This will likely be wrapping up the coverage of this important war in the history of the Far East.  Much of the coverage of the month is on the peace talks.  It should be interesting to Americans and historians of relations in East Asia, because there have grown up strong claims about the role different nations played in the peace talks and shaping of the region:  like the idea common in South Korea that the US “gave” Korea to Japan in “exchange” for the Philippines.

I will, however, skip all that diplomacy talk, as I have so far, and you can look in the free NY Times Archives yourselves or read some of the books about it.  From the start in this review, I have not been interested in high level talks instead preferring to look at stuff on the ground (or sea).

However, the first article I read this month was too good to pass up:

Headline:   Will Ask Roosevelt to Protect Koreans 3 Aug 1905

[Lead paragraph]  On the eve of the official reception to be tendered the peace envoys of Russia and Japan, two diminutive, unassuming Koreans, bent on one of the oddest diplomatic missions in history, appeared, unannounced, in Oyster Bay this afternoon.

…Upon arrival there [at the hotel], the clerk-bartender looked the would-be guests over critically, and it was only after a great deal of persuasive eloquence on the part of the two Korean emissaries that they were permitted to register at all.  Then they put their names down as “P. K. Yoon and Syngmin Rhee, Seoul, Korea.”

Mr. Yoon, who heads the Korean delegation, will seek an audience with President Roosevelt tomorrow to present to him a memorial and voice a fervent plea on behalf of the Korean people that Mr. Roosevelt constitute himself the guardian of Korea’s rights in the coming peace negotiations.

Talk about your losing propositions…

After the peace treaty, which confirmed Japan’s “predominant interest” in Korea, the US was the first nation to pull its representatives.

In the unpretentious parlor o the village hotel Mr. Yoon for an hour discussed in broken English, but with almost tearful earnestness, the hopes and fears of the people of Korea, for whom the outcome of the war means so much.

You gotta feel for the Korean people at this period in time.

For centuries, their close alliance with China had done them fairly well.  There were exceptions – with the Mongol and Khitan and Manchu and Japanese invasions, but none really dominated Korea for a very long time and compared to much of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, Korea was pretty stable thanks in part to its relationship to China and geographical location.

That changed somewhat abruptly in the 19th Century as advancements in technology led the colonial empires of the West, and then Japan when it modernized, to put pressure on China and Korea and others not felt before.

Japan had reacted to some of that pressure by changing itself dramatically into a fairly modern, industrial nation itself.   Korean and Chinese society were not able to change like that.  And they suffered for it.  China was so large and drew the interest of so many different colonial empires, they kinda cancelled each other out ultimately as enough of them fought the idea of partitioning China and none could dominate the other and swallow China as a whole.

Korea…wasn’t as fortunate.

It counted on its historical ally – China, and Japan beat them in a war fought mainly on Korean soil.  Korea then turned to other nations looking for another ally to help keep Japanese pressure off, but the only one willing to commit to a military-style alliance was the Russian Empire who Korea (and most others) feared had territorial ambitions in Korea itself.  So the Korean government ended up playing footsie with everybody (except Japan) and ultimately getting the strong support of none…

By 1905, with Russia having just been stunned in its defeat at the hand of Asia’s new upstart powerhouse (Japan), as we have seen in this review of the war, Korea stood no chance.  No nation was going to step in to militarily defend it.  And after two wars, it would seem clear the only way it could have been defended from Japan was militarily…

“Though Korea has been the seat of war, neither Russia nor Japan has any right to claim suzerainty over Korean territory and those who are residents of this country stand together for the preservation of the integrity of Korean territory and the maintenance of her absolute independence.”

The Korean king’s desperate effort to find another powerful friend to help hold Japan off at the turn of the century was actually used against the nation.  If you look to Europe of the day, it was just 10 years away from the most devastating war the world had every known.  In this earlier period, they were jockeying for position trying to project enough strength to prevent an all-out war without going so far as to start it.  As noted above, it caused them to have serious moments of disquiet about something like who was going to control China or would nobody control it and what it would mean to the all important “balance of power” in Europe itself.

In this setting, Korea wasn’t big enough to warrant the attention as China did, but Seoul’s trying to sign treaties it hoped would act as a military alliance with one or more of the European powers ended being seen — by the West — as a sign Korea couldn’t be trusted to handle its own foreign affairs…that it had led to China’s being even further crippled in its own power in the Sino-Japanese War and then saw an important European player devastated when the Russian Empire was crushed by Japan.

By this day, there was no way in hell Yoon and Rhee were going to talk one of the powerful colonial empires to fight for Korea against the proven power of Japan…

[Reporter]  “If Korea were to lose her independence what rule would she prefer, Russian or Japanese?”

