МОНГОЛ ХЯТАДААС САЛАН ТУСГААРЛАСАН НЬ

1911 оны Монголын үндэсний хувьсгалын дараахан Английн The Daily Telegraph сонины Оросыг хариуцсан сурвалжлагч Emile Joseph Dillon-ы Contemporary Review сэтгүүлийн 1912 оны 4 сарын дугаарч бичиж нийтлүүлж байсан "МОНГОЛ ХЯТАДААС САЛАН ТУСГААРЛАСАН НЬ" өгүүллийг төрийн соёрхолт түүхч О.Батсайхан саяхан монгол, англи, орос хэлээр эмхэтгэн хэвлэсний англи эхийг нь блогтоо оруулж байна. Түүх сонирхон судалдаг хүмүүст сэтгүүлчийн анхлан бичсэн эх хэл дээрх бичвэр нь илүү сонирхолтой байх болов уу гэж бодож, ийнхүү сийрүүлээ...

THE SECESSION OF MONGOLIA FROM CHINA

One of the most memorable events in this vexed decade will be the partition of China, and its disturbing sequels. For, to my thinking, disintegration is part of the price which the Chinese will pay for their change of regime. Last February I wrote: 'Yuan-shi-kai, dispute his ingenuity and resourcefulness, cannot 'keep the border provinces united with the centre. ...I feel 'disposed to look upon the ultimate loss of Manchuria as most probable, while the detachment- as a prelude to separation- of the North-Western provinces of Mongolia from the new Republic is a foregone conclusion'.
Events are now proving what the little-known story of Russia's relation's with Mongolia had led me to regard as virtually certain. Here is a brief outline of the narrative.

In the churchyard of Montmartre lies the body of Count Muravieff, who did more to further Russia's advance in the Far East than any other statesman known to history. Yet he was never more than Governor-General of Eastern Siberia. For negotiating the Treaty of Aigun, by which China ceded to Russia the Amur river up to its estuary, he received the title of Count Amursky. His policy was spirited, or one might say aggressive, and for that reason was disapproved by Prince Gortchakoff who, after the Crimean war, would fain let sleeping dogs lie.

Muravieff, however, cast his eye on Mongolia and Manchuria, and laid his plans psychologically. He sent a clever diplomatist, Despot Senovitch, to represent him in Urga, the capital of North-Western Mongolia. The position of the Machu dynasty was just then /1852/ precarious. The Taiping rebellion threatened to become a revolution. A war with England, and then with France, shook the Chinese Empire to its foundations. And Muravieff was resolved to pick up the fruits as soon as they should fall from the shaken tree. His plan was not actually to seize Mongolia or Manchuria. For it would never do to alarm the Powers by an appeal to force in the interest of aggrandizement. He resolved to encourage the Mongols to separate from China, and Manchurians to do the same. And he supplied them with excellent reasons, and buoyed them up with hopes. Mongolia, he argued, is united, not with China, but with the reigning House there, and once it ceases to reign, the connection is at an end. And he promised each of these people help from Russia. These promises and negotiations were carried on through the intermediary of Despot Zenovitch, whose interviews with Amban were secret. At an official interview, when both Ambans were present, the conversation was naturally guarded. Here is specimen of it:

WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOUR? SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY

Despot Zenovitch: If it should please God to visit the reigning dynasty with some misfortune which Russia was powerless to ward off, and the Manchuria were succeeded by the Ming dynasty, Russia holds that, in that case, Manchuria and Mongolia should not acknowledge the sway of the Chinese dynasty, but should form separate principalities, with their own native rulers, and then we... will give them a helping hand.
The Mongolian Amban: I do not quite see how Mongolia and Manchuria will be separated from China.
Despot Zenovitch: That is only in case some calamity-God ward it off! - should 'happen'.
Mongolian Amban: But how will you detach Mongolia and Manchuria?
Despot Zenovitch: The Amban is surely aware that according to history, Manchuria, Mongolia and China were once independent realms.
Mongolian Amban: Yes, Is that the view of the Governor-General?
Despot Zenovitch: It is
Mongolian Amban: And others have been given to express it?
Despot Zenovitch: Everything I have been charged to tell you I have transmitted, without adding or curtailing anything...The Russian Government will never allow the Ming dynasty to rule Manchuria and Mongolia.
Mongolian Amban: You say that RUssia will detach Manchuria and Mongolia. How? Together?
Despot Zenovitch: Separately
Mongolian Amban: On whom will it depend to separate Mongolia from Manchuria?    
Despot Zenovitch: On the inhabitants themselves. In a word, Russia being on good terms with both nations only wishes them well.
Mongolian Amban: Yes, I understand. But I an anxious to know that motives would stimulate the Mongols to cut their connection with Manchuria?
Despot Zenovitch: Mongolia united in herself all the conditions of an independent kingdom.

