 After the Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894 – 95, both Russia and Japan had ambitions to control Manchuria and Korea which naturally caused problems between them. A further issue was the Russian failure to withdraw its troops from Manchuria in October 1903 as promised. Japan had begun negotiations to reduce the tensions in 1901, but the Russian government was slow and uncertain in its replies because it had not yet decided exactly how to resolve the problems. Japan interpreted this as deliberate prevarication designed to buy time to complete the Russian armament programs. The final straws were news of Russian timber concessions in northern Korea and the Russian refusal to acknowledge Japanese interests in Manchuria while continuing to place conditions on Japanese activities in Korea. These caused the Japanese government to decide in December 1903 that war was now inevitable. The Pacific Squadron began mooring in the outer harbor at night as tensions with Japan increased, in order to react more quickly to any Japanese attempt to land troops in Korea.
