Tsar Michael The Great 24 - The Far East 1905-1940
IP: 193.237.181.124
Posted on 3/6/2001 at 05:59:09 PM by Jon' N. Davies
Extract from
'A Concise History of The World'
by Jacob Benjamin
Sydney, 1982
The Far East 1905 - 1940
The Treaty of Manila, March 1905
1905 brought the beginnings of a new era in the Far East. Before this there had been American involvement in Korea in the later nineteenth century, and American
forces involved in the international force that helped put down the Boxer Rebellion. President Theodore Roosevelt's role in helping to bring about a negotiated peace to
the 1904 Russo-Japanese was to culminate in the Treaty of Manila and bring the United States fully into Far Eastern affairs.
Manila of course was the capital of the Philippine Islands, an American possession since the successful 1898 war with Spain. As such it was a fitting scene for the
introduction of the U.S.A. as a major player in world events further North. Neither Russia nor Japan was to realise it but 1905 was to mark the beginning of vastly
different paths into the future but paths that would in both cases lead to war, though America was to benefit from these conflicts being almost some twenty years
apart. Had Russia come to Japan's aid in the 1930s things may have been much different, but it was not in the realm of reality for Tsar Michael's Russia to come to the
aid of the isolationist Empire of Japan over such an issue as Korea. This continued enmity was to cost them both dear, and in Russia's case to bring down arguably the
foremost empire in the world in shared ruin.
Few could have foreseen this in 1905. Indeed, apart from such science-fantasy writers as Herbert Wells few could have foreseen anything about the tumultuous
decade that the 1930s was destined to be. To those involved the Treaty of Manila seemed a perfectly fair settlement - if it was disadvantageous to either side it was
equally so and in any future clash of interests the United States would stand as unbiased arbiter as head of the International Logging Commission for the Yalu. Few
saw the dangers inherent in this, and if anyone had spoken what was to be the truth they would have been dismissed as mere fantasists. Who could have doubted
otherwise ?
The Treaty of Manila established Russia as predominant in Manchuria, and with a corollary stating that she was officially an independent kingdom, Korea was
recognised as having Japan as her sovereign power. The Yalu River along the border was to be demilitarised and any outstanding or future disputes over commercial
rights were to be referred to an international commission that was to have the United States provide the chairman.
Even as Admiral Jessen rode at anchor in the bay before Manila with his three serviceable cruisers, and six destroyers he had acquired from Admiral Skruidlov's Second
Pacific Squadron, the Russian politicians led by the academic Mendeleyev were signing an accord that would eventually lead to Jessen's home port of Vladivostock
being annihilated in the mushroom cloud of nuclear conflagration. Even as Admiral Dewa sat silently across from him with his four armoured cruisers, Japanese
politicians were signing an agreement that would condemn the Empire to almost twenty years of turmoil, the bloody coup that would lead to the Ruling Council seizing
power in Tokyo, and a war with the United States that was to leave Japan but a second rate power among those lucky enough to emerge from the Great War of
1956-1958.
Of course no one knew it then. Not only was the peace hailed as victory by both sides, and more so by the Japanese who had begun the conflict, but it was seen as
the foundation for a new era of peace in the Far East. How wrong could people be ?! In the longer run the Treaty of Manila was to lay the seeds of a world war that
was to lay in ruin three of the world's great empires. How great is the power of hindsight !
China
The Boxer Rebellion and the international reaction to it had fatally weakened China's ruling elite. After the death of the Dragon Empress the new regime never fully
established its power in her wake. In 1912 China was struck by a series of revolts, revolutions and rebellions. The most important of these occurred in Peking where
Prince Yuan, scion of the Imperial Clan,. Seized power and declared himself Emperor.
Things were balanced on a knife edge. Other, republican, revolts were occurring throughout the country, most especially in the South, and legitimist
counter-revolutionaries threatened to destabilise his regime before it had even begun.
