The Akashi Operations Ë 25
Fig. 2.8.Giorgi Dekanozishvili’s identi cation card as a European reporter for the Georgian patriotic
newspaperIveria, 1898.
Dekanozishvili to Akashi in Paris.³⁰(From circumstantial evidence, however, it is pos-
sible that Akashi’s contact with Dekanozishvili in fact began several months earlier.)
With Tokyo’s approval of large-scale funding, preparations for armed uprising within
Russia began in earnest in the spring of 1905.
Akashi knew that the Caucasus, like Poland and Finland, was fertile ground for
subversion. The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904 accelerated po-
litical activities in the Caucasus as elsewhere in the Russian Empire. Shortly after the
war broke out, the French consul in Ti is reported that even though the Tsar’s “loyal
subjects” were mobilized for demonstrations in support of the war, a large section of
the population sympathized with Japan. On 15 February 1904, for example, a large
number of Georgians demonstrated in Batumi with a Russian ag (to mislead the po-
lice), then threw it on the ground, stomped on it, and raised a red ag instead with
cries of “Down with the Tsar! Hurrah for the Japanese!” The meeting was dispersed
by Cossacks and ve people were arrested. (The French consul added that the pupils
30 Kujala, “March Separately – Strike Together,” 100–101.