In common with most other Russian papers in Europe and Siberia, the Novi Krai began at this time to get very anxious about the future of the White Race owing to the Yellow Peril, and came to the conclusion that it would be necessary to oppose a pan- European alliance to the pan-Asiatic alliance which Japan was forming. For a short sime I was impressed by this cry, for I thought it possible that the Russians had an instinctive dread of again coming under the heel of the Yellow conqueror, who had trampled on them for centuries; but I finally came to the conclusion that all their fears of the Yellow races over-running Europe were simulated.
The English edition of the Novi Krai was to come out on January 1, but, when questioned about it, Alexeieff, whose nerves were at this time beginning to give way under the strain of the negotiations with Japan, exclaimed with a dramatic gesture: " How can you expect me to think about a newspaper at such a time as this, when the clouds are becoming blacker and blacker?"
Early in January, the Novi Krai, which was now a daily paper, came out with a very violent utterance on the Manchurian question.
' 'Manchuria," it said, "is henceforth Russian and will never be surrendered. At present the Russo- Japanese negotiations deal only with Korea, and these negotiations will terminate most favourably for Russia if she keeps a powerful fleet at Port Arthur, and 300,000 bayonets in Manchuria. Russia is not afraid of war but she does not want it, and is therefore trying to make it impossible."
The Japanese Foreign Office seems to have called the attention of the Russians to this statement in the Novi Krai, for that paper now placed in a prominent position on its front page a standing notice to the effect that it was not semi-official.
On January 6, a month before diplomatic relations were broken off by Japan, the Russian warships, then lying in the inner harbour, began to put on their warpaint, and, singularly enough, quite a number of young naval officers, nearly all of them belonging to the Petropavlovsk, began about the same time to get married!
My first glance as soon as I left my house every morning was now directed towards these ominous black battleships as they lay in the inner harbour, for I felt that as soon as they went to sea, it was war. My excitement was great therefore when on the morning of January 7 I found that four warships were missing. At the Novi Krai office they told me that these four had gone outside with sealed orders, but that their object was probably to reinforce the Russian cruisers already at sea, by which I suppose the Vladivostock and Chemulpo vessels were meant, and in combination with these to attack a Japanese squadron of four ironclads that were approaching the Korean coast.
Three days after, we heard that the Vladivostock warships started to come south, but that, after having gone a certain distance, they had returned to port.
The object of these mysterious movements was to bring about a junction of the Vladivostock and Port Arthur squadrons; but the Russians saw that, sooner than allow this junction to take place, the Japanese would make war at once, and they therefore fell back on their old policy of waiting.
On January 12 we got a wire saying that the elder statesmen of Japan had been assembled by the Mikado, and, while we were wondering what this might mean, the Japanese shopkeepers in Port Arthur and Dalny began with one accord to sell out. Great crowds of Russians, especially officers' wives, attended these sales, and I took advantage of the opportunity to buy some expensive furniture for my room in Novi Gorod. The Japanese shopkeepers indignantly denied that anybody had told them to clear out. They said that they were going away of their own accord, because they were afraid that there would be war. As is generally the case in a clearance sale, they all got very good prices for their goods.
Then arose a crop of rumours, in the midst of which came, silently, one disquieting fact. The sailing of all the Nippon Yusen Kaisha steamers had been cancelled; the lines to America, Australia, Bombay and Europe had been suspended; and eighty fine passenger steamers were now at the disposal of the Japanese Government. From this date the Japanese flag was seen no more in Port Arthur until it came to stay.
The Russians, who had up to this believed that the Japanese were only " bluffing," now began to look serious, for on January 18 a meeting of generals was held to make arrangements for mobilisation.