Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [231]
After only two meetings with the Tsar, Meyer was unable to convey anything more “Russian” than the fact that nobody knew what His Majesty was going to do. This was not enough for Roosevelt. Tsu Shima afflicted him with a new sense of urgency in saving Russia from double collapse, abroad and at home. Even the Japanese seemed to be in a hurry, dropping their usual circumlocutions when they asked, on 31 May, if the President would “directly and entirely of his own motion and initiative … invite the two belligerents to come together for the purpose of direct negotiation.” Roosevelt guessed that Tokyo’s resources were depleted, after fifteen months of all-out war.
At all costs, Nicholas II must be prevailed upon before his generals divined the same thing. Moving with a secrecy so extreme that only Edith and William Loeb knew of Japan’s request, Roosevelt summoned Cassini. He told him to convey to the Tsar his frank opinion that the war was “absolutely hopeless for Russia.” If His Majesty would agree to the idea of a peace conference, he thought he “would be able to get” the assent of Japan.
The move was pro forma, because he doubted that Cassini would have the courage to transmit such a message. His next step was to order Meyer to call on the Tsar “at once,” and express the same sentiments even more forcefully.
Count Lamsdorff, the Russian Foreign Minister, fussed when Meyer asked for an immediate audience with the Tsar. His Majesty was in the country, at Tsarsköe Selò; the royal family was about to celebrate Her Majesty’s birthday; His Majesty never received diplomats on such occasions; the imperial calendar for the next few days was full. Meyer then used the plainest possible language. The President of the United States had cabled him that morning with a proposition that only the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias could receive. And since Her Majesty’s birthday was not until tomorrow, 7 June, he, Meyer, was quite ready to take a train to Selò now.
Lamsdorff did not like being hustled, but at two o’clock the following afternoon, Meyer found himself alone with Nicholas II. After thanking the gravely courteous monarch for receiving him “on such a day,” he presented an oral paraphrase of Roosevelt’s cable.
This was a mistake. The Tsar, with no formal language to react to, merely said that he needed time to “ascertain what his people really wanted.” He continued to laud the uma of Mother Russia as if unaware that the Empire’s revolutionary movement now included representatives of every social class. Meyer listened patiently, then asked, “Will Your Majesty allow me to read my instruction?”
Now it was the Tsar’s turn to listen, sentence by sentence, to Roosevelt’s actual words:
It is the judgment of all outsiders, including all of Russia’s most ardent friends, that the present contest is absolutely hopeless and that to continue it would only result in the loss of all of Russia’s possessions in East Asia. To avert trouble, and as he fears, what is otherwise inevitable disaster, the President most earnestly advises that an effort be made by … representatives of the two Powers to discuss the whole peace question themselves, rather than for any outside Power to do more than endeavor to arrange the meeting—that is, to ask both Powers whether they will not consent to meet.
As Meyer read on, stressing Roosevelt’s principal points—complete secrecy, an unprompted invitation, no outside participants—the Tsar listened in silence. From somewhere on an upper floor came the piping sounds of the Romanoff children playing. Outside in the palace gardens, lilacs bloomed in the full beauty of Russian spring.
If Russia will consent to such a meeting the President will try to get Japan’s consent, acting simply on his own initiative and not saying that Russia has consented …
Meyer was able to read this sentence with sincerity because he did not know, any more than Nicholas did, that the initiative had in fact already come from Japan.
… and the President believes he will succeed. Russia’s answer to this request will be kept