And the advances made by Ito and others would have been reciprocated by Witte and Lamsdorff were it not that the Tsar, interested in Bezobrazoff’s Yalu venture, subordinated his policy to those vested interests, and compelled Japan to fight.  The master-idea of the policy of Ito, with whom I had two interesting conversations on the subject, was to strike up a close friendship with the Tsardom, based on community of durable interests, and to bespeak Russia’s help for the hour of storm and stress which one day might strike.  The Tsar’s government was inspired by analogous motives.  Before the war was terminated I repaired to London on behalf of Russia, in order to propose to the Japanese government, in addition to the treaty of peace which was about to be discussed at Portsmouth, an offensive and defensive alliance, and to ask that Prince Ito be sent as first plenipotentiary, invested with full powers to conclude such a treaty.

M. Izvolsky’s policy toward Japan, frank and statesman-like, had an offensive and a defensive alliance for its intended culmination, and the treaties and conventions which he actually concluded with Viscount Motono, in drafting which I played a modest part, amounted almost to this.  The Tsar’s opposition to the concessions which represented Russia’s share of the compromise was a tremendous obstacle, which only the threat of the Minister’s resignation finally overcame.  And Izvolsky’s energy and insistence hastened the conclusion of a treaty between them to maintain and respect the status quo in Manchuria, and, in case it was menaced, to concert with each other the measures they might deem necessary for the maintenance of the status quo.  And it was no longer stipulated, as it had been before, that these measures must have a pacific character.  They were prepared to go farther.  And I may now reveal the fact that the treaty had a secret clause, providing for the action which Russia afterward took in Mongolia.

These transactions one might term the first act of the international drama which is still proceeding.  They indicate, if they did not shape, the mold in which the bronze of Japan’s political program was cast.  It necessarily differed from other politics, although the maxims underlying it were the same.  Japan, having become a Great Power after her war with China, was slowly developing into a world Power, and hoped to establish her claim to that position one day.  It was against that day that she would fain have acquired a puissant and trustworthy ally, and she left nothing undone to deserve the whole-hearted support of Russia.  In the historic year of 1914, many months before the storm-cloud broke, the War Minister Sukhomlinoff transferred nearly all the garrisons from Siberia to Europe, because he had had assurances from Japan which warranted him in thus denuding the eastern border of troops.  During the campaign, when the Russian offensive broke down and the armies of the enemy were driving the Tsar’s troops like sheep before them, Japan hastened to the assistance of her neighbor, to whom she threw open her military arsenals, and many private establishments as well.  And when the Petrograd Cabinet was no longer able to meet the financial liabilities incurred, the Mikado’s advisers devised a generous arrangement on lines which brought both countries into still closer and more friendly relations.