Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/193

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LEXANDER III died in the belief that Russia was the greatest and strongest monarchy in the world. He spoke of Russia as the sixth continent, and the following anecdote is related of him. He was fishing in Finland, when Giers, the minister for foreign affairs, came to ask his decision upon some urgent matter, saying that Europe was waiting for an answer. Alexander rejoined. "When the Russian tsar is fishing, Europe can wait."

Before the outbreak of war with Japan the Russian army was ten times as numerous as that of her opponent, and the Russian fleet was nearly three times larger than the Japanese. The Siberian railway, begun under Alexander III for the protection of the far east, had been completed.

The Japanese war was entered upon with a light heart. Even before Kuropatkin's revelations, it was known that the motives of the clique which had done most to promote the war had been petty and sordid. Although Nicholas II had, when heir to the throne, visited Japan and Siberia, and although the official writer who described the tsarevitch's travels announced Russia's panasiatic program. governmental Russia at the time of the war knew nothing of the great question which was subsequently voiced in the catchword of "the yellow peril."

The reader may be referred to Prince Uhtomskii's account, of Nicholas' journey in eastern Asia during the years 1890 and 1891. He will find it recorded in black and white that panasiatism had become the national program of official and Orthodox Russia.

From Byzantine orthodoxy to panasiatism! According to the fantasies of Prince Uhtomskii, all the peoples of Asia would gladly accept the rule of the white tsar, for in Russian civilization, in the Russian national character, they would rediscover elements in inward correspondence with their own outlook on the universe. In the Asiatic races Uhtomskii discerned the mystical faith, the religious introspectiveness, which the slavophils regarded as essentially Russian and Orthodox qualities.