Korea, late Yi dynasty among many Koreans who wanted an end to Japanese interference A political group called the Tongnip Hyophoe (Independence Club) was formed by a nationalist called So Chae-p’il King Kojong returned to the palace and declared himself the emperor of the Tae Han empire During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, the Koreans tried to prevent the warring parties from using Korean territory but eventually had to allow the Japanese to use bases in Korea to attack the Russians With the end of that war at the Treaty of Portsmouth, on September 6, 1905, the Western powers accepted Japan’s rights over Korea and, in November 1905, Korea was declared a Japanese protectorate Emperor Kojong tried to get the European powers involved by sending a secret mission to an international peace conference being held in the Netherlands The Japanese found out and forced Kojong to abdicate in favor of his son, Sunjong, who assumed the throne in 1907 However, this was not enough for the Japanese, who faced guerrilla attacks from Korean nationalists Japan eventually forced Sunjong to abdicate in 1910 The Korean army was then disbanded, and Korea was annexed by Japan The Japanese then ruthlessly crushed 213 any resistance against them, controlling Korea until 1945, when the country was partitioned The former emperor Kojong died on January 21, 1919, and the former king Sunjong died on April 25, 1926, both in Korea As Sunjong had no children, his half brother, Yi Un, was made heir to the throne From 1908, when it was clear that the Japanese would take over the whole of the Korean Peninsula, many Koreans went into exile in Manchuria, Siberia, and Hawaii One of these was a distant member of the Korean royal family, Syngman Rhee, the direct lineal descendant of the third king of the Yi dynasty In exile, he was president of the provisional Korean Republic from 1919 to 1945 He would become president of South Korea from 1948 until 1960 Further reading: Choe, Ching Young The Rule of the Taewongun 1864–1873 Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972; Kim, C I Eugene, and Han-Kyo Kim Korea and the Politics of Imperialism 1876–1910 Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967; Niderost, Eric “Fighting the Tiger,” Military Heritage, August 2002 Justin Corfield