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Updated: June 22, 2025
Port Arthur was no farther from Pekin and Seoul than it was five years before, and it was much nearer to St. Petersburg! And as Russia had already made surprising bounds from Nikolaifsk to Vladivostok, and from Vladivostok to Port Arthur, she might make still another to one or both of these capitals.
Petersburg might practically annex the whole of Manchuria and transform Port Arthur into a great naval port and arsenal, a far more effectual "Dominator of the East" than Vladivostok, which was intended, as its name implies, to fulfil that function.
Foreseeing this, the Japanese took care to conceal the loss of the Hatsuse and Yashima, and the fact did not become known until after the battle of Tsushima, a year later, when the Russian fleet had been practically annihilated. Meanwhile, the Russian squadron at Vladivostok had accomplished little.
The Russians have explored very thoroughly the coast of Manjouria in search of good harbors. Below De Castries the first of importance is Barracouta Bay, in Latitude 49°. The government made a settlement there in 1853, but subsequently abandoned it for Olga Bay, six degrees further south. Vladivostok, or Dominion of the East, was occupied in 1857, and a naval station commenced.
On landing her troops at Vladivostok she presented, through her proper diplomatic agents, to the commander of that province a set of proposals which would have placed her in control of the Russian maritime provinces.
She was in danger of her life if captured, as the Bolshevists were talking of putting her to death. After an unsuccessful attempt to organize resistance to the new government, Catherine was hidden by friends while the Bolshevists sought her, and after traveling for six hundred miles on horseback reached Vladivostok, where she found a steamer ready to take her to America.
Before Rojestvensky lay two routes to choose between, the more direct one to Vladivostok through the narrow Korean Strait, or the longer one eastward of the great island of Honshu. Which he would take was in doubt and in which Togo awaited him no one knew.
For my part, I believe the Russian statement. But even from the Japanese communiqué it is evident that what wrecked the Conference was Japanese unwillingness to evacuate Vladivostok and the Maritime Province; all that they were willing to give was a vague promise to evacuate some day, which would have had no more value than Mr. Gladstone's promise to evacuate Egypt.
It seems to me they might have plucked up courage enough to decide the matter for themselves, instead of putting the responsibility upon the local commander. As it was left to me, however, I gave the necessary orders at once. That very night, August 5, I marched through Vladivostok to entrain my detachment.
He, it was known, was accepting a regular subsidy from the Japanese to enable them to resist the extension of the admiral's power towards Vladivostok, and it was under their instructions and protection Semianoff refused to recognise the authority of the Omsk Government and issued insolent manifestos against the Supreme Governor.
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