30 Ë The Russo-Japanese War
Fig. 2.12.Giorgi Dekanozishvili and Mikheil Kiknadze (Paris, 1905).
Elsewhere in the Caucasus, especially in the Northern Caucasus, there seems to
have been less resistance to the war. The Tsar’s government recruited hundreds of
volunteer soldiers from among the Dagestani, Karachais, Balkars, Ingush, and others.
Many of them pledged allegiance to the Koran and traveled to the Far East, where they
fought.⁴³This does not, of course, mean that the war was universally popular in the
Northern Caucasus.
Following Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg, the situation in the Caucasus turned
quite violent and revolutionary. As Luigi Villari, an Italian correspondent forThe Times
in London, witnessed:
Since the general state of unrest in Russia spread to the Caucasus, Batum [Batumi] has been a
perfect hotbed of revolt.... But unlike the strikes in St. Petersburg, those of Batum at once pro-
ceeded to violent measures, and from that day to this the town has not had a moment’s real quiet.
When I arrived things were peaceable enough in appearance; although the state of siege was in
force there were no patrols, and hardly any policemen. Yet not a day passed without murders
being committed in the streets, and no murderer was ever arrested.43 See the History (Russo-Japanese War) at http://www.gazavat.ru (accessed 19 March 2012).