Despot Zenovitch advanced a little further on another occasion when he called on the Mongolian Amban. Presenting him with a silver cup filled with champagne, he expressed the hope to see Mongolia as free as the horse in the steppe without a bridle -  but if anyone were to hold the reins, that it should be his friend the Amban. That fetched the Mongol. He at once called the interpreter and asked on a low tone of voice whether that was the wish of Despot Zenovitch only or of all Russians. The answer was that it was the desire of the Governor-General. The Slav charmer then repaired to the Manchu Amban and made him, too, a present of a silver cup, but addresses him in a different key. 'Long may the Manchu dynasty reign' he exclaimed 'above all nations like an eagle above all birds!'.
At the close of the year 1858 Despot Zenovitch had a long talk with Mongolian Amban's secretary, Totti, for whom he drew a picture of the past glories and present squalor of Mongolia and recommended independence as an elixir of national life. Totti acquiesced, but complained that the Mongols lacked troops, arms, and money.

Despot Zenovitch: Look to Russia. She is your hope. It is her wish that after the fall of the dynasty Mongolia should form a separate principality.
Totti: You have set before me in detail Russia's intentions respecting Mongolia. But probably she has other motives for desiring its independence?
Despot Zenovitch: Russia is so mighty that she has no need of your steppes.
Totti: But if after China's downfall Manchuria becomes a separate kingdom, will now Russia seek to subject Mongolia to it?
Despot Zenovitch: Mongolia must constitute a separate realm and the government of it will be confided, by Count Amursky's desire, to the Mongolian Amban Beysse.
Totti: But how, if besides the Khalkhas, the other ruling princes refuse to acknowledge his sway?
Despot Zenovitch: Force will constrain them to submit.
Totti: Tell me, when will the Governor-General begin to act?
Despot Zenovitch: It may be soon.

AFTER SIXTY YEARS COUNT AMUSKY'S DREAM COMMES TRUE

For various reasons the plans conceived by Count Amursky remained in the stage of pia desideria. Nothing came of them until the Manchu dynasty actually tell this year. And then they were realized in the manner foreshadowed by Despot Zenovitch. Russia's influence has been exclusively instrumental in detaching Mongolia from China. It is alleged by Germans that Russian soldiers fought in the ranks of the Mongols the other day against the Chinese in Lupinfu and that a Russian officer fell in the fray. It is also affirmed that the attack delivered by the Mongols, who are utterly unwarlike was prepared and begun on the territory of the Russian railway. What truth there is in these alligations, which cannot be passed over in absolute silence, I am unable to determine. Personally, I disbelieve them. This, however, is certain. When the Central Chinese Government was about to dispatch troops to put an end to the Mongolia rebellion, which stood not the ghost of a chance against China, Russia refused to convey them over her railway. To the remonstrances of the authorities in Pekin who grounded their request on treaty right, the answer was returned that Russia was resolved to remain neutral. And as troops could not be sent from China across the desert, an order came from Pekin to evacuate Lupinfu. And now Mongolia, or rather, that part of it to which Russians give this name, is independent. The ruler, however, is the Khutukhtu, a sort of Lamaist pope, who by nationality is a Tibetan.

