Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
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Assassination Attempt On Tsarevich Nikolai In Japan!
The Russian heir to the throne Nikolai, Prince George of Greece (1869 - 1957) and entourage were on April 27, 1891 on board the warship "Pamyat Asowa" (= "Remember the Battle of Azov")...
…arrived in Nagasaki, where they were treated to a state reception by Japanese dignitaries, including Prince Arisugawa Takehito…
…bereitet wurde.
On May 11, 1891, an excursion to nearby Ōtsu is on the agenda, in the vicinity of which Nikolaj, Prince George and their entourage are to visit Lake Biwa and the surrounding mountains.
Just before Ōtsu, they are greeted by local dignitaries; a visit to Mii-dera, one of the largest temples in Japan, follows. They then take a ship to Karasaki, where they are greeted with fireworks.
After inspecting some armor, they return to Ōtsu. After lunch at the prefectural office, the return journey to Kyoto begins at 1:30 p.m.
The first four rickshaws of the tour group are manned by police and administrative officials from Shiga and Kyoto Prefectures. Tsarevich Nikolai sits in the fifth…
…Prince George in the sixth and Prince Takehito in the seventh.
Because of rumors that something bad would happen to Nikolaus that day, the path is lined with police officers.
As the rickshaws make their way through the crowds on the narrow street for 700-800 meters, policeman Tsuda Sanzō …
…suddenly jumps nearer and strikes the Tsarevich with a saber on the right temple, which is softened by the brim of Nikolai's hat.
Prince George of Greece...
...hits the attacker with his whip and Nikolaj's rickshaw pulls him down.
One of Georg's rickshaws grabs the fallen saber, hits Tsuda several times and injures the assassin's neck and back. Then Tsuda is arrested by his horrified colleagues.
The scene of the crime immediately afterwards, the witnesses huddle together in fear...:
To alleviate the national shame of the attack on a guest of state, many Japanese sent the Tsarevich gifts and tens of thousands of letters expressing shame and sorrow.
A 27-year-old servant named Yuko will kill herself in front of the Kyoto prefectural office on May 20 to atone for her death.
A monument in Sakura Park in Kyoto commemorates them...:
The town of Kaneyama in Yamagata Prefecture even forbids the given name "Sanzō" and the surname "Tsuda". People with that name have to rename themselves or are forced to be renamed by the authorities!
The assassin Tsuda (after anti-Russian forces in the Japanese government had prevented the death penalty that was actually due) was imprisoned in a Hokkaidō prison, where he died a little later, on September 30, 1891, of pneumonia.
Although after the assassination Nikolai publicly stated several times that he was not angry with the Japanese for the "act of a single madman", this traumatic experience may have played a not insignificant role in his decisions as Tsar about the Russo-Japanese War.
From now on, he will always speak to people he knows from Japanese as "monkeys" ("makaki")...
The Russian heir to the throne Nikolai, Prince George of Greece (1869 - 1957) and entourage were on April 27, 1891 on board the warship "Pamyat Asowa" (= "Remember the Battle of Azov")...
…arrived in Nagasaki, where they were treated to a state reception by Japanese dignitaries, including Prince Arisugawa Takehito…
…bereitet wurde.
On May 11, 1891, an excursion to nearby Ōtsu is on the agenda, in the vicinity of which Nikolaj, Prince George and their entourage are to visit Lake Biwa and the surrounding mountains.
Just before Ōtsu, they are greeted by local dignitaries; a visit to Mii-dera, one of the largest temples in Japan, follows. They then take a ship to Karasaki, where they are greeted with fireworks.
After inspecting some armor, they return to Ōtsu. After lunch at the prefectural office, the return journey to Kyoto begins at 1:30 p.m.
The first four rickshaws of the tour group are manned by police and administrative officials from Shiga and Kyoto Prefectures. Tsarevich Nikolai sits in the fifth…
…Prince George in the sixth and Prince Takehito in the seventh.
Because of rumors that something bad would happen to Nikolaus that day, the path is lined with police officers.
As the rickshaws make their way through the crowds on the narrow street for 700-800 meters, policeman Tsuda Sanzō …
…suddenly jumps nearer and strikes the Tsarevich with a saber on the right temple, which is softened by the brim of Nikolai's hat.
Prince George of Greece...
...hits the attacker with his whip and Nikolaj's rickshaw pulls him down.
One of Georg's rickshaws grabs the fallen saber, hits Tsuda several times and injures the assassin's neck and back. Then Tsuda is arrested by his horrified colleagues.
The scene of the crime immediately afterwards, the witnesses huddle together in fear...:
To alleviate the national shame of the attack on a guest of state, many Japanese sent the Tsarevich gifts and tens of thousands of letters expressing shame and sorrow.
A 27-year-old servant named Yuko will kill herself in front of the Kyoto prefectural office on May 20 to atone for her death.
A monument in Sakura Park in Kyoto commemorates them...:
The town of Kaneyama in Yamagata Prefecture even forbids the given name "Sanzō" and the surname "Tsuda". People with that name have to rename themselves or are forced to be renamed by the authorities!
The assassin Tsuda (after anti-Russian forces in the Japanese government had prevented the death penalty that was actually due) was imprisoned in a Hokkaidō prison, where he died a little later, on September 30, 1891, of pneumonia.
Although after the assassination Nikolai publicly stated several times that he was not angry with the Japanese for the "act of a single madman", this traumatic experience may have played a not insignificant role in his decisions as Tsar about the Russo-Japanese War.
From now on, he will always speak to people he knows from Japanese as "monkeys" ("makaki")...
