CHAPTER XIII BEFORE Roosevelt was inaugurated and before he began therefore the term which was his own, he showed his power as diplomatist. War between Russia and Japan began on February 10, 1904, and had in him an attentive observer. In his own words he tells the story. "During the early part of the year 1905," he wrote in his Autobiography, "the strain on the civilized world caused by the Russo-Japanese War became serious. The losses of life and of treasure were frightful. . . . If the war went on I thought it on the whole likely that Russia would be driven" farther west. "But it was very far from certain. There is no certainty in such a war. Japan might have met defeat and defeat to her would have spelt overwhelming disaster; and even if she had continued to win, what she thus won would have been of no value to her, and the cost in blood and money would have left her drained white. I believed therefore that the time had come when it was greatly to the interest of both combatants to have peace, and when therefore it was possible to get both to agree to peace." During January he "privately and unofficially advised the Russian Government, and afterward repeated the advice indirectly through the French Government, to make peace." "The European powers want peace." But "it looks as if the foreign powers did not want me to act as peacemaker," he wrote to Secretary Hay, who was in Europe on account of his physical condition. 1 In the two chapters which Bishop has devoted to this subject one may well be amazed, from the confidential correspondence there disclosed, at Roosevelt's knowledge of European conditions and at his various characterizations of European powers and their rulers. Talleyrand said of Alexander Hamilton that he had divined Europe. We may well affirm that Theodore Roosevelt in the early part of the twentieth century had divined Europe. "The Kaiser," he wrote, "has had another fit and is now convinced that France is trying to engineer a congress of the nations in which Germany will be left out. What a jumpy creature he is anyhow!" He is a "fuss-cat." He desired that peace should be made between the two warring powers but he wanted to have a hand in it and was willing to accept other people's ideas if he could call them his own. The Kaiser, he wrote to Hay on April 2, "sincerely believes that the English are planning to attack him and smash his fleet, and perhaps join with France in a war to the death against him. As a matter of fact the English harbor no such intentions, but are themselves in a condition of panic terror lest the Kaiser secretly intend to form an alliance against them with France or Russia, or both, to destroy their fleet and blot out the British Empire from the map! It is as funny a case as I have ever seen of mutual distrust and fear bringing two people to the verge of war." In the same letter to Hay he gave his opinion of the Russian Emperor. "Did you ever know anything more pitiable than the condition of the Russian despotism? The Czar is a preposterous little creature as the absolute autocrat of 1 Bishop, i. 377. 150,000,000 people. He has been unable to make war and he is now unable to make peace." " 1 Roosevelt told the Japanese, "it was in my judgment wise to build a bridge of gold for the beaten enemy"; and they took his advice. On May 27 and 28, 1905, the Japanese annihilated the Russian fleet in the Sea of Japan. Roosevelt, who was an excellent judge of naval matters, thus characterized the engagement, "Neither Trafalgar nor the defeat of the Spanish Armada was as complete -as overwhelming." 2 With amazing wisdom, directly on the heels of this great naval victory, the Japanese made overtures in writing for peace. Roosevelt saw at once the Russian ambassador and "told him to say to the Czar that I believe the war absolutely hopeless for Russia." Now he had the help of the Kaiser. Roosevelt wrote to Senator Lodge on June 16: "The more I see of the Czar, the Kaiser and the Mikado, the better I am content with democracy, even if we have to include the American newspaper as one of its assets liability would be a better term. Russia is so corrupt, so treacherous and shifty, and so incompetent, that I am utterly unable to say whether or not it will make peace or break off the negotiations at any moment. Japan is, of course, entirely selfish, though with a veneer of courtesy and with infinitely more knowledge of what it wants and capacity to get it." He wrote in a letter later to Senator Lodge soon after the negotiations had begun: "The Russians are utterly insincere and treacherous; they have no conception of truth, no willingness to look facts in the face, no regard for others of any sort 1 Bishop, i. 378, 379. 2 Ibid., 351, 352. or kind, no knowledge of their own strength or weakness; and they are helplessly unable to meet emergencies." 1 As related by Bishop the tactfulness and patience of Roosevelt were unsurpassed. With the main point settled many questions of detail arose. There was naturally a conflict as to the place where the plenipotentiaries should meet, and after much debate Washington was fixed upon; then, after that was decided, Russia desired to change the place of meeting to The Hague. She now ran up against a stone wall. Roosevelt, disgusted with so much shilly-shallying, sent this word to George von L. Meyer, our ambassador in Russia, with instructions to impart it to the Foreign Minister and if necessary to the Czar himself. "I notified Japan that Washington would be the appointed place and so informed" the Russian ambassador. "I then gave the same announcement to the public. It is, of course, out of the question for me to consider any reversal of this action and I regard the incident as closed, so far as the place of meeting is concerned." "Meyer," wrote Roosevelt, "who was, with the exception of Henry White, the most useful diplomat in the American service, rendered literally invaluable aid by insisting on his seeing the Czar at critical periods of the transaction when it was no longer possible for me to act successfully through the representatives of the Czar, who were often at cross purposes with one another." Roosevelt said in a private letter to Senator Nelson of Minnesota, "I have led the horses to water, but Heaven seq. 1 Bishop, i. 394, 395. Bishop, i. 391. Autobiography, 587; Life of Meyer, M. A. de Wolfe Howe, 196 et only knows whether they will drink or start kicking one another beside the trough." 1 As the conference was to function during the summer, it was recognized that Washington would be too hot, therefore the place of meeting was changed to the Portsmouth Navy Yard near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The plenipotentiaries were all men of distinguished capacity. Russia was represented by Witte, Secretary of State, and Baron Rosen, Russian ambassador to the United States; Japan by Baron Komura, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and Takahira, Japanese minister in Washington. The reception of the envoys by Roosevelt showed him a thorough man of the world accustomed to do the proper thing at the proper time. They went separately on two war vessels from New York to Oyster Bay, the summer residence of the President, and were there received by him on board the United States steamer Mayflower. Nothing occurred to mar the meeting of the two hostile envoys. The President had a luncheon prepared but, as they all moved together into the saloon and as it was taken standing, no question of preference could be raised. At its end the President proposed this toast: "I drink to the welfare and prosperity of the sovereigns and peoples of the two great nations whose representatives have met one another on this ship. It is my most earnest hope and prayer, in the interest of not only these two great powers but of all mankind, that a just and lasting peace may speedily be concluded between them." The en 1 Bishop, i. 398. 'The Portsmouth Navy Yard was really in Kittery, Maine. |