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JAPAN ACCEPTS AMERICAN PROPOSAL

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The original of this agreement has been signed by the Presidium of the Murman Regional Council and by the representatives of the abovenamed Powers.

5. DECISIONS RESPECTING JOINT ACTION IN SIBERIA

a. DECLARATION OF IMPERIAL Japanese Government, August 2, 1918 The Japanese Government, actuated by sentiments of sincere friendship toward the Russian people, have always entertained the most sanguine hopes of the speedy re-establishment of order in Russia and of the healthy, untrammelled development of her national life. Abundant proof, however, is now afforded to show that the central European empires, taking advantage of the chaotic and defenseless condition in which Russia has momentarily been placed, are consolidating their hold on that country, and are steadily extending their activities to the Russian Far Eastern possessions.

They have persistently interfered with the passage of the CzechoSlovak troops through Siberia. In the forces now opposing these valiant troops, German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners are freely enlisted, and they practically assume the position of command. The Czecho-Slovak troops, aspiring to secure a free and independent existence for their race, and loyally espousing the common cause of the Allies, justly command every sympathy and consideration from the co-belligerents, to whom their destiny is a matter of deep and abiding concern.

In the presence of the danger to which the Czecho-Slovak troops are actually exposed in Siberia at the hands of the Germans and AustroHungarians, the Allies have naturally felt themselves unable to view with indifference the untoward course of events, and a certain number of their troops have already been ordered to proceed to Vladivostok.

The Government of the United States, equally sensible to the gravity of the situation, recently approached the Japanese Government with proposals for the early dispatch of troops to relieve the pressure weighing upon the Czecho-Slovak forces. The Japanese Government, being anxious to fall in with the desire of the American Government, have decided to proceed at once to make disposition of suitable forces for the proposed mission. A certain number of these troops will be sent forthwith to Vladivostok.

In adopting this course, the Japanese Government remain constant in their desire to promote relations of enduring friendship, and they reaffirm their avowed policy of respecting the territorial integrity of Russia, and

of abstaining from all interference in her internal politics. They further declare that upon the realization of the objects here indicated they will immediately withdraw all Japanese troops from the Russian territories, and will leave wholly unimpaired the sovereignty of Russia in all its phases, whether political or military.

b. ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE, August 4, 1918 1

In the judgment of the Government of the United States-a judgment arrived at after repeated and very searching considerations of the whole situation-military intervention in Russia would be more likely to add to the present sad confusion there than to cure it, and would injure Russia, rather than help her out of her distresses.

Such military intervention as has been most frequently proposed, even supposing it to be efficacious in its immediate object of delivering an attack upon Germany from the east, would, in its judgment be more likely to turn out to be merely a method of making use of Russia than to be a method of serving her. Her people, if they profited by it at all, could not profit by it in time to deliver them from their present desperate difficulties, and their substance would meantime be used to maintain foreign armies, not to reconstitute their own or to feed their own men, women and children. We are bending all our energies now to the purpose, the resolute and confident purpose, of winning on the western front, and it would, in the judgment of the Government of the United States, be most unwise to divide or dissipate our forces.

As the Government of the United States sees the present circumstances, therefore, military action is admissible in Russia now only to render such protection and help as is possible to the Czecho-Slovaks against the armed Austrian and German prisoners who are attacking them, and to steady any efforts at self-government or self-defense in which the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance. Whether from Vladivostok or from Murmansk and Archangel, the only present object for which American troops will be employed will be to guard military stores which may subsequently be needed by Russian forces and to render such aid as may be acceptable to the Russians in the organization of their own self-defense.

With such objects in view, the Government of the United States is now co-operating with the Governments of France and Great Britain in the neighborhood of Murmansk and Archangel. The United States and

1 Official Bulletin, August 4, 1918.

NO INTERVENTION IN LOCAL AFFAIRS

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Japan are the only powers which are just now in a position to act in Siberia in sufficient force to accomplish even such modest objects as those that have been outlined. The Government of the United States has, therefore, proposed to the Government of Japan that each of the two Governments send a force of a few thousand men to Vladivostok, with the purpose of co-operating as a single force in the occupation of Vladivostok and in safeguarding, so far as it may, the country to the rear of the westward-moving Czecho-Slovaks; and the Japanese Government has consented.

