In 1909, James Brown Scott, an influential American scholar of international law, published The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907. As one of the key U.S. representatives attending those proceedings, Scott’s account was recognized as the de facto history of the conventions. Scott’s lengthy two-volume work included deliberations on the laws of war and sea, and efforts to expand multinational mechanisms intended to mitigate future disputes and wars. Although the conferences were managed by the same western powers reminiscent of international institutions seen today, dozens of other non-western nations took part in proceedings that included the creation of treaties, international courts of justice, and the conduct of war informed by the First Geneva Convention in 1864.

Right: "The Hague Peace Congress - A Laugh from the Gallery" / C. Hassman. Abstract/medium: 1 photomechanical print: offset, color. Date: 1907. Source: Library of Congress. Catalog: https://lccn.loc.gov/2011647199.

For many, the conventions represented the first comprehensive effort to eradicate war and create a framework for world peace. From Scott’s point of view the conventions were historic, and he wrote that they were borne from the “inspiration of an enlightened and generous mind with the cooperation of statesmen and diplomatists resulted in… the Magna Charta of international law.” What was noticeably missing to supporters of Korean independence in Scott’s history of the conferences was the near-total absence of references to that nation. Within the more than 1,300 pages of his two-volume text, “Korea” appeared a mere three times. The footnote on page 80 that Korea “forfeited its right to independent representation” was added to the reference on the same page indicating Korea was among the “States that have not returned an answer” to an invitation to attend the conference. According to international scholars of law like Scott, the nation of Korea had essentially ceased to exist.[1]   

However, Scott’s assertion that the Koreans did not reach out or return an answer was far from the truth – as representatives sent from the Korean Emperor Gojong did make an attempt to be officially recognized by the conference when they arrived in the Hague in 1907. Moreover, two years prior in 1905, Homer B. Hulbert, an American missionary in Korea and founder of the Korea Review (1901), was sent to the United States at the behest of Gojong to preempt moves to exclude Korea from the list of sovereign nations. Hulbert would remain one of the most vocal western advocates of Korean independence throughout the early decades of the twentieth century. The missionary was especially distraught over the American inability to support Korea after the “appeal of the Emperor to the President of the United States” was made during its crucial time of need. “Americans of every class had been telling Korea for a quarter century that the American flag stood for fairness and honesty,” Hulbert wrote, “that we had no purely selfish interests, but stood for right,… but when the pinch came we were the first to desert her, and that in the most contemptuous way, without even saying good-bye.”[2]

Left: As James Brown Scott appeared on his book published in 1922, 'Adventures in Internationalism: A Biography of James Brown Scott'. Source: Wikimedia.

James Scarth Gale, a Canadian presbyterian missionary and advocate for Korean independence, noted the opposition Korea faced in receiving recognition from the international community. In his 1909 work, Korea in Transition – dedicated “to the young hearts of America” – Gale vented his frustrations. Informed by his many years of service in Korea, the missionary believed that Korea had been swept from one crisis to the next amidst disputes involving regional powers such as China, Russia, and Japan. On the periphery of that complicated international dynamic lay the growing influence of the United States, which increased its own commercial and geopolitical interests in Asia following the 1898 annexation of Hawaii and the Philippines. According to Gale, the Korean “crisis” was personified with the suicide of Prince Min Young-Hwan following the usurpation of Korean foreign affairs by Japan in the Eulsa (Unwilling) Treaty of 1905, which came on the heels of Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5).[3]