In Europe 1912 was the Summer of tragedy and international tension. It was in such an atmosphere that Tsar Michael's government made their decision. With Sergei
Witte recently killed in a tragic boating accident, power in the two-year old Duma was held by Gorschkov, with a loose alliance which included amongst its foremost
members Mendeleyev, Sazonov, Stolypin and Lvov. Most of their attention upon events in the Balkans they authorised the use of troops from Manchuria to prop up
Prince Yuan in Peking, seeing in him the best chance of long-term stability for the Chinese Empire which had known over half a century of calamity. Grand Duke Nikolai
Nikolaievich led his troops into Peking, assured the defence of the city against counter-revolutionaries and gave Yuan the support that he needed to embed his regime
in the consciousness of the ordinary Chinese. It was to be the beginning of a long and winding road, a road that led to success but ultimately was to lead to
annihilation. How could Yuan have known that in 1912 ? Even forty-five years later China was to be caught by surprise. In 1912 the future looked a lot better for
China than it had done in many decades.
The 1920s would see the slow struggle for China's territorial integrity as Yuan's army battled the warlords of the provinces, and the revolutionaries of the South. Aided
by an increasing number of Russian army units, by 1924 Yuan would be able to enter Nanking knowing that all of China North of the city was under his control. Grand
Duke Dmitri Pavlovich was the Russian governor of Shanghai for the emperor, and Prince Vladimir Kirilovich the commander of the Russian force in Tibet that was
holding down the province for the Chinese Empire. Russia continued to play an important role in the establishment of Yuan's hegemony, but never did Tsar Michael
stray from his initial principles in the signing of 1913's Russo-Chinese Alliance.
Even though the wars brought hardship and the state of the economy often seemed to be in the hands of German interests in Shantung or American interests in
Shanghai, Tsar Michael's government continually pressed Yuan to proceed with the governmental reforms that had been an integral part of the agreement. Just as
Russia had taken her first tentative steps towards becoming a constitutional monarchy in 1910, so did China in 1920, electing an assembly that would meet in Peking.
It was to be twenty years before the work was complete but this beginning was to lead to an influx of British aid once Winston Churchill succeeded Austen
Chamberlain as Prime Minister in the late 1920s.
By then, Yuan's Russian-backed regime had established control of all of China bar the Southern provinces which still slung loyally to the Nationalist Republican cause of
Dr Sun Yat Sen. It was no secret that President Hughes, in his third term, was providing American aid to the Chinese rebels, his government citing the highest moral
standards for their actions. Thus, though neither could know it, was Anglo-American emnity given a push, and by one whose very lineage was greatly American in
nature. Such are the ironies of history !
The Anglo-Russian Alliance of 1906 had only become stronger with the passing of the years. The high position in Russian society and politics of the family of the Dukes
of Connaught, father and brother to the British-born Tsaritsa, only helped strengthen the ties that the King-Emperor, Edward VII had seen set in motion. The marriage
in 1923 of the Prince of Wales, Edward to Maria Konstantinovich, a daughter of a Russian Grand Duke whom he had met at a ball and not been able to keep out of his
mind, only served to strengthen these ties. And they were not only dynastic. The Balkan Crisis of 1912 had seen Asquith's Liberal government take common stand with
Gorschkov's Russian government. The Aboukir Scare of 1919 had seen Russia send her three Petr Veliki class super-dreadnoughts from Lemnos to Alexandria in support
of the British position in Egypt. The alliance ran deep and few remembered the anxieties and rivalries of the late nineteenth century. Russia and Britain seemed bound
almost at the hips.
With the collapse of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty in 1922, and few had given it any real notice since 1912, the renewal coming as an unwelcome surprise for Britain's
elite, the British Empire in its Far Eastern policy had taken an increasingly pro-Russian stand. Austen Chamberlain's short-lived Conservative-Unionist government of
1925-1927 had attempted a rapprochment with President Hughes' rampant America, but Churchill's Liberal administration was to realise that the time had long past
when the United States could be reasoned with.
1928 saw more than a change in government in London, more than a change of policy in Asia. British troops out of Hong Kong and Canton pushed Northwards, joining
forces with Marshal Kornilov the Russian commander of the joint Russian-Chinese forces of the Emperor. Battle was joined with the forces of Dr Sun Yat Sen, his army
containing numerous American weapons, its forces many American advisors and observers. The Russo-British victory was met in Washington by a fury as great as an
medieval potentot's. Hughes' government in its dying year attempted to impose a series of punitive measures against the British and Russian Empires and only the
Republicans' defeat in November of that year saw the removal of these laws from the statute of pending legislation.
