After the Russian Embassy incident spread, European public opinion immediately exploded. This was far more serious than the previous missionary incidents; since the modern era began, there had never been a case where an entire foreign embassy staff was "wiped out."
For a time, cries for blood and war rang without end. Labels such as "barbaric," "brutal," and "uncivilized" were once again slapped onto the Japanese.
How many people were fanning the flames behind the scenes remained unknown for the moment. In any case, there were certainly no shortage of people who wanted to provoke a Russo-Japanese War.
Public support was important, but excessive support could ruin everything. For the Tsarist Government, the current groundswell of public support was not what they wanted.
Sending troops to punish the Japanese was easy enough to say, but putting it into practice was an entirely different matter.
The Siberian Railway had yet to open. Hastily launching a war at this time would be little more than courting death.
Unlike in the original timeline, the Tsarist Government had suffered no small losses from logistical failures over the past several decades. No matter how stubborn someone was, after suffering enough losses, they would learn their lesson. The Tsarist Government was no exception.
"With public opinion in such an uproar, what countermeasures do you all propose?"
Nicholas II asked, forcibly suppressing his anger.
After suffering such an enormous loss, not only could they not retaliate, they instead had to suppress anti-Japanese and pro-war sentiment at home. This was simply making the world see the Tsar in a new light.
There was no choice. At present, they simply lacked the conditions to retaliate against Japan through military means. For the sake of the broader strategy, Nicholas II could only swallow this insult for now.
Prime Minister