Further rejection of Korean assertions of independence by the international powers at the four-month Hague Convention in 1907 was therefore particularly bitter. Gale wrote, “The nation that had so long attempted to sail in a leaky boat… The water was deep and all straws were caught at, Russia, The Hague, Mr. Hulbert, Hawaiian Petition… but everything failed.” For most Koreans and western advocates like Hulbert and Gale, the 1907 Hague Convention represented a low point in Korean history and its image abroad. Nevertheless, those advocates, among many Koreans themselves, tried to overcome the immense international political inertia and press coverage favorable to Japanese control of the peninsular nation. Despite their pleas and warnings, that effort proved insurmountable. The American press remained supportive of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who was not only an admirer of the Japanese, but content to avoid disputes in East Asia following the conflict that had erupted in the American-occupied Philippines. In the end, Korea was used as a bargaining chip in a larger balance-of-power equation involving the era’s great powers. Nevertheless, despite the obstacles facing Korean independence, efforts were launched to get the international powers to reexamine the claims made by advocates that Korea: had been forced into submission, had not willingly signed its existence away in the Eulsa Treaty in 1905, and remained a nation state deserving of its own recognition. Advocates of Korean independence would try to tell the United States and the world what Japan was doing and make a concerted effort to get a seat at the table of the Hague Convention of 1907.[4]

Hulbert’s Appeal to America and fait accompli

Homer B. Hulbert’s official mission as envoy to the United States on the behalf of Emperor Gojong received only short-term attention in the American press. Tucked away on page 10 of the December 14, 1905, edition of the New York Times appeared an article titled, “Appeals to the public for Emperor of Korea.” The subtitle noted that Homer believed “Roosevelt won’t restrain Japan,” and that the Eusla (Unwilling) Treaty effected the month before on November 17 was “null and void” because it was obtained under duress. The Times quoted Hulbert as saying “the only hope of American interference now lay in a direct appeal to the people” of the United States. Hulbert, informed of the existence of the Eulsa Treaty after his arrival – and in communication with the Korean leader via cable – understood better than anyone the difficulties facing Korea. “The Japanese knew of my mission, and on the very day of my arrival in this country they executed their ‘coup,’” he was quoted as saying. When Hulbert arrived in Washington DC November 20, and called on the White House, he was told to make an appeal to the State Department, which according to him treated him “with indignity” by forcing him to wait two days before meeting with Secretary of State Elihu Root. Although most Americans were just becoming aware that Korean sovereignty was being expropriated by the Japanese, for American leadership it was a fait accompli.[5]

Right: Homer Bezaleel Hulbert. Source: Wikimedia.

Newspapers all over the United States echoed the Times reporting or reprinted excerpts within a day or two of each other. The Kansas City Star ran the subtitle mimicking Hulbert’s belief that “A Direct Appeal to the American People for Intervention” was “Korea’s only hope.” Other publications took the viewpoint that Japanese control over Korea hinged upon the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War. The St. Joseph Gazette of Missouri reprinted The Pittsburgh Dispatch’s “A vain but pathetic plea” regarding Hulbert’s mission and Korean affairs. “Japan’s right to dominance in Korea was specifically recognized in the [Portsmouth] peace treaty. Korea’s rights not being worthy of consideration, a fitting climax to a war fought on the territory of helpless neutral powers. The haste of the Washington state department in recognizing Japan’s control may be criticized on the ground that Korea was not consulted, …but it probably made little difference.” News of Hulbert’s pleas dropped off dramatically after December, as the American press showed little interest in informing the public of Korea’s plight – much less advocate the U.S. intervene on its behalf. For most of 1906 Hulbert worked on his book, The Passing of Korea, which was published in the fall. Nevertheless, he held out the hope that “eventually the American people will understand the Koreans and help them.”[6]

