Great Negotiations

by Fredrik Stanton

  At the Wentworth, Witte received unwelcome news. A telegram from Foreign Minister Vladimir Lamsdorff informed him of a State Council meeting in St. Petersburg presided over by the tsar at which it was decided unanimously to reject the Japanese terms. Instructions for ending the negotiation were to be transmitted the following day. Dumbfounded, Witte played for time.

  Roosevelt worked to get Japan to back off its indemnity demand and told Kaneko, “I do not think her case for indemnity a good one. She holds no Russian territory except Sakhalin and that she wants to keep.” Russia would not agree to pay and “the sentiment of the civilized world . . . [would] back her in refusing to pay.”45 If war resumed it would cost Japan millions more, spill an immense amount of blood, occupy Siberia, which it had no interest in, and still not gain any payment from Russia. “Every interest of civilization and humanity forbids the continuance of this war merely for a large indemnity,”46 he wrote. The president also instructed Ambassador Meyer to call on the tsar, but the earliest Meyer could arrange an audience was August 23. “Dealing with Senators,” President Roosevelt wrote a friend on August 21, “is at times excellent training for the temper; but upon my word, dealing with these peace envoys has been an even tougher job. To be polite and sympathetic and patient in explaining for the hundredth time something perfectly obvious, when what I really want to do is to give utterance to whoops of rage and jump up and knock their heads together—well all I can hope is that the self-repression will be ultimately helpful for my character.”47

  Witte received his final instructions from Lamsdorff. Without a substantive change in the Japanese position, he was to break off the negotiation. Witte stalled, asking to wait until the tsar had a chance to receive Roosevelt’s overture.

  On Wednesday, August 23, the parties, deadlocked, adjourned for three days to consult with their governments and await the outcome of Meyer’s meeting with the tsar. Roosevelt appealed again to Kaneko for the Japanese to moderate their demands. Another year of war, he emphasized, would simply “eat up more money than she could at the end get back from Russia.”48 Roosevelt continued “Ethically it seems to me that Japan owes a duty to the world at this crisis. The civilized world looks to her to make peace; the nations believe in her; let her show her leadership in matters ethical no less than matters military. The appeal is made to her in the name of all that is lofty and noble; and to this appeal I hope she will not be deaf.”49

  Meyer met the tsar at the imperial palace in St. Petersburg at four in the afternoon on August 23 to present Roosevelt’s plan. The American ambassador again began by reading aloud a letter from Roosevelt. “I find to my surprise and pleasure that the Japanese are willing to restore the northern half of Sakhalin to Russia, Russia of course in such case to pay a substantial sum for this surrender of territory by the Japanese and for the return of Russian prisoners,” the president wrote, before warning, “If peace is not made now and war is continued, it may be that, though the financial strain upon Japan would be severe, yet in the end Russia would be shorn of those east Siberian provinces which have been won by her by the heroism of her sons during the last three centuries.” The president stressed the generosity of the Japanese offer given the circumstances: “As Sakhalin is an island it is, humbly speaking, impossible that the Russians should reconquer it in view of the disaster to their Navy; and to keep the northern half of it is a guarantee for the security of Vladivostok and eastern Siberia to Russia. It seems to me that every consideration of national self-interest, of military expediency and of broad humanity makes it eminently wise and right for Russia to conclude peace substantially along these lines, and it is my hope and prayer that Your Majesty may take this view.”50

  The audience lasted almost three hours. When Meyer had finished, the tsar told him he would sooner appeal to all the Russian people and march to Manchuria himself at the head of the Russian army than agree to Roosevelt’s plan, but he offered to pay “a liberal and generous amount”51 to reimburse Japan for the care and maintenance of Russian prisoners and entertained letting Japan keep “that portion of the island she had once had clear title to.”52

  Still, the failure of Roosevelt’s compromise revealed a crack in the Russian position. On August 24 the Russian foreign minister cabled Witte that Russia was willing to accept a division of Sakhalin provided it did not have to pay for the return of the northern half. This, Lamsdorff said, would be Russia’s final proposal. Roosevelt also pressed Komura through Baron Kaneko to cut in half their money demand for northern Sakhalin.

  The pressure began to take its toll among the delegates. “Our nerves are strained, each of us is awaiting the issue of the diplomatic struggle, and watching the others,” wrote one of the Russians. “On the whole, we are all sick of Portsmouth, or rather of the Wentworth hotel, with its monotony and isolation from the rest of the world.”53 A reporter wrote of the “peace conference face,” a “haggard, bewildered, dubious and anxious look.”54 Komura faced his own pressures. A visiting member of the Japanese Parliament told reporters in Portsmouth that “Public sentiment was such in Japan . . . that Baron Komura would be murdered upon his return home if he yielded.”55

  With the talks a hair’s breadth from breakdown and the fate of both countries in the balance, at their afternoon meeting Witte and Komura stared at each other in icy silence for eight minutes, smoking one cigarette after another. Roosevelt tried to stave off collapse. To make matters worse, it seemed that the tsar had backed down from his concession to Meyer, as his foreign minister gave a statement to the Associated Press returning to Russia’s original position that it would neither pay money nor give up territory. “I cannot help offering Your Majesty some additional advice,” Roosevelt wrote the tsar. “Count Lamsdorff is said to have stated that Russia would never be able to approve of reimbursements and the cession of territory. I cannot but regard this as a clear notice of the continuation of war. I fear that if war continues, Japan will no doubt experience difficulties, but the catastrophe for Russia will reach unprecedented proportions.” He added, “I beg His Majesty to consider that such an announcement means absolutely nothing when Sakhalin is already in the hands of the Japanese.”56 Roosevelt knew it was unlikely to have any effect.