Japan
The war of 1904 had seemed on the surface to be a victory for the Japanese Empire. It was proclaimed so by her government and initially viewed as such by many
foreign governments. After all, had not the war been fought to protect Japan's interests in Korea and to ensure fair dealing on the disputed Yalu franchises ? On those
grounds had not Japan won all it had set out to gain ?
But a war once begun gains a momentum of its own, gains new aims and garners new hopes. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria her population expected the
perceived wrongs to be undone, the Liaotung Peninsular to be stripped from the conniving Russians and be given to the more deserving Japanese who had already won
it once in war with China and now wanted it back, this time without a combination of European powers forcing her out.
Most of all, the Japanese populace expected to gain from the war not to suffer from it. The government and military may have seen the true state of affairs in
December 1904 but the Japanese people had been fed a diet of victories, near-victories and tactical draws. Few Amongst the ordinary populace realised the reality of
December 1904. The agreement of the government to a negotiated peace came as a severe shock to most people, the terms of the Treaty of Manila, although
proclaimed as a victory, seemed like an embarassing retreat. This was not the vicory people had been led to expect.
And hardly anyone realised just how dire the economic situation was. A negotiated peace did not bring with it reparations. The economies of both countries had to
stand on what they had taken, what they had given. And Japan was almost bankrupt. Coal from Shantung had cost vast amounts, the money going in many cases to
provide for the expansion of German mining interests even as they met their requirements. The army in Manchuria, the navy constantly on patrol in the seas East and
South of Port Arthur had eaten up the finances. Japan was bankrupt, Korea was bankrupt, and Japan's only ally, Great Britain., was soon to sign the ground-breaking
and fateful alliance with Russia.
Japan would have to suffer her problems alone. For almost fifteen years the civilian government struggled through crisis after crisis. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was
renewed almost by default, the British government under Asquith hoping to encourage the democratic elements in Japan by this act of faith. It was not to be.
In the late Summer of 1920 the revolutionaries struck. Japan's four dreadnought battleships were at the centre of the uprising, two declaring for the revolutionaries,
one for the government and one being paralysed by fighting onboard her. The two revolutionary ships sailed from Nagasaki and did battle off the Imperial capital with
the loyalist Satsuma. After an encounter lasting two hours the loyalist dreadnought was sunk. The Fuso and Haruna entered Yokosuka, forced the surrender of the old
Mikasa and Shikishima and with it the capitilation of the arsenal. With little loyalty amongst the land forces the government fled, and the revolutionaries established
their Ruling Council in Tokyo. It was to rule for almost forty years.
A change of government meant no change of fortune. The Ruling Council, keeping the Emperor a virtual prisoner within his palaces, adopted an increasingly
fundamentalist policy of isolationism that could only receive a boost from Great Britain's angry denunciation of the joint alliance in 1922; Prime Minister Lord Curzon's
government unwittingly giving the Japanese revolutionaries a new cry to rally the desperate populace.
Under the Ruling Council Japan was to decline still further, but just how far was not to be evident until the clash with America in the late 1930s. That clash came over
the status of Korea.
Korea
The Treaty of Manila of March 1905 had reiterated the legal nicety that Korea was an independent kingdom, now placed under Japanese suzerainty rather than
Chinese, but a state in its own right none-he-less. Few among the signatories expected this clause to have any meaning and certainly none could have anticipated
the carnage and conflagration it was to inadvertently set off.
Throughout the 1920s Japanese Korea sank slowly into the quagmire of decline that enveloped the whole empire. The logging firms were increasingly bought about by
American companies, and the decisions of the International Commission began to show a marked tendency to award them to 'Japanese' interests - so much so that in
1927 Russian announced that it was no longer going to abide the decision of the Commission and began to exploit the Yalu's commercial interests ina vigorous manner,
clearly as a challenge to the unwarranted interest of the United States.
Although voted out of office in 1928 President Hughes was to live to see his government's policies in Korea come to fruition. Throughout the 1930s the increasingly
cash-strapped conglomerates of Japanese Korea, still trading on the open market, became prime targets for American business and by 1936 it was estimated that U.S.
companies owned almost half of the corporate stock of Korea.
