Russian-Japanese War 1904-1905 showed not only that the Russian government was absolutely unprepared to protect its interests in the Far East, but also how seriously Japan took the solution of its continental problems …
East is a delicate matter
Analyzing the sad results of this war for Russia, in September 1905 the New York Times wrote: “What seemed insignificant in the eyes of the West was clearly recognized and deeply analyzed by the statesmen in Tokyo. Towards the end of the war with China, they realized that Russian influence made it impossible for Japan to determine the course of events on the continent, which belonged to it by right of the winner. While the eyes of the West were fogged with pleasure from the Tsar's proposals in the field of international arbitration and disarmament, the fact that the Siberian Army Corps had undergone a reorganization and was located along the Amur River and that Russian agents were operating in China did not hide from the keen eyes of the East.
Undoubtedly, there were plenty of Russian agents on the territory of Manchuria, Korea and China. But where they, for obvious reasons, were not there, it was directly in Japan. Language, culture, and appearance prevented the penetration of Russian agents into the Land of the Rising Sun. Russia, on the other hand, is a multinational country and you will hardly surprise anyone with oriental features. Taking advantage of this, Japanese spies, long before the outbreak of hostilities, shamelessly worked in the very heart of the Russian Empire.
For example, in September 1904, the Russian secret police arrested two Japanese serving in commercial firms in St. Petersburg. They lived in Russia for many years, but both turned out to be major officers in the Japanese fleet. These people perfectly got used to Russian society, made many acquaintances and contacts in trade circles, and through them came into contact with the personnel of the Russian fleet. One of these spies, in order to strengthen his position, even married a Russian girl, converted to Orthodoxy and conscientiously performed all religious rites.
To obtain valuable information of a military nature, sneaky agents did not have to rotate in the highest echelons of the Russian command. The story "Staff-Captain Rybnikov", written in 1905 by A. Kuprin, perfectly illustrates the work of a professional Japanese intelligence officer: and not particularly sober, dressed in a general army uniform with an all-red collar - a real type of hospital, military clerk or quartermaster rat. He also appeared several times to the main headquarters, to the committee for the wounded, to police stations, to the commandant's office, to the administration of the Cossack troops and to dozens of other offices and offices.
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There, the Japanese bit by bit collected the most valuable information about the movement of Russian troops and immediately, by means of the telegraph, conveyed it to his superiors.
The main thing is the system
If such outrages were happening in the capital, then what happened directly in the theater of operations? From Port Arthur to the Siberian border, Japanese intelligence officers frankly ruled here.
Port Arthur itself, long before the war, was swarming with Japanese spies posing as either Chinese or Manchus. Later, the Chinese themselves confirmed that, for example, every tenth coolie in Port Arthur was a disguised Japanese. Almost all the porters of the Liaoshan Railway were also Japanese agents.
Where the Japanese could not penetrate on their own, there they recruited agents among the Chinese. According to post-war investigations, almost all the servants of the regiments of the Port Arthur garrison, namely: 1st Tomsk, 25th and 26th Siberian rifle regiments, were recruited by the Japanese.
Most eagerly, the Japanese - including senior intelligence officers - did the most difficult jobs associated with the construction of Russian fortifications. The location of power stations and main transmission lines, telegraph communications, the installation of guns and searchlights between fortified heights, plans for minefields blocking access to the port - all this became known to the Japanese command through inconspicuous intelligence agents waving shovels around the clock.
The system of Japanese military espionage was distinguished by its pedantry and precise organization. Bureaus were set up along the entire front, led by intelligence officers who controlled the entire service in the areas assigned to them. The officers paid salaries to the agents, received messages and prepared summaries for the higher authorities. All this paid off with interest. For example, Field Marshal Oyama's headquarters knew about the upcoming raid of the Mishchenko cavalry corps on Yingkou and the Japanese railway communications a few days before the plan was received to the units that were to implement it.
Caches in the teeth
In the process of actually transmitting the collected information by the spies, a truly oriental cunning manifested itself. Chinese agents, if they could not memorize the information they had obtained, would plait thin sheets of paper inscribed with hieroglyphs in their braids. Some spies had several removable, hollow gold teeth - a kind of portable "mailboxes".
Rafael de Nogales, a Venezuelan adventurer, briefly served as an agent for Japanese intelligence and worked in Port Arthur with a Chinese recruited by the Japanese named Wau-Lin.
This spy had several hollow gold teeth. “Every night,” Nogales recalled, “Lip would draw, with a candle, on the dirty floor of our room, a plan of the Russian trenches he had observed during the day. Then he used a magnifying glass to draw our notes and drawings onto a tiny piece of extremely thin paper, about one-third thick of a cigarette paper. After reading and approving what I wrote down, Lin would fold the piece of paper, take out of his mouth one of his three or four gold teeth, put a ball in there, seal the tooth with a piece of wax and insert it into place."
There were other tricks as well. Sometimes a Japanese spy, disguised as a traveling merchant, carried in his basket goods of different colors - red, white, black, and others. The colors could conditionally indicate any military formations, and the type of product itself could correspond to the type of weapon. For example, pipe tobacco could mean heavy batteries, and cigarettes could mean field guns. Sometimes the spy-peddler "traded" completely innocent objects, on which absolutely neutral hieroglyphs were clearly read. But as soon as these objects were arranged in one row, a clear and detailed report was obtained.
Well-established military espionage on the part of Japan and the rather weak opposition to it by the Russian counterintelligence in the aggregate were, if not the main, but a significant reason for the defeat of the Russian army in the Russo-Japanese war of 1094-1905.
Konstantin Fedorov