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Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I analyse the gathering of intelligence from the perspective of its actors in preparation for the Russo-Japanese War. Army intelligence officers and non-institutional agents took part in this effort. I explain their motives, their methods, and their impact on Japanese foreign policy.

Paper long abstract:

The Russo-Japanese War has been seen as one of the first modern conflicts between imperial powers. That modernity in term of modern weaponry. But it was also a war of information. Even before the beginning of the Meiji period, Russia was considered by japanese leaders as a potential threat to Japan's interests and security. For decades, Japanese statesmen, citizens and Army Staff have felt the necessity of gathering information on the state of affairs in Russia.

If the intelligence capacities of the Army Ministry in Asia had been centred on China, in August 1879 change in the reform of the Army General Staff (1878) put a greater emphasis on Russia. The Japanese victory during the Sino-Japanese War and the subsequent Triple intervention (1895) heightened the necessity of intelligence gathering in Russia. Kawakami Sōroku, Army Vice Chief of Staff from 1885, who became Chief of Staff in 1898, was one of its forebears, along with Fukushima Yasumasa, Army Chief of the General Staff Second Bureau. They used Army resources to prepare Japan to face Russia by sending intelligence officers there.

The Japanese army wasn't the only one to have an interest in Russia, the so-called Tairiku Rōnin which I have translated as "non-institutional agents of influence", also turned their gaze to Russia. Uchida Ryōhei, the founder of the Kokuryūkai decided to study Russian language as soon as 1892. In 1895 he decided to go to Vladivostok where he eventually crossed Siberia in 1897. His objectives were to gather military intelligence about Russia. His motives were not only to provide meaningful documents to the Army, but also to promote his political agenda : urge the Japanese government to take action against Russia.

At the conjunction of social history, military history, and political history, this paper discusses intelligence gathering and its multiple facets. In this paper, I analyse the diversity of actors, who took part in intelligence gathering activities in Russia, in the period leading to the war. Doing so, I address the role of the Army General Staff and the non-institutional agents' intelligence gathering in the making of Japanese foreign policy against Russia.