This unalloyed capitalism was to prove too much for the Japanese. In 1938, in a Summer of rising tension after the U.S. Mitchell aerospace company had bought up
Nakajima's Korean subsidiary, events in Seoul were to lead to a state of war. Korea had retained a royal family with its own palaces and advisory council. In August
1938, apparently upon the advice of the military advisor, General Ridgway, the King made it known that he intended to empower the council as a governmental body
and seek to bring elections to Korea. There then followed a spontaneous uprising by the Japanese throughout their subject kingdom. American interests were
attacked, American nationals cut down in the street. Catching the mood the Ruling Council in Tokyo decreed that Korea was to be freed from pernicious Western
influence.
The American response was fast and vicious. Admiral Halsey's Pacific Fleet sailed from Manila. The old Japanese cruisers Suma and Akashi, rebuilt many times since the
1890s, were sunk off the South-Eastern tip of Korea. The battleships Kashima and Katori were sunk by dive bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet whilst
attempting to clear the harbour at Chemulpo. The Ruling Council in Tokyo feared to risk its best ships, and the dreadnoughts Fuso, Haruna and Kawachi spent the war
at Sasebo looking out across the sea towards their enemy but never daring to venture forth to meet them in a battle that could only end in their own destruction.
American troops under General Douglas MacArthur landed in Southern Korea, pushing rapidly up the peninsular as the Japanese forces withered under the aerial attack
from the three U.S. aircraft carriers that had gathered off the Western shore. Taking Seoul, MacArthur drove the Korean royal family into exile in Russia, and quickly
established an American hegemony over the vanquished kingdom.
Threatened with aerial attack from the aircraft carriers Yorktown and Essex off the Eastern coast, the Ruling Council signed the Treaty of Pusan in January 1939;
Korea was to remain officially independent but to pass under American hegemony.
Such were the legal niceties. In Saint Petersburg Milyukov was to urge the government to act against America before it was too late. His warnings were dismissed as
melodrama and to go unheeded. Russia and the world would pay the price not twenty years later
IP: 193.237.181.124
Posted on 3/6/2001 at 05:59:09 PM by Jon' N. Davies
Extract from
'A Concise History of The World'
by Jacob Benjamin
Sydney, 1982
The Far East 1905 - 1940
The Treaty of Manila, March 1905
1905 brought the beginnings of a new era in the Far East. Before this there had been American involvement in Korea in the later nineteenth century, and American
forces involved in the international force that helped put down the Boxer Rebellion. President Theodore Roosevelt's role in helping to bring about a negotiated peace to
the 1904 Russo-Japanese was to culminate in the Treaty of Manila and bring the United States fully into Far Eastern affairs.
Manila of course was the capital of the Philippine Islands, an American possession since the successful 1898 war with Spain. As such it was a fitting scene for the
introduction of the U.S.A. as a major player in world events further North. Neither Russia nor Japan was to realise it but 1905 was to mark the beginning of vastly
different paths into the future but paths that would in both cases lead to war, though America was to benefit from these conflicts being almost some twenty years
apart. Had Russia come to Japan's aid in the 1930s things may have been much different, but it was not in the realm of reality for Tsar Michael's Russia to come to the
aid of the isolationist Empire of Japan over such an issue as Korea. This continued enmity was to cost them both dear, and in Russia's case to bring down arguably the
foremost empire in the world in shared ruin.
Few could have foreseen this in 1905. Indeed, apart from such science-fantasy writers as Herbert Wells few could have foreseen anything about the tumultuous
decade that the 1930s was destined to be. To those involved the Treaty of Manila seemed a perfectly fair settlement - if it was disadvantageous to either side it was
equally so and in any future clash of interests the United States would stand as unbiased arbiter as head of the International Logging Commission for the Yalu. Few
saw the dangers inherent in this, and if anyone had spoken what was to be the truth they would have been dismissed as mere fantasists. Who could have doubted
otherwise ?
The Treaty of Manila established Russia as predominant in Manchuria, and with a corollary stating that she was officially an independent kingdom, Korea was
recognised as having Japan as her sovereign power. The Yalu River along the border was to be demilitarised and any outstanding or future disputes over commercial
rights were to be referred to an international commission that was to have the United States provide the chairman.
