Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [241]
Still less could he guess that Witte and Rosen felt “lost,” too, torn diplomatically between personal awareness that Russia was beaten in the war, and Nicholas II’s insistence that she was not. Their country was in the first throes of a slow revolution that they knew to be unstoppable. At best, the revolution could be postponed if they could negotiate a foreign peace that would enable the Tsar’s ministers to deal undistractedly with the war developing in streets and basements back home. Failure at Portsmouth would mean a contraction of Russia’s borders, even as her social structure rotted. Just afew days ago, Sakhalin Island had been occupied by Japanese forces. That made one of the most explicit of their instructions—not under any circumstances to give up Sakhalin—already redundant, and enhanced their sense of doom.
Paradoxically, the sense persuaded them that they were “one man with one mind, one will and one heart beating for our country.” To save Russia, or at least preserve their Russia for another decade or two, they faced a task that transcended even the dictates of the Tsar. Fatalism—and Baron Rosen’s suspicion that it had been Japan, not Theodore Roosevelt, that had pressed for this conference—made them formidable.
Witte was enormous enough, with his double-jointed, oncoming gait, to convey a sense of careless power. His gaze was not so much to be returned as endured, and he spoke bad French with torrential rapidity. Roosevelt could not help being impressed. They lunched and talked for two and a half hours, the ambassador (a polished and vapid presence) translating. “We are not conquered,” Witte said, “and can therefore accept no conditions which are not suitable to our position. Consequently, first of all, we shall not agree to pay any indemnity.”
This was not a promising beginning. However, Witte handed over a letter from Nicholas II that at least allowed for some concessions, such as recognition of modified rights for Japan in Korea, and transfer of the Liaotung Peninsula, providing China agreed. Russia’s “interior condition,” Witte allowed, was serious, but “not such as it is thought to be abroad.” Her plenipotentiaries were willing to negotiate what she had lost so far, in a fair fight, as long as the Japanese did not gamble on more of the same. If they did, “We shall carry on a defensive war to the last extremity, and we shall see who will hold out the longest.”
Witte watched Roosevelt closely as he responded. He could see that the President, like most Americans, was pro-Japanese, and confident that Baron Komura would prevail at Portsmouth. Yet some doubts gradually began to show—Roosevelt was not a good concealer—along with some embarrassment at having misjudged the validity and force of Russian feelings.
Roosevelt said that he was convinced that peace was in the interest of both belligerents. Therefore, at the last resort, Russia should agree to pay an indemnity. He had personally tried to get Japan to moderate her demands, but the choice appeared to be war or money.
The plenipotentiaries went back to New York even more pessimistic than they had been in the morning. “It was clear that the President has very little hope of a peace treaty,” Witte cabled Count Lamsdorff, “and he therefore expresses the opinion that it is necessary in any case to arrange matters in such a manner that, in the future, when either of the parties wishes it, it will be possible to begin negotiations anew without difficulty.”
THE FUNDAMENTAL EQUIVALENCE, yet fighting difference, between Tweedledum and Tweedledee had occurred to Roosevelt in previous apparently irreconcilable disputes. By the time the sun rose over Long Island Sound the next morning, he knew that the powers he was about to bring together were both financially drained and split internally, for all their shows of solidarity, by “war” and “peace” factions. So much for twinship. But, as they would soon discover at Portsmouth, a monstrous crow was bearing down