Dogger Bank incident, four British cruisers shadowed the Russian fleet across the Bay of Biscay. Meanwhile a large British naval force was hastily got ready for action. There were anti-Russian demonstrations in Trafalgar Square and outside Downing Street, while Count Benckendorff was booed as he left his embassy. In the end an abject apology by Tsar Nicholas, and promises of generous compensation, cooled British tempers, and war was averted. It was an inauspicious start, however, to this great Russian relief expedition designed to save Port Arthur,

By now the savage land battle for the naval base had begun. The first Japanese attack was driven back with heavy loss. Two more followed, which were also repulsed. But gradually the Japanese troops closed in on the Russian positions, using sappers to tunnel beneath the defences, and observers in balloons to spot the garrison’s weaknesses. Moreover, the capture of a hill overlooking Port Arthur enabled the Japanese to direct a murderous artillery barrage against the defenders below. With nearly half the garrison either dead or wounded, and with little or no hope of relief reaching them in time, morale among the Russian rank and file had reached rock bottom. Although many of the officers still wanted to fight to the bitter end, the Governor, fearing a mutiny among the troops, decided to discuss surrender terms with the Japanese commander. On January 2, 1905, after a siege lasting 154 days, Port Arthur capitulated. Before doing so, the Governor sent a last message to Tsar Nicholas. ‘Great Sovereign, Forgive!’ it declared. ‘We have done all that was humanly possible. Judge us, but be merciful.’

The loss of the great eastern stronghold to the ‘yellow apes’ was an appalling blow to Russian prestige throughout the world, but particularly in Asia. However, it was merely the start of St Petersburg’s humiliation at the hands of the Japanese. On February 18 the biggest and bloodiest battle of the war began. The prize was the heavily defended railway centre of Mukden, today call Shenyang, which lay 250 miles north of Port Arthur. Russian military experts considered its defences virtually impenetrable. However, while the number of troops engaged on either side was roughly equal, around 300,000, the Japanese enjoyed a number of advantages. For a start, their troops had just won a resounding victory. Despite very heavy casualties, they were utterly determined to defeat the Russians, against whom they displayed a fanatical courage in close quarters combat with bayonet and grenade. No one questioned the bravery of the Russian troops, despite their recent defeat, but what counted in the end was the superiority of the Japanese commanders. In less than a month, after one of the longest and most savage battles of modern times, Mukden fell to the Japanese, although most of the Russian garrison managed to escape northwards. However, they left behind them 27,000 dead in what has been described as the most disastrous battle in Russian history. Yet their humiliation was still not over, though this time it was to be the turn of the navy.

News of the fall of Port Arthur and of Mukden reached the Russian Baltic fleet as it halted at Madagascar on its long voyage eastwards. The surrender of the former removed the main purpose of the expedition. Nonetheless it was decided to allow it to proceed, with the aim of winning back mastery of the seas from the Japanese, thereby preventing them from reinforcing or supplying their forces on the mainland. Shadowed from now on by Japanese agents, the armada finally entered the war zone in the middle of May. There Admiral Togo lay in wait for the weary Russians. On the morning of May 26, the two fleets met in the Tsushima Straits, which divide Japan from Korea. The outcome was catastrophic for the Russians. In the space of a few hours they suffered one of the worst defeats in naval history, losing eight battleships, four cruisers, five minelayers and three transports. Four more battleships were forced to surrender, while three cruisers which sought sanctuary in neutral ports were interned together with their crews. Nearly 5,000 Russian sailors perished. The Japanese lost just 3 torpedo boats and 110 lives. It was an astounding victory. St Petersburg’s humiliation was complete, and Tsar Nicholas’s dreams of building a great new empire in the East had been destroyed for ever.

To all intents and purposes, the war was over, although Russia, with its vast reserves of troops, was far from defeated. But the will to continue with this highly unpopular war was no longer there. Economic hardship, the succession of disasters on the battlefield and at sea, and general disillusionment with Tsar Nicholas’s autocratic rule had given birth to widespread political and social unrest at home. The government therefore needed all the troops it possessed to put down the rising tide of revolution which threatened the very throne. St Petersburg was not alone in wishing to end hostilities in the Far East. Despite their spectacular victories, the Japanese knew that they could not win a long drawn-out war against the Russian colossus, with its inexhaustible manpower. Already the war was imposing a critical strain on their resources which could not be sustained indefinitely.

