* According to an estimate made by the Japanese authorities, between April, 1903, and the outbreak of the war, Russia increased her naval and military forces in the Far East by nineteen war vessels, aggregating 82,415 tons, and 40,000 soldiers.  In addition to this, one battleship, three cruisers, seven torpedo destroyers, and four torpedo boats, aggregating about 37,040 tons, were on their way to the East, and preparations had been made for increasing the land forces by 200,000 men.  For further details, see Asakawa, “The Russo-Japanese Conflict” (London, 1904), pp. 352-54.

Russia thus found herself engaged in a war of the first magnitude, of which no one can predict the ultimate consequences, and the question naturally arises as to why, with an Emperor who lately aspired to play in politics the part of a great peacemaker, she provoked a conflict, for which she was very imperfectly prepared—­imposing on herself the obligation of defending a naval fortress, hastily constructed on foreign territory, and united with her base by a single line of railway 6,000 miles long.  The question is easily answered:  she did not believe in the possibility of war.  The Emperor was firmly resolved that he would not attack Japan, and no one would admit for a moment that Japan could have the audacity to attack the great Russian Empire.  In the late autumn of 1903, it is true, a few well-informed officials in St. Petersburg, influenced by the warnings of Baron Rosen, the Russian Minister in Tokio, began to perceive that perhaps Japan would provoke a conflict, but they were convinced that the military and naval preparations already made were quite sufficient to repel the attack.  One of these officials—­probably the best informed of all—­said to me quite frankly:  “If Japan had attacked us in May or June, we should have been in a sorry plight, but now [November, 1903] we are ready.”

The whole past history of territoral expansion in Asia tended to confirm the prevailing illusions.  Russia had advanced steadily from the Ural and the Caspian to the Hindu Kush and the Northern Pacific without once encountering serious resistance.  Not once had she been called on to make a great national effort, and the armed resistance of the native races had never inflicted on her anything worse than pin-pricks.  From decrepit China, which possessed no army in the European sense of the term, a more energetic resistance was not to be expected.  Had not Muravieff Amurski with a few Cossacks quietly occupied her Amur territories without provoking anything more dangerous than a diplomatic protest; and had not Ignatief annexed her rich Primorsk provinces, including the site of Vladivostok, by purely diplomatic means?  Why should not Count Cassini, a diplomatist of the same type as Ignatief, imitate his adroit predecessor, and secure for Russia, if not the formal annexation, at least the permanent occupation, of Manchuria?  Remembering all this, we can perceive that the great mistake of the Russian