Finding sparks rethink of Russo-Japan War

[Sarai]

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20091209a9.html

[Sergei Witte]

I think the article is very one-sided.

The events that lead to the Russo-Japanese war stem from earlier time.

In my opinion the Russian Government should in an earlier moment settle for an agreement with Japan over the partition of spheres in Mants. and Korea. This was possible until 1903, when the retreat of Russian troops from Mants. which was agreed on was halted by the government and the Japanese government grew hostile to the Russians. After that, the Japanese were in fact preparing an offensive war against Russia. This proposition from Bezobrazov, who was one or the adverturers who greaty influenced Tsar Nicholas, to the Japanese, seems to fall suddenly from the sky and was MUCH too late to prevent war.

[Janet Ashton]

I think the article is very one-sided.

The events that lead to the Russo-Japanese war stem from earlier time.

In my opinion the Russian Government should in an earlier moment settle for an agreement with Japan over the partition of spheres in Mants. and Korea. This was possible until 1903, when the retreat of Russian troops from Mants. which was agreed on was halted by the government and the Japanese government grew hostile to the Russians. After that, the Japanese were in fact preparing an offensive war against Russia. This proposition from Bezobrazov, who was one or the adverturers who greaty influenced Tsar Nicholas, to the Japanese, seems to fall suddenly from the sky and was MUCH too late to prevent war.

Agree with this completely. By early 1904 Bezobrazov's time had passed. His suggestion that Japan be allowed a free hand in Korea sounds like a volte face, but I would like to know where he considered "Korea" to begin and end...In any case, as you say, it was too late; he had done the harm by then. And Russia's involvement in Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula was absolutely a part of the harm, so to propose allowing her a free hand there was unlikely to have helped.