Southern Mongolia, as represented by its six diets, refuses to be incorporate in the realm of the Khutukhtu because the monarch of it is not a Mongolian. They, too, are trying to set up for themselves apart from China. The last I heard of them was a statement that they endeavoring to borrow twenty million lans in order to create an army of 50.000 men, and were imploring Russia to lend them the same efficacious help which had stood the Khalkhas Mongols in such good stead. They have a candidate ready for the rank of Emperor as soon as they have proclaimed their empire. But they follow the lead of San Lamoi, ex-chief of the Japanese Intelligence department during the Russia-Japanese war, and Japan is alleged to be behind them. To the careful observer it is manifest that the secession of Mongolia will entail a Russian protectorate. And in time the protectorate will be extended to Northern Manchuria as well. For it is highly probable that Republican China, torn as it is by intestine feuds, distraught by divided counsels, and weakened by lack of funds, would none the less hold these provinces together if Russia did not side with the separatist. But against Russia the Republic is as powerless to-day as was Japan after her renunciation of the treaty of Shimonoseki. Mongolia gravitates towards the Slav Empire and is already drawn within its orbit. That is the view taken in Russia by those who make history there.

'We have but to cast a glance at the map in order to perceive that in the colonization of Asia we stopped short before reaching our natural frontiers... That is the place where it behooves us to be on our guard, to take preventive action and to watch. That is where we ought to hoist those Russian flags which, according to the covenant of one of the most steadfast Russia Tsars, must never be hauled down'.
From the standpoint of the law of nations Russia defends her action by contending that the union of Mongolia and China was personal and ceased to exist after the fall of the dynasty. That being so, Mongolia became a belligerent once she rose against the Republic, and Russia's declaration of neutrality was well-grounded.

THE ATTRACTIONS OF MONGOLIA

Truly, Mongolia is a prize well worth striving for. The well-watered valleys, the rich pasture lands, the dense forests, the mineral wealth, offer an almost irresistible temptation. The inhabitants - five millions all told - are meek, quiescent folk who love to vegetate and hate to toil. They are quite willing to be ruled by any strong nation, and are grateful if the rule is mild. So unenterprising are the people that every second son in a family is sent to a monastery and it is computed that five-eights of the adult male population are monks. From such as they no resistance need be feared. If the world-renowned Djinghis Khan were to rise from the dead, after his six hundred years absence, he would not recognize his warlike people in their pithless descendants. The staple crime committed in the country to-day is larceny. Murder is very rare.

Already there is an inrush of Russians into Mongolia. The country south of the Siberian district of Minussinsk attracts large numbers of merchants and industrials. Siberian traders from Tomsk, Irkutsk, and Barnaul are rigging out special expeditions solely for the study of the mineral treasures in which Mongolia is said to abound. Messrs. Saffianoff, Ivanitzky, Novomeysky, and others organized a party of explorers who have pentrated into the interior where they will take up valuable concessions. The district of Ussinsk offers attractions so powerful that the Russian Government is exerting itself to facilitate the enterprice of its subjects there. Garrage and other roads are being expeditiously constructed to the Mongolian frontier, not only for ordinary use but also for strategic purposes. It is stated that the new Emperor of Mongolia the Khutukhtu has despatched a representative to St.Peretsburg to negotiate a little loan of one hundred thousand pounds, and to offer a a guarantee the right of exploiting the mineral wealth of the country - gold, copper, and other minerals - for a long term of years. Great warehouses of Russian manufactured goods are being opened in Urga, Kobdo, Ulussutai, and other places. The desirability of constructing a railway to the Mongolian frontier has been mooted and is under consideration.

Gold exist in large quantities, it is said, and gold-seekers are wending thither in numbers. Stories told of the auriferous sands are highly exciting. True, the Chinese do not appear to have found fabulous treasures there. But then they had hardly a thousand workmen employed all told, and the way in which these labourers proceeded was absurdly primitive. Sand taken from the surface was put into bowls and then whirled round rapidly in water. Moreover, there was no stimulus to get the precious metal while the deterrents were formidable. The greed of the governing class was prohibitive. Subjects of the Tsar attempted to do better, but under the late regime their attempts were thwarted systematically. Now the country is thrown open to Russians, who probably for the first time in history seem alive to their opportunity and resolved to utilize it economically and politically.

That is one of the side sequels of the Chinese revolution.