Both governments were therefore grateful when the United States offered to act as mediator between them. As a result, on September 5, 1905, a peace treaty was signed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, between the warring powers. It effectively brought to an end Tsarist Russia’s forward policy in Asia. Under its terms both countries agreed to evacuate Manchuria, which was restored to Chinese rule. Port Arthur and its immediate hinterland, including control of the Russian-built railway, was transferred to Japan. Korea was declared to be independent, albeit within Japan’s sphere of influence. For their part, the Japanese were persuaded to drop their earlier demands for huge indemnities, while, apart from the southern half of Sakhalin Island which went to Japan, the Russians were not required to surrender any of their sovereign territory. Nevertheless St Petersburg had lost virtually everything it had gained in the region during ten years of vigorous military and diplomatic endeavour. The war, moreover, had exploded forever the myth of the white man’s superiority over Asiatic peoples.

But if the Japanese had blocked Russia’s last forward move in Asia, the Tibetans had signally failed to halt Britain in hers. In the summer of 1904, it will be recalled, Colonel Francis Younghusband had ridden unopposed into Lhasa at the head of a small army. However, if he and Lord Curzon, the Viceroy, had expected to find damning evidence of Russian intrigue there they were to be disappointed. Not only were there no arsenals of Russian weapons, no political advisers, no drill sergeants, but there was also no sign of any treaty of friendship between Tsar Nicholas and the Dalai Lama. Nonetheless, it does appear from other evidence that some sort of a promise may have been made by Nicholas, possibly through Dorjief, to the Dalai Lama whereby he would come to his assistance if the British ever invaded Tibet. This was claimed at the time by a senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official in conversation with the British ambassador to Peking, and later repeated in the memoirs, published after the Revolution, of a former Tsarist diplomat. If Nicholas did, in fact, give such an undertaking, it was very likely in the belief that Britain would never invade Tibet, and that therefore he would not be called upon to honour it.

Of more immediate concern to Younghusband was the question of what to do next. He had been sent all this way not merely to look for evidence of Russian skulduggery, but also to extract political and commercial concessions from the Tibetans. And here arose an unexpected problem. As everyone knew, only the Dalai Lama could negotiate on behalf of his country, and he was nowhere to be found. He had fled the Potala Palace, from where he ruled Tibet, at the approach of the British, and was rumoured at that moment to be on his way to Mongolia. Younghusband considered giving chase, but no Tibetan could be found who was willing to disclose the God-king’s escape route. The situation was eventually saved, somewhat unexpectedly, by the Chinese, who were still recognised by Britain as the sovereign power in Tibet (albeit in little more than name). Peking, like St Petersburg, had protested strongly when the British announced their intention of entering Tibet. However, having no means of driving the British out themselves, they were anxious to give them no excuse for staying on. They therefore formally deposed the Dalai Lama for deserting his post during his people’s hour of need, and appointed the benign and elderly Regent as the country’s ruler. The negotiations for Britain’s withdrawal from Tibet were thus able to proceed.

I have already described what followed in
Trespassers on the Roof of the World,
an account of the forcible opening up of Tibet, and will not therefore dwell on it here. Sufficient to say, the British mission left for home on September 23, having gained its objectives, or at least as these were perceived by Younghusband. However, partly due to Russia’s defeat in the Far East, which had revealed it to have feet of clay, the mood at home had begun to change during Younghusband’s absence. The old fear of Russia was at last waning in the face of a new spectre – that of an aggressively expansionist Germany. Indeed, as Germany’s ambitions in Asia began to assume threatening aspects, Russia was already being seen by some as a potential ally against this new power. What had to be avoided at all costs was anything which might drive St Petersburg into the arms of the Germans. Consequently, for fear of alarming Russia, most of the gains which Younghusband had painfully wrung from the Tibetans – including the exclusive right of access to Lhasa by a British official – were considerably watered down. Younghusband, furthermore, was publicly censured for exceeding his instructions. Quite what the Tibetans made of this remarkable climb-down is not recorded.

Then, in December 1905, the Liberals drove the Tories from power. The new Cabinet, headed by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, was genuinely determined to reach a permanent accommodation with the Russians. Shortly after coming to office, the new Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, began to put out feelers towards St Petersburg on the question of the two powers’ long-standing differences in Asia. Decades of mutual suspicion had to be overcome. The British government was under powerful pressure from the hawks, and from the authorities in India, to treat any Russian proposals with the utmost suspicion, while St Petersburg was under similar pressure from its Anglophobes, especially the military. Indeed, following the débâcle in the Far East, there had been wild talk in some Russian circles of invading India to try to expunge the shame of defeat, for many were convinced that the British had incited the Japanese to attack them. One major obstacle so far as British public opinion was concerned was the autocratic nature of Nicholas’s rule. Attitudes softened somewhat when, following the short-lived 1905 Revolution, he introduced Russia’s first parliament, the Duma, but hardened again when he dissolved it shortly afterwards. Despite this, though, both governments were eager to settle once and for all the Asian question, which over the years had absorbed so much of their energy and resources.