Even the harshest critics of U.S. annexation of the Philippines and Roosevelt’s foreign policy under Elihu Root viewed the Korean situation as a fait accompli. Following his 1905–6 world tour with his family, William Jennings Bryan, the Nebraskan populist and Democrat candidate for president in 1900 and later in 1908, called Korea a “bone of contention” while comparing the peninsula to that of Florida – with Cuba ostensibly playing the role of Japan. In a widely reported article on Korea written after returning home, Root essentially acquiesced to the status quo regarding Japanese imperial control over Korean affairs, and even misconstrued (or misrepresented) Gojong’s position with the Japanese. More importantly, Bryan, like the majority of western political leaders of the period, claimed to have no knowledge of Japanese intentions to colonize the peninsula. "Now that Japan has driven Russia out, she is virtually in control of the country, altho [sic] the nominal sovereignty of the emperor has not been interfered with. Just what form the Japanese protectorate will take has not been decided… In the end the protectorate will be whatever Japan desires to have it, for neither Korea nor Russia nor China is in a position to question her decision...The Koreans as a rule regard the new Japanese invasion with silent distrust and are in doubt whether the purpose of Japan is simply to protect herself from future danger at the hands of China and Russia, or whether she is expecting to colonize Korea with her own people.”[7]

Uninformed assertions made by the future Secretary of State regarding Japanese intentions in Korea are inherent in the contradictions within his own essay. While visiting Seoul, Bryan wrote that he met Dr. Horace N. Allen, the first protestant missionary in Korea since 1884, former U.S. Minister to Korea (1901-5), and personal physician to Emperor Gojong. Bryan believed U.S.-Korean relations were in “good standing” in part due to Allen’s lifelong work in that country, but added that Allen’s book, Korea: Fact and Fancy (1904), devoted too much time to the period of Korean history after 1875. While Bryan understood the “change wrought by foreign influence” in that country, he nevertheless failed to reconcile Allen’s chronological work in the books that cited numerous examples of Japanese “settlement.” The fact that Allen did not explicitly use the term ‘colonize’ conformed with his experience as a diplomatic, but Korea: Fact and Fancy records dozens of instances along with agreements forced upon Korea giving the Japanese economic leverage over the country. In other words, if Bryan had been sincerely interested in learning about Japanese intentions regarding Korea, he could have simply asked Allen while he was in Seoul.[8]

What the widely publicized Bryan opinion piece demonstrates was that even the most ardent opponents of American imperialism in the Philippines acquiesced to Japanese hegemony in Korea. Nevertheless, Hulbert and the Koreans would make one last effort to be heard at the most important international conference to be held in the Hague in 1907. Frederick A. McKenzie, the Canadian correspondent for the Daily Mail who covered the Russo-Japanese War, believed that in the summer of 1907 Gojong still “thought that he saw his chance at last of striking a blow for freedom through the Hague Conference.” According to McKenzie, Gojong’s optimism stemmed from the belief  “that if he could only assure the Powers that he had never consented to the [Eulsa] treaty robbing Korea of its independence, they would then send their ministers back to Seoul and cause Japan to relax her hand.” However, if Hulbert’s icy American reception in Washington was any indication of what the Korean envoys to the Hague could expect to receive, they knew they were facing an uphill battle.[9]    

Notes

[1] James Brown Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1909), vol. 1, 67, vol. 2, 180. See: William E. Butler (ed.) and George A. Finch, Adventures in Internationalism: A Biography of James Brown Scott (Clark, NJ: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2011); Paolo Amorosa, Rewriting the History of the Law of Nations: How James Brown Scott Made Francisco de Vitoria the Founder of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). Other works by James Brown Scott (b. 1866-1943) during the period include: Classics of International Law (Washington DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1907); The American Institute of International Law: Its Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations (Washington, DC: The American Institute of International Law, 1916). The development of the Geneva Conventions encompassed a series of conferences over an extended period between 1864 and 1949. The order following first convention in 1864 is roughly as follows: 1899 Hague Convention II (POWs and civilians during war), 1899 Hague Convention III (adaptations to the 1864 convention and maritime warfare), 1907 Hague Convention IV (POWs/Civilians) 1907 Hague Convention X (adaptation of 1906 Geneva Convention, maritime powers), 1929 Second Geneva Convention, and 1949 Geneva Conventions (Revised as I,II, III, IV).

[2] Homer B. Hulbert, The Passing of Korea (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1906), 223.

