2 - Poland and the crisis of 1900–7

Summary

The Polish Question did not exist in 1900, but the Great Powers were gradually edging themselves towards an international crisis which would bring it into existence along with other seemingly dormant problems even older than the problem of Poland. Already in 1891 the beginning of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway gave notice that tsarist Russia intended within the foreseeable future to become in fact as well as in theory a great power in the Pacific and no longer acquiesce in a position of inferiority. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5 resulted from Japan's determination to anticipate the advance of Russia's real power in the Far East. The German initiative which led to the modification of the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 was a precursor of an interest which became actual in 1897 with the German seizure of Kiaochow. The tentative commitment of tsarist Russia to a forward foreign policy by the seizure of Port Arthur in 1897 and the occupation of Manchuria in October 1900 were followed by a long debate upon the real aims of Russian policy. The Weltpolitik pursued by imperial Germany was hardly likely to bring in its train economic and political disasters, but in Russia the Ministry of Internal Affairs was conscious that a policy which put pressure upon the population of the European provinces might cause political upsets likely to call into question the entire system of autocratic government, while the Ministry of Finance knew well that Russia was too weak to sustain an ambitious programme of expansion so far away from the developed areas.