  However, there was movement beneath the surface. Komura had received orders that day by cable from Prime Minister Katsura directing him to go with Roosevelt’s compromise, and a member of the Russian delegation wrote in his diary, “We have evidently given up our former irreconcilability, and are ready to give up the southern half of Sakhalin.”57 Underscoring the depth of public sentiment against continued fighting, Jacob Schiff, a major financier and backer of Japanese war bonds, paid a visit to Takahira to tell him that the American, British, and German financial markets were no longer willing to support Japanese debt unless the war came to an end.

  On Saturday, August 26, Roosevelt’s telegram from the previous day was shown to the tsar, who responded simply, “I remain with my views.”58 Komura cabled Tokyo that he had decided to terminate the negotiation at the next session. He wrote his prime minister:

  It now seems that Russian determination has grown even firmer. . . . From what Witte told me in today’s secret meeting, I cannot help but conclude that there is no hope at all that the Tsar will change his mind. He seems to believe . . . that his Manchurian army is now superior to ours and that there is a good chance that Russia can bring about a drastic change in the military situation in Manchuria. Thus, we must conclude that at this time he has no intention of concluding peace. Therefore . . . I consider that there is no longer any alternative but to cut off the negotiations.59

  The telegram reached Tokyo on Sunday, August 27, at about 8 p.m. local time. Alarmed, the Japanese government ordered Komura to postpone the next session for a day, then called a cabinet meeting that lasted well after midnight and reconvened first thing the next morning.

  On Monday, August 28, Witte received the tsar’s final order to “end discussion tomorrow in any event. I prefer to conti
nue the war than to await gracious concessions on the part of Japan.”60

  In Tokyo, the Japanese cabinet assembled, while in the streets outside people celebrated in the belief that the meeting meant that the peace conference would be terminated and the war resumed. At the end of the meeting, after receiving the emperor’s sanction, the Japanese government sent an instruction to Komura at 8:35 p.m. Tokyo time: “In view of the fact that through your negotiations we have already solved the more important questions of Manchuria and Korea, which were our objectives in the war, we have decided to reach an agreement in the negotiations at this time even if it means abandoning the two demands for indemnity and territory.”61 He was authorized as a last concession to “withdraw completely the demand for repayment of war expenses on the condition that Russia recognize the Japanese occupation of Sakhalin as a fait accompli . . . and even if the Russian plenipotentiaries should persist in their stand, you should not immediately break off negotiations. In that case, you will attempt to persuade the President to recommend to us, as his last effort for peace, that we withdraw the territorial demand and accept his recommendation for the sake of humanity and peace. If the President should refuse to take this role of mediator, you are instructed to withdraw, as a last resort and our Imperial government’s final concession, the territorial demand. In short, our Imperial government is determined to conclude peace by any means necessary during the present negotiations.”62

  After these final instructions were transmitted to Portsmouth, new information arrived in Tokyo that completely changed the picture. The British had a wellplaced spy in the Russian Foreign Ministry, and in a chance encounter with a British Embassy official in Tokyo, the head of the telegraph section at the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Viscount Ishii Kikujiro, learned of the results of the meeting between Meyer and the tsar on August 23 and of the tsar’s willingness to accept a partition of Sakhalin island. On reporting this to the prime minister, Ishii was thanked and told that if he was wrong he would be expected to commit hara-kiri. The government then dashed off a revised set of instructions to Komura rescinding the concession of all of Sakhalin and replacing it with one relinquishing only the northern half of the island.

  “The day before we were to resume negotiations was a very tense one for me,” Witte wrote. “All Portsmouth knew that the tragic question of whether or not blood would continue to flow on the fields of Manchuria would soon be decided. When I went to bed that night I did not know what tomorrow would bring, what instructions the Japanese would receive. . . . When I went to bed that night my soul was torn. . . . I spent a restless, nightmarish night, sobbing and praying.”63

  The atmosphere was strained as the representatives arrived at the Navy Yard on the morning of August 29. Both delegations had packed their bags and paid their hotel bills, and President Roosevelt was preparing a statement to issue to the press informing them of the conference’s failure and the resumption of war.

  In defiance of his orders, Witte met once more with the Japanese. He placed on the table a sheet of paper which he told them contained Russia’s final concessions. Less generous than previous terms, Russia would pay no indemnity for Sakhalin. Komura told him that Japan would withdraw its demands for an indemnity if Russia abandoned its claims to Sakhalin. Witte refused. For several seconds silence filled the room as Witte blankly tore at bits of paper and Komura sat expressionless. Then Komura broke the silence and in a calm voice announced the Japanese would withdraw the indemnity and cede half of Sakhalin. Witte accepted. His gamble had worked.

