Sergei Witte, Stateman of Russian Empire

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Jennifer Siegel, A Statesman For the Czar; A portfolio that included building the Trans-Siberian Railway and helping end the Russo-Japanese War. Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576377462570802564.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
(book review on Francis W. Wcislo, Tales of Imperial Russia; The Life and Times of Sergei Witte, 1849-1915. Oxford University Press, 2011)

Quote: "It [building Trans-Siberian Railway] was also the undertaking that hastened the onset of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, a conflict for which Witte was often blamed despite his frequent warnings that Russia was not prepared for war and should step back from its antagonizing land grab in Manchuria and the Korean peninsula

Note:
(a) Sergei Witte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Witte
(1849-1915; author of the October Manifesto of 1905, a precursor to Russia's first constitution; [at Portsmouth, New Hampshire] Witte is credited with negotiating brilliantly on Russia's behalf. Russia lost very little in the final settlement. But the loss of the war would perhaps spell the beginning of the end of Imperial Russia.)
(b) plenipotentiary (adj): "invested with full power"
www.m-w.com
(c) For "the 1905 revolution," see Bloody Sunday (1905)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_1905

It was depicted in the 1965 film Doctor Zhivago.
(d) Odessa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa
(seaport in Ukraine)

Kiev
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiev
(capital and the largest city of Ukraine)
(e) Alexander III of Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Russia
(1845-1894; reign 1881-1894; succeeded by his eldest son Nicholas II)
(f) The review mentions "the post-facto memoirs of Witte."

It should be "ex-post-facto" (adj; Late Latin, literally, from a thing done afterward; First Known Use: 1621):
"done, made, or formulated after the fact : retroactive <ex post facto approval> <ex post facto laws>"



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