Even as Admiral Jessen rode at anchor in the bay before Manila with his three serviceable cruisers, and six destroyers he had acquired from Admiral Skruidlov's Second
Pacific Squadron, the Russian politicians led by the academic Mendeleyev were signing an accord that would eventually lead to Jessen's home port of Vladivostock
being annihilated in the mushroom cloud of nuclear conflagration. Even as Admiral Dewa sat silently across from him with his four armoured cruisers, Japanese
politicians were signing an agreement that would condemn the Empire to almost twenty years of turmoil, the bloody coup that would lead to the Ruling Council seizing
power in Tokyo, and a war with the United States that was to leave Japan but a second rate power among those lucky enough to emerge from the Great War of
1956-1958.
Of course no one knew it then. Not only was the peace hailed as victory by both sides, and more so by the Japanese who had begun the conflict, but it was seen as
the foundation for a new era of peace in the Far East. How wrong could people be ?! In the longer run the Treaty of Manila was to lay the seeds of a world war that
was to lay in ruin three of the world's great empires. How great is the power of hindsight !
China
The Boxer Rebellion and the international reaction to it had fatally weakened China's ruling elite. After the death of the Dragon Empress the new regime never fully
established its power in her wake. In 1912 China was struck by a series of revolts, revolutions and rebellions. The most important of these occurred in Peking where
Prince Yuan, scion of the Imperial Clan,. Seized power and declared himself Emperor.
Things were balanced on a knife edge. Other, republican, revolts were occurring throughout the country, most especially in the South, and legitimist
counter-revolutionaries threatened to destabilise his regime before it had even begun.
In Europe 1912 was the Summer of tragedy and international tension. It was in such an atmosphere that Tsar Michael's government made their decision. With Sergei
Witte recently killed in a tragic boating accident, power in the two-year old Duma was held by Gorschkov, with a loose alliance which included amongst its foremost
members Mendeleyev, Sazonov, Stolypin and Lvov. Most of their attention upon events in the Balkans they authorised the use of troops from Manchuria to prop up
Prince Yuan in Peking, seeing in him the best chance of long-term stability for the Chinese Empire which had known over half a century of calamity. Grand Duke Nikolai
Nikolaievich led his troops into Peking, assured the defence of the city against counter-revolutionaries and gave Yuan the support that he needed to embed his regime
in the consciousness of the ordinary Chinese. It was to be the beginning of a long and winding road, a road that led to success but ultimately was to lead to
annihilation. How could Yuan have known that in 1912 ? Even forty-five years later China was to be caught by surprise. In 1912 the future looked a lot better for
China than it had done in many decades.
The 1920s would see the slow struggle for China's territorial integrity as Yuan's army battled the warlords of the provinces, and the revolutionaries of the South. Aided
by an increasing number of Russian army units, by 1924 Yuan would be able to enter Nanking knowing that all of China North of the city was under his control. Grand
Duke Dmitri Pavlovich was the Russian governor of Shanghai for the emperor, and Prince Vladimir Kirilovich the commander of the Russian force in Tibet that was
holding down the province for the Chinese Empire. Russia continued to play an important role in the establishment of Yuan's hegemony, but never did Tsar Michael
stray from his initial principles in the signing of 1913's Russo-Chinese Alliance.
Even though the wars brought hardship and the state of the economy often seemed to be in the hands of German interests in Shantung or American interests in
Shanghai, Tsar Michael's government continually pressed Yuan to proceed with the governmental reforms that had been an integral part of the agreement. Just as
Russia had taken her first tentative steps towards becoming a constitutional monarchy in 1910, so did China in 1920, electing an assembly that would meet in Peking.
It was to be twenty years before the work was complete but this beginning was to lead to an influx of British aid once Winston Churchill succeeded Austen
Chamberlain as Prime Minister in the late 1920s.
By then, Yuan's Russian-backed regime had established control of all of China bar the Southern provinces which still slung loyally to the Nationalist Republican cause of
Dr Sun Yat Sen. It was no secret that President Hughes, in his third term, was providing American aid to the Chinese rebels, his government citing the highest moral
standards for their actions. Thus, though neither could know it, was Anglo-American emnity given a push, and by one whose very lineage was greatly American in
nature. Such are the ironies of history !
