The Akashi Operations Ë 33
peoples. When bloodied Armenians and Muslims are lying on the streets of Baku, our
enemy gloats and thinks that ‘once these two peoples are at each other, my hands are
freed.’ So we should wake up and recognize our [true] enemy: the Russian govern-
ment.”⁴⁹This proclamation by Azeris greatly alarmed the Russian authorities.⁵⁰Thus,
the far-reaching in uence of Dekanozishvili in the Caucasus made him particularly
attractive to the Japanese.
In his meeting with Dekanozishvili on 2 May 1905 in Paris, Akashi told him that
he was not entirely happy with the direction of the revolutionary movement. He cau-
tioned Dekanozishvili that it should not be directed against the private property of
individuals but against the Russian autocracy. Dekanozishvili responded by saying
that everything could not proceed as planned, and that one needed to consider the
presence of military forces. Akashi sought to convince Dekanozishvili that, based
on data obtained from a Russian o cer, at the time there were approximately four-
to ve-hundred thousand soldiers in the country, and that one hundred thousand
armed people could overcome the demoralized soldiers. For this purpose he was
ready to provide funding. Akashi gave 125,000 francs in cash to his partner, urg-
ing him to “work energetically” and “get the work done promptly.”⁵¹Later in Paris,
Dekanozishvili met Sadakoto Hisamatsu, Japan’s military attaché in Paris, and Baron
Norizumi Suematsu, Japan’s special envoy to Europe. Dekanozishvili befriended in
particular Captain Yukio Takatsuka, an intelligence o cer attached to the Japanese
embassy in Paris.⁵²
Russian authorities in Paris now sent alarming notes to St. Petersburg: Akashi was
more than Japan’s military agent. Indeed, he was seeking to create trouble (smuta),
and armed uprisings in the Caucasus in particular. He was a political agitator and
provocateur, and his work was directed against the very foundations of Russia’s polit-
ical regime.⁵³
Purchasing arms was no easy matter, but the Poles were well prepared in this
business. By Akashi’s admission, Dekanozishvili gave “the Poles money in advance
and a free hand, but other parties received money only after they had found arms for
sale.”⁵⁴Whether the Japanese money contributed to the revolution in Poland (partic-
ularly the June uprising in Łódź) is not known. Akashi himself did not discuss this
connection, although he did mention that some time in early 1905 he met “the chief
of the Polish Intransigent Party Suddeniki” (Wojciech Dzieduszycki) in Vienna and
49 See I.S. Bagirova,Politicheskie partii i organizatsii Azerbaidzhana v nachale XX veka (1900–1917)
(Baku: Elm, 1997), 165. This committee appears to have laid the foundation in the summer of 1905 for
the political party Geirat (Honor) in Elizavetpol’ (Ganja).
50 Bagirova,Politicheskie partii i organizatsii Azerbaidzhana, 166.
51 GARF, f. 102, DP PP 1904-II, op. 316, d. 28, ll. 48–50, 150.
52 GARF, f. 102, DP PP 1904-II, op. 316, d. 28, l. 212.
53 GARF, f. 102, DP PP 1904-II, op. 316, d. 28, ll. 169, 202–203.
54 Akashi,Rakka ryusui ̄ , 45–46.