WI: US doesn't mediate the Russo-Japanese War treaty

Britain can use its bank leverage to force Japan. It would not be a elegant as with the US, and Japan will resent the act even more than with the US, but at the end the risk of losing credit and investment capitol, or even the current loan structure would count for a lot. There is also the remaining naval techincal support from Britain which could be cut off.

The Japanese leaders might hate this situation, but Japan was in no shape for a sustained war. Its grand strategy had been for a quick decisive victory. Russia was in only a slightly better position and could be arm twisted into a armistice.

Russia won't accept British mediation. They are in a treaty with Japan, so they aren't a neutral.
 

FDW

Banned
Russia won't accept British mediation. They are in a treaty with Japan, so they aren't a neutral.

Like I said before. Italy could be a substitute. It's just big enough to be accepted as a power while also being a degree removed from the conflict itself, giving it the necessary prestige and the appearance of neutrality.
 
Like I said before. Italy could be a substitute. It's just big enough to be accepted as a power while also being a degree removed from the conflict itself, giving it the necessary prestige and the appearance of neutrality.

Yes, I think Italy works. Treaty of Naples it is, then.
 

Flubber

Banned
There's Italy.


Which has little or no international standing at the time. At the Algeciras Conference of 1906, Italy basically had to beg an invite despite being a nominal ally of Germany while the US had been invited as an official observer from the first.

Getting back to the Treaty of Portsmouth, both nations were in desperate straits. While Russia was facing a slow motion revolution, Japan was essentially bankrupt, her economy imploding, and her reserves exhausted. Sergei Witte understood this and he played a very tight game at the conference. He bet, correctly, that Japan would have to blink first and presented Japan with a series of take it or leave it decisions.

The US didn't talk Japan into accepting one offer or another and the US didn't talk Russia into making one offer or another. The decisions made by both parties were almost entirely determined by domestic political issues. Japan chose de jure recognition of her de facto control of southern Sakhalin over an indemnity which Witte had deliberately kept low. When the terms of the treaty were published in Japan, it was the lack of an indemnity and economic boost it would have created that sparked condemnation and riots and not the "loss" of northern Sakhalin.

Finally, the suggestion that gaining Sakhalin would somehow damping or short circuit Japanese militarism is asinine. Japan's militarists had a long list of sleights, snubs, and provocations, both real and imagined, of which the "failure" to gain the whole of Sakhalin is just one small entry. The Unequal Treaties, the Three Power Intervention, US immigration policies, Western support of China, and others were already sources of humiliation while Western reaction to the 21 Demands, Versailles, the Washington Naval Treaty, and others will be sources of humiliation later.

Sakhalin is just a drop in a bucket already filled.
 

Flubber

Banned
Yes, I think Italy works.

No, it doesn't. Italy is a member of the Triple Alliance, an alliance whose premier member was among the Three Powers Intervention.

The US, on the other hand, is preferable to Japan because the secret Taft-Katsura negotiations lead Japan to believe that the US will be sympathetic to her.
 
Russia won't accept British mediation. They are in a treaty with Japan, so they aren't a neutral.

Not like they can be picky with technicalities here.

Getting back to the Treaty of Portsmouth, both nations were in desperate straits. While Russia was facing a slow motion revolution, Japan was essentially bankrupt, her economy imploding, and her reserves exhausted. Sergei Witte understood this and he played a very tight game at the conference. He bet, correctly, that Japan would have to blink first and presented Japan with a series of take it or leave it decisions.

It is not as if the Brits can do a whole lot with their treaty. The Russian diplomats in this case were not stupid & understood perfectly well the Japanese could not afford to overreach.
 
Not like they can be picky with technicalities here.
That's not a "technicality", that's how peace conferences work. Neither side is going to accept the mediation of an unfriendly power. This isn't a dictated peace, so either they find a mutually acceptable mediator, or they meet directly.
 
Despite their later hostilities and the Eastern Question, Austria-Hungary wasn't perceived as truly hostile to Russia at this point, and could offer good services if asked to do so.
 

katchen

Banned
The war could drag on for another few months, just long enough to tie up the troops the Tsar needs to put down the 1905 Revolution. As a result, he fails to do so and is deposed. That opens up a world of possibilities even as it horrifies the rest of the Poers, Japan included.
 
The war could drag on for another few months, just long enough to tie up the troops the Tsar needs to put down the 1905 Revolution. As a result, he fails to do so and is deposed. That opens up a world of possibilities even as it horrifies the rest of the Poers, Japan included.
Except the Japanese are likely going to be dealing with their own internal problems, with a financial collapse. They aren't likely going to be able to worry about Russia at that point, no?
 
Except the Japanese are likely going to be dealing with their own internal problems, with a financial collapse. They aren't likely going to be able to worry about Russia at that point, no?
That's the reason I think there will be a peace, even with no US mediation. Both powers NEED the war to end now.
 

Flubber

Banned
The war could drag on for another few months, just long enough to tie up the troops the Tsar needs to put down the 1905 Revolution.


Impossible. Russia had more troops stationed in Poland alone than it used in the Far East during the war.
 

Cook

Banned
The war could drag on for another few months, just long enough to tie up the troops the Tsar needs to put down the 1905 Revolution. As a result, he fails to do so and is deposed.
That’s unlikely. The revolutionaries of 1905 for the most part didn’t want an end to the monarchy; they wanted representative government under the monarchy, as the British had. The majority of them were liberals, not Marxists.
 
Wouldn't Germany be a neutral power in this case? Britain had a treaty with Japan and France with Russia.

In any case gaining Sakhalin would seemingly curb Japanese militarism....perhaps they would continue being Britain's partner of choice in the region?
 

Cook

Banned
Wouldn't Germany be a neutral power in this case?
Germany would indeed be neutral, but still completely unacceptable. No-one in their right mind would consider having Kaiser Wilhelm II play host to negotiations; the intention is to resolve a war, not start several more.
 
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