Russian people still place their faith in their … Tsar and worship his hallowed person,” and predicted that “the people will … cheer you and fall on their knees and pray for you.” When they met in person, William tapped Nicholas on the shoulder and said, “My advice to you is more speeches and more parades.”
Using this private channel, William bent himself to undo the anti-German alliance between Russia and France. Nicholas had been Tsar less than a year when the Kaiser wrote to him: “It is not the friendship of France and Russia that makes me uneasy, but the danger to our principle of monarchism from the lifting up of the Republicans on a pedestal.… The Republicans are revolutionaries
Russia’s alliance with France withstood these assaults, but on another theme the Kaiser’s exhortations had a striking success. William hated Orientals, and often raved about “the Yellow Peril.” In 1900, bidding farewell to a shipload of German marines bound for China to help disperse the Boxer revolutionaries, the Kaiser shouted blood- curdling instructions: “You must know, my men, that you are about to meet a crafty, well-armed, cruel foe! Meet him and beat him. Give no quarter. Take no prisoners. Kill him when he falls into your hands. Even as a thousand years ago, The Huns under King Attila made such a name for themselves as still resounds in terror through legend and fable, so may the name of German resound through Chinese history a thousand years from now.…”
In writing to the Tsar, William elevated his prejudice to a loftier pedestal. Russia, he declared, had a “Holy Mission” in Asia: “Clearly, it is the great task of the future for Russia to cultivate the Asian continent and to defend Europe from the inroads of the Great Yellow Race. In this you will always find me on your side, ready to help you as best I can. You have well understood the call of Providence … in the Defense of the Cross and the old Christian European culture against the inroads of the Mongols and Buddhism.… I would let nobody try to interfere with you and attack from behind in Europe during the time you were fulfilling the great mission which Heaven has shaped for you.”
William pursued the theme into allegorical art. He sent the Tsar a portrait showing himself in shining armor, gripping a huge crucifix in his raised right arm. At his feet crouched the figure of Nicholas, clothed in a long Byzantine gown. On the Tsar’s face, as he gazed up at the Kaiser, was a look of humble admiration. In the background, on a blue sea, cruised a fleet of German and Russian battleships. In 1902, after watching a fleet of real Russian battleships steam through naval maneuvers, William signaled from his yacht to the Tsar aboard the
William’s hatred of Orientals was genuine, but there was more to his game than simple prejudice. For years, Bismarck had urgently promoted Russian expansion in Asia as a means of diminishing Russian influence in Europe. “Russia has nothing to do in the West,” said the crafty German Chancellor. “There she can only catch Nihilism and other diseases. Her mission is in Asia; there she represents civilization.” By turning Russia away from Europe, Germany decreased the danger of war in the Balkans between Russia and Austria, and Germany herself was left a free hand with Russia’s ally, France. In addition, wherever Russia moved in Asia, she was certain to get into trouble: either with Britain in India or with Japan in the Pacific. William II enthusiastically revived Bismarck’s design. “We must try to tie Russia down in East Asia,” he confided to one of his ministers, “so that she pays less attention to Europe and the Near East.”
The Kaiser was not the only man filling Nicholas’s head with expansionist dreams; many Russians were equally anxious to go adventuring in Asia. The temptations were strong. Russia’s only Pacific port, Vladivostock, was imprisoned in ice three months a year. Southward, the decrepit Chinese Empire stretched like a rotting carcass along the Pacific. In 1895, to Russia’s chagrin, the vigorous, newly Westernized island empire of Japan occupied several Chinese territories which Russia coveted, among them the great warm-water port and fortress of Port Arthur. Six days after Japan had swallowed Port Arthur, Russia intervened, declaring that Japan’s new arrangements “constituted a perpetual menace to the peace of the Far East.” Japan, unwilling to risk a war, was forced to disgorge Port Arthur. Three years later, Russia extracted a ninety-nine-year lease on the port from the helpless Chinese.
