46 Ë The Russo-Japanese War
revolution but the weakening of the Russian Empire. In this Japan and the Caucasian
national movements found common ground.
2.3 Japan and “Total Espionage”
Yet despite the massive spending, Akashi’s operations did not achieve their ultimate
goal of instigating mass armed uprisings in the Russian Empire. Moreover, Akashi
had been deceived by Azef, a Socialist Revolutionary and police double agent, ap-
parently entrusted with some of the operations in the Caucasus. Believing that the
money he used had contributed to the famous Battleship Potemkin mutiny in June
1905, Akashi wrote: “Dikanskii [Azef], the most powerful leader of the Socialist Rev-
olutionaries, reported that he had gone to Odessa with 40,000 yen to canvass and
to seek ways to obtain arms. In June he provoked a disturbance there and escaped
to Moscow. Vakulinchuk and Feldmann, both of whom were Dikanskii’s disciples
and Caucasians, organized a mutiny on thePotemkinwhich started the Black Sea
Revolt.”¹⁰⁴Of course, Azef kept the money for himself, and had nothing to do with
the Potemkin uprising.¹⁰⁵Nor were Vakulinchuk and Feldmann from the Caucasus.
Akashi’s operations did, however, have a “powerful impact” on the uprisings in the
Caucasus, as acknowledged in Russia, by providing a substantial amount of weaponry
and ammunition there: it was precisely those areas of the Caucasus such as Poti, Ozur-
geti, Zugdidi, and Sukhumi, where arms and ammunition from theSiriusactually
reached, that the uprisings were most serious.¹⁰⁶
Part of the reason Akashi’s operations were ineective was that Russia’s coun-
terintelligence was well informed about them. InitiallyOkhrana(the Russian secret
police) failed to grasp the Akashi-Dekanozishvili nexus. In Paris the Okhrana began
following Dekanozishvili only from October 1904 on. Although Akashi naturally came
to its notice, at rst the Okhrana failed to see through the nature of his activity.¹⁰⁷After
the 1891 Franco-Russian Alliance, French intelligence (Sûreté générale) provided assis-
tance to the Okhrana (and vice versa), and informers were rewarded for valuable intel-
ligence.¹⁰⁸Aware of this, Akashi based his activity instead in London, where Okhrana
104 Akashi,Rakka ryusui ̄ , 45–46.
105 Akashi knew that his agent in Odesa, likely Azef, overstated the political situation and his role in
it. See GARF, op. cit. ll. 48–49.
106 Iznanka revoliutsii. Vooruzhennoe vozstanie v Rossii na iaposnkiia sredstva(St. Petersburg: Top.
A.S. Suvorina, 1906), 20. See also Pavlov,Iaponskie den’gi, 180. Some of the weapons may have reached
Moscow as well. SeeIznanka revoliutsii, 19.
107 GARF, f. 102, DP PP 1904-II, op. 316, d. 28, ll. 203–2040b.
108 For the Franco-Russian intelligence collaboration, see Archives de la péfecture de la police de
Paris, BA, Box 1693, File “Police russe à Paris (1913).” Signi cantly two Okhrana chiefs, P. Pachkovskii
(1885–1902) and L. Rataev (1902–1905) were decorated by the French government.