The Anglo-Russian Alliance of 1906 had only become stronger with the passing of the years. The high position in Russian society and politics of the family of the Dukes
of Connaught, father and brother to the British-born Tsaritsa, only helped strengthen the ties that the King-Emperor, Edward VII had seen set in motion. The marriage
in 1923 of the Prince of Wales, Edward to Maria Konstantinovich, a daughter of a Russian Grand Duke whom he had met at a ball and not been able to keep out of his
mind, only served to strengthen these ties. And they were not only dynastic. The Balkan Crisis of 1912 had seen Asquith's Liberal government take common stand with
Gorschkov's Russian government. The Aboukir Scare of 1919 had seen Russia send her three Petr Veliki class super-dreadnoughts from Lemnos to Alexandria in support
of the British position in Egypt. The alliance ran deep and few remembered the anxieties and rivalries of the late nineteenth century. Russia and Britain seemed bound
almost at the hips.
With the collapse of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty in 1922, and few had given it any real notice since 1912, the renewal coming as an unwelcome surprise for Britain's
elite, the British Empire in its Far Eastern policy had taken an increasingly pro-Russian stand. Austen Chamberlain's short-lived Conservative-Unionist government of
1925-1927 had attempted a rapprochment with President Hughes' rampant America, but Churchill's Liberal administration was to realise that the time had long past
when the United States could be reasoned with.
1928 saw more than a change in government in London, more than a change of policy in Asia. British troops out of Hong Kong and Canton pushed Northwards, joining
forces with Marshal Kornilov the Russian commander of the joint Russian-Chinese forces of the Emperor. Battle was joined with the forces of Dr Sun Yat Sen, his army
containing numerous American weapons, its forces many American advisors and observers. The Russo-British victory was met in Washington by a fury as great as an
medieval potentot's. Hughes' government in its dying year attempted to impose a series of punitive measures against the British and Russian Empires and only the
Republicans' defeat in November of that year saw the removal of these laws from the statute of pending legislation.
Japan
The war of 1904 had seemed on the surface to be a victory for the Japanese Empire. It was proclaimed so by her government and initially viewed as such by many
foreign governments. After all, had not the war been fought to protect Japan's interests in Korea and to ensure fair dealing on the disputed Yalu franchises ? On those
grounds had not Japan won all it had set out to gain ?
But a war once begun gains a momentum of its own, gains new aims and garners new hopes. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria her population expected the
perceived wrongs to be undone, the Liaotung Peninsular to be stripped from the conniving Russians and be given to the more deserving Japanese who had already won
it once in war with China and now wanted it back, this time without a combination of European powers forcing her out.
Most of all, the Japanese populace expected to gain from the war not to suffer from it. The government and military may have seen the true state of affairs in
December 1904 but the Japanese people had been fed a diet of victories, near-victories and tactical draws. Few Amongst the ordinary populace realised the reality of
December 1904. The agreement of the government to a negotiated peace came as a severe shock to most people, the terms of the Treaty of Manila, although
proclaimed as a victory, seemed like an embarassing retreat. This was not the vicory people had been led to expect.
And hardly anyone realised just how dire the economic situation was. A negotiated peace did not bring with it reparations. The economies of both countries had to
stand on what they had taken, what they had given. And Japan was almost bankrupt. Coal from Shantung had cost vast amounts, the money going in many cases to
provide for the expansion of German mining interests even as they met their requirements. The army in Manchuria, the navy constantly on patrol in the seas East and
South of Port Arthur had eaten up the finances. Japan was bankrupt, Korea was bankrupt, and Japan's only ally, Great Britain., was soon to sign the ground-breaking
and fateful alliance with Russia.
Japan would have to suffer her problems alone. For almost fifteen years the civilian government struggled through crisis after crisis. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was
renewed almost by default, the British government under Asquith hoping to encourage the democratic elements in Japan by this act of faith. It was not to be.