[3] The Eusla (Unwilling) Treaty has a number of names: Eulsa Treaty (을사조약), Eulsa Costly Treaty (을사늑약), The Second Japan–Korea Convention (제2차 한일협약), Eulsa Protection Treaty (을사보호조약). Since the ‘treaty’ was signed under duress, this essay uses the term ‘Eulsa (Unwilling) Treaty.’ For a look at irregularities of the Eulsa Treaty and others during the period, see: Yi Tae-Jin, “Treaties Leading to Japan’s Annexation of Korea: What Are the Problems?” Korea Journal 56, no.4 (2016): 5-32; Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires, 1885-1919 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). Min Young-hwan (민영환, b. 1861-1905) was the nephew of the Korean Empress Myeonseong, who was killed by Japanese soldiers in October of 1895. See: Hulbert, The Passing of Korea, 224.

[4] James Scarth Gale, Korea in Transition (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1909), 37–8. Gale was referring to a “Petition from the Koreans of Hawaii to Roosevelt.” See: Frederick Arthur McKenzie, The Tragedy of Korea (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1908), 311. For works on Hawaii, see: Wynell Schamel and Charles E. Schamel. “The 1897 Petition Against the Annexation of Hawaii,” Social Education 63, no. 7 (Nov./Dec. 1999): 402–8; William Michael Morgan, Pacific Gibraltar: U.S.-Japanese Rivalry Over the Annexation of Hawaii, 1885-1898 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011).

[5] New York Times, December 14, 1905. “Appeals to the public for Emperor of Korea…” For reporting on the cable from Gojong to Hulbert voiding the Eulsa (Unwilling) Treaty see: The Detroit Free Press, Dec. 13, 1905. “Null and Void”; The Lincoln Star, (Nebraska), Dec. 13, 1905. “Jap Treachery is Disclosed”; The York Daily (York, Pennsylvania) Dec. 13, 1905. “Korean Emperor Arraigns Japs”; Los Angeles Evening Express, Dec. 13, 1905. “Korean Ruler Makes Appeal”; The Evening Republican, Columbus, Indiana, Dec. 13, 1095. “Korea Complains: Emperor of Hermit Kingdom says Japan did not tote fair.”  Spokane Daily Chronicle, Dec. 13, 1905. “Emperor a Prisoner”

[6] Kansas City Star, December 14, 1905. “This is Korea’s ‘Only Hope’”; St. Joseph Gazette, Missouri, Dec. 16, 1905. “A vain but pathetic plea”; Times Union (Brooklyn, NY), February 5, 1906. “Says Korea has been wronged by Japanese”

[7] Minneapolis Journal, March 4, 1906. “With William J. Bryan in ‘poor little Korea’; many strange things seen in the Hermit Kingdom.” The full-page essay appeared in hundreds of U.S. newspapers, such as: The Washington Post, March 4, 1906; The Boston Globe, March 4, 1906; The Salt Lake Herald, March 4, 1906. See: Daniel Scroop, “William Jennings Bryan’s 1905-1906 World Tour,” The Historical Journal 56, no. 2 (June 2013): 459–486. Bryan was U.S. Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1915.  

[8] Minneapolis Journal, March 4, 1906. “With William J. Bryan in ‘poor little Korea’; many strange things seen in the Hermit Kingdom.”; Horace B. Allen, Korea: Fact and Fancy (Seoul: Methodist Publishing House, 1904). For a few examples of the mostly Japanese “settlements” listed by Allen between 1877 and 1901 see pages: 158, 185, 204, 208, 209, 217. See also: Fred Harvey Harrington, God, Mammon, and the Japanese: Dr. Horace Allen and Korean-American Relations, 1884-1905 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1944). For a more critical look Allen’s involvement in Korean affairs, see: Wayne Patterson, “Sugar-Coated Diplomacy: Horace Allen and Korean Immigration to Hawaii, 1902-1905,” Diplomatic History 3, no. 1 (Winter 1979): 19–38.

[9] Frederick Arthur McKenzie, The Tragedy of Korea (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1908), 158.