The occupation of Port Arthur was heady stuff in St. Petersburg. “Glad news …,” wrote Nicholas. “At last we shall have an ice-free port.” A new spur of the Trans-Siberian was constructed directly across Manchuria, and when the railroad was finished, the Russian workmen and Russian railway guards remained behind. In 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, Russia “temporarily” occupied Manchuria. Only one further prize remained on the entire North Pacific coast, the peninsula of Korea. Although Japan clearly regarded Korea as essential to her security, a group of Russian adventurers resolved to steal it. Their plan was to establish a private company, the Yalu Timber Company, and begin moving Russian soldiers into Korea disguised as workmen. If they ran into trouble, the Russian government could always disclaim responsibility. If they succeeded, the empire would acquire a new province and they themselves would have vast economic concessions within it. Witte, the Finance Minister, vigorously opposed this risky policy. But Nicholas, impressed by the leader of the adventurers, a former cavalry officer named Bezobrazov, approved the plan, whereupon Witte in 1903 resigned from the government. Predictably, Kaiser William chimed in, “It is evident to every unbiased mind that Korea must and will be Russian.”
The Russian advance into Korea made war with Japan inevitable. The Japanese would have preferred an agreement: Russia to keep Manchuria, leaving Japan a free hand in Korea. But the Mikado’s ministers could not stand by and watch the Russians swarm along the whole coast of Asia, planting the Tsar’s double-headed eagle in every port and promontory facing their islands. In 1901, the greatest of Japanese statesmen, Marquis Ito, came to St. Petersburg to negotiate. He was treated shamefully. Ignored, finding no one to talk to, he put his requests in writing; replies were delayed for days on trifling pretexts. Eventually, he left Russia in despair. Through 1903, the permanent Japanese Minister in St. Petersburg, Kurino, issued urgent warnings and begged in vain for an audience with the Tsar. On February 3, 1904, bowing grimly, Kurino also left Russia.
In Russia, it was taken for granted that if war came, Russia would win easily. It would not be necessary for the Russian army to fire even a single shot, gibed the drawing-room generals. The Russians would annihilate the Japanese “monkeys” simply by throwing their caps at them. Vyacheslav Plehve, the Minister of Interior, wrestling with a growing plague of rebellious outbursts, openly welcomed the idea of “a small victorious war” to distract the people. “Russia has been made by bayonets, not diplomacy,” he declared.
Nicholas, lulled into belief in Russia’s overwhelming superiority, assumed that the decision was his, that war would not come unless Russia began it. Foreign ambassadors and ministers, gathered for the annual gala diplomatic reception on New Year’s Day, heard the Tsar talk grandly of Russia’s military power and beg that there would not be a test of his patience and love of peace. Nevertheless, during the month of January 1904, Nicholas’s indecision kept the Kaiser in a state of constant alarm. He wrote, urging that Russia accept no settlement with Japan, but go to war. He was appalled when Nicholas replied, “I am still in good hopes about a calm and peaceful understanding.” William showed this letter to his Chancellor, von Bulow, and complained bitterly about the Tsar’s unmanly attitude. “Nicholas is doing himself a lot of harm by his flabby way of going on,” said the Kaiser. Such behavior, he added, was “compromising all great sovereigns.”
Japan made a Russian decision unnecessary. On the evening of February 6, 1904, Nicholas returned from the theatre to be handed a telegram from Admiral Alexeiev, Russian Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief in the Far East:
“About midnight, Japanese destroyers made a sudden attack on the squadron anchored in the outer harbor of Port Arthur. The battleships
The next morning, huge, patriotic crowds filled the streets of St. Petersburg. Students carrying banners marched to the Winter Palace and stood before it singing hymns. Nicholas went to the window and saluted. Amid the rejoicing, he was depressed. He had flirted with war and tried to bluff his enemies, but the idea of bloodshed revolted him. The people now looked forward to a quick Russian victory; Nicholas knew better. As confidential reports of the damage at Port Arthur continued to arrive, Nicholas set down his “sharp grief for the fleet and for the opinion that people will have of Russia.”
The disaster that followed was far greater than even Nicholas had feared. In scarcely a single generation,