In taking this action, the Government of the United States wishes to announce to the people of Russia in the most public and solemn manner that it contemplates no interference with the political sovereignty of Russia, no intervention in her internal affairs-not even in the local affairs of the limited areas which her military force may be obliged to occupy and no impairment of her territorial integrity, either now or hereafter, but that what we are about to do has as its single and only object the rendering of such aid as shall be acceptable to the Russian people themselves in their endeavors to regain control of their own affairs, their own territory and their own destiny. The Japanese Government, it is understood, will issue a similar assurance.

These plans and purposes of the Government of the United States have been communicated to the Governments of Great Britain, France and Italy, and those Governments have advised the Department of State that they assent to them in principle. No conclusion that the Government of the United States has arrived at in this important matter is intended, however, as an effort to restrict the actions or interfere with the independent judgment of the Governments with which we are now associated in the war.

It is also the hope and purpose of the Government of the United States to take advantage of the earliest opportunity to send to Siberia a commission of merchants, agricultural experts, labor advisers, Red Cross representatives and agents of the Young Men's Christian Association accustomed to organizing the best methods of spreading useful information and rendering educational help of a modest kind in order in some systematic way to relieve the immediate economic necessities of the people there in every way for which an opportunity may open. The execution of this plan will follow and will not be permitted to embarrass the military assistance rendered to the Czecho-Slovaks.

It is the hope and expectation of the Government of the United States that the Governments with which it is associated will, wherever necessary

or possible, lend their active aid in the execution of these military and economic plans.

6. INTERNATIONAL COUNCILS IN RUSSIA

In order to co-ordinate the efforts of the Allies and the United States in Russia, an American official dispatch from France on August 22, 1918, announced the decision to create two international councils, one at Archangel, including the Entente ambassadors under the presidency of American Ambassador Francis, and the other at Vladivostok, to be composed of five high officials.

On the Vladivostok council Great Britain is represented by Sir Charles Norton Edgecumbe Eliot; France by Eugène Regnault, former ambassador to Japan; and Japan by Mr. Matsudaira. An American representative had not been named, but Mr. Caldwell, the American consul, was serving.

Ambassador Francis presides over the work of the Archangel commission as dean of the diplomatic corps there.

These councils, it is understood, act as diplomatic representatives in dealing with the independent Russian Government in Siberia and on the Murman coast and pave the way for the great economic and industrial commissions organizing to aid in the rehabilitation of Russia. The councils relieve the military leaders operating from Vladivostok and in the Archangel territory of all nonmilitary work. Their first task was to aid in the re-establishment of civil government in regions entirely disorganized as a result of Bolshevism.

JAPAN, AMERICA AND THE

GREAT WAR.

BY PAYSON JACKSON TREAT,

Professor of history, Leland Stanford Junior University.

I. WHY JAPAN ENTERED THE GREAT WAR

On August 23, 1914, Japan declared war upon Germany. She was thus the fourth of the Allies to enter the Great War, and the first power outside of Europe. Four days later AustriaHungary declared war on her. Japan later was one of the five powers to adhere to the pact of London, joining with Great Britain, France, Russia and Italy in a declaration not to make a separate peace. Thus Japan, from the early days of the war, was one of the Allies in the strictest sense of the term.

The reason for Japan's action is not hard to find. Primarily it was based upon a fine sense of honor and the readiness in the fullest sense to meet the obligations of a treaty. In this respect the contrast between the conduct of Germany and of Japan is sharply defined from the beginning. But as human actions are rarely the result of single factors, so there were other underlying motives, in which the conduct of Germany in the Far East and the development of Japan's Asiatic policy were involved.

The Anglo-Japanese alliance was first formulated in 1902.2 It was the direct result of the Far Eastern policy of Russia, which threatened the interests of both powers in North China and Korea. During the Boxer uprising in 1900 and the subsequent negotiations, British and Japanese military and diplomatic representatives worked in harmony, and thus a good understanding paved the way for a formal alliance. This was a surprising step for Great Britain to take. It was the first alliance entered into

2

For texts of the ultimatum and rescript declaring war see Appendix I, p. 443.

The text of the alliance and the history of its origin are given in The Background of the War, 202-204, 242–246 (A League of Nations, I, No. 4).

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