Those were the only two choices much of the Western world even familiar with Korea saw.  From the books written about Korea at this time, you can find some who had lived in Korea, mostly Christian missionaries, who argue passionately for a different choice for Korea, but no government on earth was willing to step in like that nor were most of the people familiar with geopolitics and slightly Korea as well.

“Please,” broke in Mr. Rhee in pleading tone,” please don’t compare the two.  Russia is looked upon by us as the avowed enemy of all the ancient races of the Far East.  If it came to resisting Russian sovereignty the so-called yellow peoples of Asia would stand together as a unit.”

That is somewhat odd.  Then, why weren’t they all lined up to support Japan against Russia who had just finally made its way fully into the Far East with its grand railroad and settlements???

“But it has been intimated that the Korean government had pro-Russian leanings,” was suggested.

“It is quite possible that the tainted Russian ‘diplomacy’ has got in its work among the advisers of the Emperor, but the common people in Korea are pronounced in their opposition to Russian and everything Russian.”

Mr. Yoon replied:  “We have not advised President Roosevelt of our coming, but we earnestly hope he will give us a hearing.  We look upon the United States as our oldest friend by virtue of the fact that she was the first nation to negotiate a treaty with Korea.  This treaty is still in force, and has been taken as a standard in other treaties made by Korea with Western nations.  We turn naturally to this country.  All that we ask is that the American people and its President give sympathetic understanding to the attitude of the awakened thought of Korea.”

That is find sentiment, but the problem is:  Japan had proven within about two decades that it was willing to fight wars to gain power over the Korean government – first against China and then against the large Russian Empire.

—So, it was going to take more than sympathetic understanding to get Japan to back off…

Could one or more of the European powers have gotten Japan to back off without resulting to actual war?

I think there is at least/at most as very slim possibility of that – given how much Japan did give up in the peace negotiations in 1905:

If I remember correctly, it gave up the Chinese port to the west of Korea that had been the trigger of the war in the first place when Russia was given control of it and militarized it.  Japan also gave up its territorial gains in Manchuria that Russia had occupied which also helped trigger the war.

But it seems obvious from the discussions among the powers that nobody thought/expect that Japan would give up territorial gains in Korea as well.  They viewed the Korean government, in part, as a cause of the headaches in the Far East.

If, instead, they had all banned together to demand Japan pull out of Korea too, would it have happened?

We’ll never know, because none of them felt a strong enough connection to Korea to warrant attempting to raise adequate pressure on Japan to leave.  (And as mentioned before, the big powers of Europe were scared to death by the chance of war amongst themselves – which did eventually break out about a decade latter leaving millions and millions of its own citizens dead and countless millions wounded and emotionally scared by the devastation of WWI.)

4 Aug 1905:  Korean See the President

It was not until late this forenoon that the two Korean envoys received the message from Sagamore Hill that President Roosevelt would receive them.  The hour fixed for the audience was 4:30 in the afternoon.  They had a letter of introduction from Secretary Taft.

That last part is intriguing considering how much Taft figures into the current idea in Korean society about how the United States “gave” Korea to Japan in “exchange” for the Philippines…

The two Koreans spent about half an hour in conversation with the President.  He read with interest the memorial they brought, but said it would be impossible for him to receive it officially unless it came to him through the usual diplomatic channels.”

“Your President received us very kindly,” said the Rev. Mr. Yoon as he returned from Sagamore Hill.  “He seemed very much interested in what we had to tell him about the sore troubles now besetting our people, and we are glad we saw him.”

13 Aug 1905:  Witte Brings Up Yellow Peril Plea

I won’t quote from it, but you should read the first couple of paragraphs of this long article just as a kick to see what apparently top level geopolitics is always like…

It makes me chuckle —- but as I note somewhat above, there were tremendous issues at play in this conference and in the resolution of the Russo-Japanese War — some of which were not really directly attributed to East Asia or the war but were part of European pressures — which did explode into WWI and the eventually WWII and almost into WWIII…

The next section of the article deals specifically with Korea:

When the conference is resumed tomorrow the first clause of the Japanese note will be taken up again and will probably be disposed of.  This clause is now said to be that relating to the recognition of Japan’s “preponderant influence” in Korea, involving her right to control the administration of the Hermit Kingdom, to use the littoral for strategic purposes, ac.  It is said that the position taken by M. Witte on this question yesterday was sensational and that it indicated Russia’s purpose to raise before the world the spectra of the “yellow peril.”  Russia asserts that Japan’s purpose is to get a foothold on the Asiatic continent from which to extend her influence and dominion.

M. Witte, it is said, declared that the words “preponderating influence” did not adequately describe what Japan’s true purpose-which, he contended, was to make a Japanese province of Korea.

Last Article Summing up the war.