Akashi Motojiro conflict Russo-Japanese War
Espionage during the Russo-Japanese War
At the end of 1900, Akashi was sent as a roaming military attaché in Europe, visiting Germany; Switzerland; Sweden, staying in France in 1901; and moving to Saint Petersburg, Russia in 1902. As a member of the Japanese Secret Intelligence Services, Akashi was involved in setting up an intricate espionage network in major European cities, using specially trained operatives under various covers, members of locally based Japanese merchants and workers, and local people either sympathetic to Japan, or willing to be cooperative for a price.
In the period of growing tensions before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Akashi had a discretionary budget of 1 million yen (an incredible sum of money in contemporary terms) to gather information on Russian troop movements, naval developments, and to support Russian extremists, in particular Litvinoff, Orlovsky, and Lenin. While based at Saint Petersburg, he reportedly recruited the famous spy Sidney Reilly and sent him to Port Arthur, to gather information on the Russian stronghold's defenses. After the start of the war, he used his contacts and network to seek out and to provide monetary and weaponry support to extremist forces attempting to overthrow the Romanov dynasty (see Grafton Affair).
Akashi was also known for his talents as a poet and as a painter, interests that he shared with fellow spy and close friend General Fukushima Yasumasa. It was also a shared interest in poetry and painting that would have enabled him to cultivate Sidney Reilly into working for the Japanese.Narrowly escaping capture and assassination by the Ochrana several times even before the start of the war, Akashi relocated to Helsinki in late 1904. He traveled extensively to Stockholm, Warsaw, Geneva, Lisbon, Paris, Rome, Copenhagen, Zurich, and even Irkutsk. Akashi helped funnel funds and arms to selected groups of Russian anarchists, secessionists in Finland and Poland, and disaffected Moslem groups in the Crimea and Russian Turkestan. Akashi met with Konni Zilliacus in Stockholm as well as Lenin, then in exile in Switzerland. It is widely believed in Japan that Akashi was behind the assassination of Russian Interior Minister Vyacheslav von Plehve (whom many in Japan held responsible for the war); as well as supporting Father George Gapon, who had organized the Bloody Sunday Uprising and the Potemkin Mutiny. General Yamagata Aritomo reported to Emperor Meiji that Colonel Akashi was worth "more than 10 divisions of troops in Manchuria" toward Japan winning the war. Akashi was promoted to colonel at age 40.
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