became clear to
impartial observers that Russia could accomplish nothing further at sea,
and Japan could accomplish nothing further on land. The Russian
Government was anxious to continue the war, having gradually accumulated
men and stores in Manchuria, and greatly improved the working of the
Siberian railway. The Japanese Government, on the contrary, knew that it
had already achieved all the success it could hope for, and that it
would be extremely difficult to raise the loans required for a
prolongation of the war. Under these circumstances, Japan appealed
secretly to President Roosevelt requesting his good offices for the
restoration of peace. President Roosevelt therefore issued invitations
to both belligerents to a peace conference. The Russian Government,
faced by a strong peace party and incipient revolution, dared not refuse
the invitation, especially in view of the fact that the sympathies of
neutrals were on the whole with Japan. Japan, being anxious for peace,
led Russia to suppose that Japan's demands would be so excessive as to
alienate the sympathy of the world and afford a complete answer to the
peace party in Russia. In particular, the Japanese gave out that they
would absolutely insist upon an indemnity. The Government had in fact
resolved, from the first, not to insist on an indemnity, but this was
known to very few people in Japan, and to no one outside Japan. The
Russians, believing that the Japanese would not give way about the
indemnity, showed themselves generous as regards all other Japanese
demands. To their horror and consternation, when they had already packed
up and were just ready to break up the conference, the Japanese
announced (as they had from the first intended to do) that they accepted
the Russian concessions and would waive the claim to an indemnity. Thus
the Russian Government and the Japanese people were alike furious,
because they had been tricked--the former in the belief that it could
yield everything except the indemnity without bringing peace, the latter
in the belief that the Government would never give way about the
indemnity. In Russia there was revolution; in Japan there were riots,
furious diatribes in the Press, and a change of Government--of the
nominal Government, that is to say, for the Genro continued to be the
real power throughout. In this case, there is no doubt that the decision
of the Genro to make peace was the right one from every point of view;
there is also