In the late Summer of 1920 the revolutionaries struck. Japan's four dreadnought battleships were at the centre of the uprising, two declaring for the revolutionaries,
one for the government and one being paralysed by fighting onboard her. The two revolutionary ships sailed from Nagasaki and did battle off the Imperial capital with
the loyalist Satsuma. After an encounter lasting two hours the loyalist dreadnought was sunk. The Fuso and Haruna entered Yokosuka, forced the surrender of the old
Mikasa and Shikishima and with it the capitilation of the arsenal. With little loyalty amongst the land forces the government fled, and the revolutionaries established
their Ruling Council in Tokyo. It was to rule for almost forty years.
A change of government meant no change of fortune. The Ruling Council, keeping the Emperor a virtual prisoner within his palaces, adopted an increasingly
fundamentalist policy of isolationism that could only receive a boost from Great Britain's angry denunciation of the joint alliance in 1922; Prime Minister Lord Curzon's
government unwittingly giving the Japanese revolutionaries a new cry to rally the desperate populace.
Under the Ruling Council Japan was to decline still further, but just how far was not to be evident until the clash with America in the late 1930s. That clash came over
the status of Korea.
Korea
The Treaty of Manila of March 1905 had reiterated the legal nicety that Korea was an independent kingdom, now placed under Japanese suzerainty rather than
Chinese, but a state in its own right none-he-less. Few among the signatories expected this clause to have any meaning and certainly none could have anticipated
the carnage and conflagration it was to inadvertently set off.
Throughout the 1920s Japanese Korea sank slowly into the quagmire of decline that enveloped the whole empire. The logging firms were increasingly bought about by
American companies, and the decisions of the International Commission began to show a marked tendency to award them to 'Japanese' interests - so much so that in
1927 Russian announced that it was no longer going to abide the decision of the Commission and began to exploit the Yalu's commercial interests ina vigorous manner,
clearly as a challenge to the unwarranted interest of the United States.
Although voted out of office in 1928 President Hughes was to live to see his government's policies in Korea come to fruition. Throughout the 1930s the increasingly
cash-strapped conglomerates of Japanese Korea, still trading on the open market, became prime targets for American business and by 1936 it was estimated that U.S.
companies owned almost half of the corporate stock of Korea.
This unalloyed capitalism was to prove too much for the Japanese. In 1938, in a Summer of rising tension after the U.S. Mitchell aerospace company had bought up
Nakajima's Korean subsidiary, events in Seoul were to lead to a state of war. Korea had retained a royal family with its own palaces and advisory council. In August
1938, apparently upon the advice of the military advisor, General Ridgway, the King made it known that he intended to empower the council as a governmental body
and seek to bring elections to Korea. There then followed a spontaneous uprising by the Japanese throughout their subject kingdom. American interests were
attacked, American nationals cut down in the street. Catching the mood the Ruling Council in Tokyo decreed that Korea was to be freed from pernicious Western
influence.
The American response was fast and vicious. Admiral Halsey's Pacific Fleet sailed from Manila. The old Japanese cruisers Suma and Akashi, rebuilt many times since the
1890s, were sunk off the South-Eastern tip of Korea. The battleships Kashima and Katori were sunk by dive bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet whilst
attempting to clear the harbour at Chemulpo. The Ruling Council in Tokyo feared to risk its best ships, and the dreadnoughts Fuso, Haruna and Kawachi spent the war
at Sasebo looking out across the sea towards their enemy but never daring to venture forth to meet them in a battle that could only end in their own destruction.
American troops under General Douglas MacArthur landed in Southern Korea, pushing rapidly up the peninsular as the Japanese forces withered under the aerial attack
from the three U.S. aircraft carriers that had gathered off the Western shore. Taking Seoul, MacArthur drove the Korean royal family into exile in Russia, and quickly
established an American hegemony over the vanquished kingdom.
Threatened with aerial attack from the aircraft carriers Yorktown and Essex off the Eastern coast, the Ruling Council signed the Treaty of Pusan in January 1939;
Korea was to remain officially independent but to pass under American hegemony.
Such were the legal niceties. In Saint Petersburg Milyukov was to urge the government to act against America before it was too late. His warnings were dismissed as
melodrama and to go unheeded. Russia and the world would pay the price not twenty years later
was laying down a modern interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine.