And the advances made by Ito and others would have been reciprocated by Witte and Lamsdorff were it not that the Tsar, interested in Bezobrazoff's Yalu venture, subordinated his policy to those vested interests, and compelled Japan to fight. The master-idea of the policy of Ito, with whom I had two interesting conversations on the subject, was to strike up a close friendship with the Tsardom, based on community of durable interests, and to bespeak Russia's help for the hour of storm and stress which one day might strike. The Tsar's government was inspired by analogous motives. Before the war was terminated I repaired to London on behalf of Russia, in order to propose to the Japanese government, in addition to the treaty of peace which was about to be discussed at Portsmouth, an offensive and defensive alliance, and to ask that Prince Ito be sent as first plenipotentiary, invested with full powers to conclude such a treaty. M. Izvolsky's policy toward Japan, frank and statesman-like, had an offensive and a defensive alliance for its intended culmination, and the treaties and conventions which he actually concluded with Viscount Motono, in drafting which I played a modest part, amounted almost to this. The Tsar's opposition to the concessions which represented Russia's share of the compromise was a tremendous obstacle, which only the threat of the Minister's resignation finally overcame. And Izvolsky's energy and insistence hastened the conclusion of a treaty between them to maintain and respect the _status quo_ in Manchuria, and, in case it was menaced, to concert with each other the measures they might deem necessary for the maintenance of the _status quo_. And it was no longer stipulated, as it had been before, that these measures must have a pacific character. They were prepared to go farther. And I may now reveal the fact that the treaty had a secret clause, providing for the action which Russia afterward took in Mongolia.