761.93 Manchuria/159: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 5—3:30 p.m.]
730. In the course of a conversation at the Foreign Office today the Embassy was informed that they had no reliable information regarding the Russo-Japanese hostilities on the Manchukuo border. Both parties to the dispute were “such accomplished liars” and there was no satisfactory way to judge the relative merits of their stories. The Foreign Office felt that neither of the two Governments as distinct from their respective commanders in the area under dispute desired war and the British Government hoped and was inclined to believe that this dispute would be settled in one way or another like the previous border disturbances.
On the other hand the Chinese were not unnaturally equally anxious that the disturbances would lead to a further war and were doing whatever they could toward that end by spreading alarming reports and otherwise aggravating the situation.
[Page 471]The Foreign Office said that it seems there were no maps attached to the 1860 Russo-Chinese Treaty,23 the Russians contended that in the treaty of 1886 reaffirming the earlier one the maps attached showed Changkufeng in Russian territory. The Japanese, however, state that in 1908 Russia handed them copies of these maps which did not show the disputed hill in Russian territory. The Japanese ask therefore why in 1938 Russia should submit maps purporting to be those of the 1886 treaty which do not conform to the maps given to the Japanese 30 years ago.
The Foreign Office said that they did not know to whom to attribute this clash. One could accept any one of a number of interpretations but there were too many unknown factors to weigh the interpretations with any accuracy. Possibly Russia was gambling that Japan would not dare risk a real fight and this disturbance would prevent Japan from sending troops from Manchuria to the Chinese battle areas. By the same token the Foreign Office said that Japan might be gambling that Russia would not risk a real war.
The Times in a leading editorial on the subject says: “All previous similar clashes have petered out in a drizzle of diplomatic protests, rumors of troop movements and half-hearted proposals for a boundary commission”, and that the odds are against the Changkufeng affair departing very far from this precedent. It thinks it is understandable that the desire for a settlement should be more apparent in Japan than in Russia. Other puzzling features of the affair are that considering the strategic importance of the hill it escaped having its ownership established long ago. The Times says Russia may have wished to make a diversion in the north to relieve the pressure on the Chinese but this explanation is weakened by two considerations: (1) The Japanese have for some weeks past been reinforcing on the frontier, and (2) that the self-contained expedition now advancing on Hankow would hardly be much affected by a flurry in the north. A likely culprit or hero is a military commander on the spot who took the initiative in search of glory. Two years ago it would have been safe to assume that he was a Japanese but today it was an even chance. But the Times believes a study of the events leading to the clash suggests that the Japanese took the initiative and that the ardor of the Russians in taking up the challenge may well have been enhanced by the conviction that to die in battle is better than to be shot against a wall. The article concludes that everything considered the Japanese militarists may emerge from this scrape in a slightly chastened frame of mind.
- Signed at Peking, November 2/14, 1860, British and Foreign State Papers, vol. liii, p. 970.↩