Lot 20345 – 1905 PEACE CONFERENCE: Three cards of the conferen

1905 PEACE CONFERENCE: Three cards of the conference. One postally used in September 05 and produced in USA of the Peace Commission. Japan was ahead on points but had not delivered a knock-out. American interests required that the war ended before a rampant Japan took control of the Pacific. President Theodore Roosevelt had called a Peace Conference to take part in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA in August 1905. Victorious in the field the Japanese were out-manoeuvered at the negotiating table, thanks to the wily de Witte, Russia’s former Minister of Finance. Under the Treaty of Portsmouth they obtained some territorial concessions but not the huge monetary indemnity they had demanded. The Japanese public felt they had been cheated by the Russians and the Americans and turned against their own representatives. The second card is a Special Commemorative card posted from Portsmouth on August 14th, 1905. This Conference resulted in the Treaty of Portsmouth (5th September) whereby the belligerent parties agreed to evacuate Manchuria and return it to China. Japan was the victor and Russia ceded the Lyaotung leasehold, the southern half of Sakhalin Island and the section of the Chinese Eastern Railway between Port Arthur and Kwangchentze. The third card depicts the leaders involved under the banner “The Portsmouth Drama”, postally used from Jamaica Plain-Station to Riga