  Tsar Nicholas received word the following evening. He wrote in his diary, “This night there came a telegram from Witte with the news that the negotiations about peace have been brought to an end. All day after that I went around as if in a trance.”64 Count Witte and Baron Komura signed the treaty six days later on September 5, in a small ceremony with both delegations and a few assembled dignitaries. It was ratified by the Russian and Japanese emperors on October 14, and the ratifications were exchanged in Washington on November 25.

  Witte’s tenacity had paid off. Standing up to Komura’s bluff and not backing down under pressure, Witte had barely skirted renewed war. But his boldness had been rewarded. In the end the deal that was struck was more favorable than Russia had reason to expect.

  It is estimated that the agreement reached at Portsmouth saved at least a quarter of a million lives. The treaty awarded Japan control over Korea, the Liaodong Peninsula, and the southern half of Sakhalin Island in addition to railroads and fishing privileges in Russian waters along the northern Pacific coast. Both Russia and Japan agreed to withdraw their forces from Manchuria. The agreement spared Russia a lengthy and potentially devastating war and it gave up little more than Japan already possessed. Although Japan sacrificed a number of its goals at the negotiating table, the Treaty of Portsmouth sealed Japan’s status as a great power and established it as the dominant power in Asia.

  When Roosevelt heard of the signing he thundered, “This is magnificent! It’s a mighty good thing for Russia, and a mighty good thing for Japan, and a mighty good thing for me too!”65 Praise and congratulations flooded in from all over the world. On hearing the news, Pope Pius X declared, “This is the happiest news of my life. Thank God for President Roosevelt’s courage.”66

  In Japan the reaction was different. In Tokyo, black flags of mourning crepe were hung in the streets. The Japanese stock market plummeted, and the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun wrote in an editorial “the struggle of eighteen months and the sacrifice of a hundred thousand lives” had been “made worthless by the diplomacy of a fortnight.”67 Japanese newspapers called on the Emperor to renounce the peace and for the army in Manchuria to keep fighting. Newspapers and politicians openly advocated the assassination of the cabinet ministers.

  Riots engulfed Japan. Thirty thousand rioters rampaged through Tokyo for three days as the violence quickly spread to other major cities. The authorities imposed martial law across the country and arrested several thousand people before the unrest quieted down. As an immediate consequence of the peace and its aftermath, the government fell in January 1906.

  The Russian response was more muted. After recovering from the shock of being disobeyed by his representative, the tsar presented Witte with the title of count for his skill in winning “rightful concessions” from the Japanese and for securing an “all-advantageous peace.”68

  Tsar Nicholas II ruled until Russia’s entry in World War I nine years later brought about the Russian Revolution. He abdicated in March 1917, and was executed along with his immediate family on the morning of July 17, 1918, in the basement of a house in Yekaterinburg in the eastern Ural Mountains. Witte was made Russia’s prime minister on his return from Portsmouth. He survived an assassination attempt in 1907, and died of natural causes eight years later. After the fall of the Japanese government following the riots, Komura became Japan’s ambassador to Great Britain and later served a second term as foreign minister.

  Roosevelt’s success at Portsmouth brought him the title “the greatest herder of Emperors since Napoleon.”69 The press called him “the grand victor in this battle of giants.”70 One of the Russian delegates later wrote of his experience with Roosevelt during the conference:

  We Russians had come to Portsmouth without taking anything that he had said seriously, and yet when we left the United States it was with the knowledge that, all through our stay there, we had been brought in close proximity with one of the most powerful personalities now alive in the whole world. The man who had been represented to us as impetuous to the point of rudeness, displayed a gentleness, a kindness, a tactfulness mixed with self control, that only a truly great man could command.71

  For his work in bringing about the peace, Roosevelt became the first American to win a Nobel Prize, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for “sheathing the swords of a million men.”72 accepted the award but refused the money because it was for work he felt he had performed as a result of his position as president. He wrot
e to his son: “I hate to do anything foolish or quixotic, and above all I hate to do anything that means the refusal of money which would ultimately come to you children. But Mother and I talked it over and came to the conclusion that . . . I could not accept money given to me for making peace between two nations, especially since I was able to make peace simply because I was President.”73

  President Roosevelt predicted that removing Russia as Japan’s natural rival in the Pacific would eventually lead to war between Japan and the United States. He believed America would win, but “it will be one of the most disastrous conflicts the world has ever seen.” However, he wrote, “My duty is to secure peace. . . . We’ll have to let the future take care of itself.”74

  Chapter 5

  The Paris Peace Conference

  1919

  On November 11, 1918, an armistice between Germany and the Allied Powers of England, France, Italy, and the United States brought the fighting of the First World War to an end. In its five years, the war had spread to every corner of the earth and bled Europe dry with forty million casualties, and the desolation it left behind caused people to look to the peace negotiations with a blend of euphoria and anticipation. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George captured the prevailing sentiment as he announced the armistice: “I hope that we may say that thus, this fateful morning, comes to an end all wars.”1