PORTSMOUTH, TREATY OF

Signed September 5 (August 23 O.S.), 1905, in Portsmouth, Maine, this treaty terminated the Russo-Japanese war. U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt had offered to mediate between the warring parties, fearing that continued fighting would destabilize the Far East and jeopardize U.S. commercial interests in China. (Roosevelt went on to win the Nobel Prize for Peace for his efforts.)

Russia recognized Japan's interests in Korea, and ceded its lease over the Liaotung Peninsula to Japan, as well as the southern half of Sakhalin island and control of the Southern Manchurian railroad to Chang-chun. Russia also pledged that Manchuria would remain a part of China.

The treaty ended any Russian hope of establishing protectorates over Manchuria and Korea. In addition, it represented the first defeat of a European Great Power by an Asian state during the modern age.

The fall of Port Arthur, the defeat of the Russian Army at Mukden, the destruction of the Russian Baltic Fleet at Tsushima, and the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution convinced the government of Tsar Nicholas II that the war had to end. Count Sergei Witte was sent as plenipotentiary with orders to secure the best possible deal for Russia. A cunning negotiator, Witte skillfully used the U.S. press to swing international opinion against Japan. He also realized that Japan lacked the resources to follow up on its initial military victories and that he could afford to prolong the talks. In the end, Japan dropped its demands for a sizable indemnity and the complete evisceration of Russia's position in the Far East. Witte's diplomacy helped to compensate for Russia's military weakness.

Nevertheless, the Treaty of Portsmouth was perceived as a defeat for Russia and diminished its international stature, notably in the 1908 Bosnia crisis. Josef Stalin was to justify the Soviet entry into the war against Japan in 1945 in part on the grounds of reversing the 1905 "defeat."

See also: russo-japanese war; witte, sergei yulievich

bibliography

Fuller, William C., Jr. (1992). Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600–1914. New York: Free Press.

Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. (1984). A History of Russia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nikolas Gvosdev