Japan's ignoring of the 'cardinal principle' must also be put in the same category. The official Russian correspondence, published just about the time that peace was agreed on, indicates this very clearly. For by the correspondence before the war it is plain that Japan was entitled by Russian agreement to land troops in Korea, and Chemulpo, where a landing was actually effected, was particularly specified. Consequently an invasion of Korea was not a warlike act in itself. More, it is clear that those Russians who expected war were anxious rather than otherwise to see the Japanese land, hoping this to prove to their ultimate advantage. The Russian orders were not to interfere with the Japanese unless they attempted operations against northern Korea: otherwise the Japanese were to be allowed to commit the first act.
Exactly what Russia really intended will probably never be known with certainty. Presumably, (as the Japanese undoubtedly believed,) the Russian plan was to temporise and evade until such time as the Russian force should be sufficiently superior to crush Japan by menace. However, this is a point of minor importance: the essential fact is that Japan's preliminary invasion was not a defiance of Sea Power principles in itself. It became so, only with the threats to the Variag and the torpedo attack at Port Arthur—after which Japan felt herself strong enough to continue invading.
Her invading army never seems to have been in
