POSTSCRIPT

It is the fashion to speak slightingly of the Boxer troubles, and to blink the fact that the movement which led to the second capture of Peking and the flight of the Court was a serious war.  The southern viceroys had undertaken to maintain order in the south.  Operations were therefore localised somewhat, as they were in the Russo-Japanese War.  It is even said that the combined forces were under the impression that they were coming to the rescue of a helpless government which was doing all in its power to protect foreigners.  Whether this was the effect of diplomatic dust thrown in their eyes or not, it was a fiction.

How bitterly the Empress Dowager was bent on exterminating the foreigner, may be inferred from her decree ordering the massacre of foreigners and their adherents—­a savage edict which the southern satraps refused to obey.  A similar inference may be drawn from the summary execution of four ministers of state for remonstrating against throwing in the fortunes of the empire with the Boxer party.  China [Page 180] should be made to do penance on her knees for those shocking displays of barbarism.  At Taiyuan-fu, forty-five missionaries were murdered by the governor, and sixteen at Paoting-fu.  Such atrocities are only possible among a half-civilised people.

[Page 181] CHAPTER XXVIII

THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

Russia’s Schemes for Conquest—­Conflicting Interests in Korea—­Hostilities Begin—­The First Battles—­The Blockade—­Dispersion of the Russian Fleet—­Battle of Liao-yang—­Fall of Port Arthur—­Battle of Mukden—­The Armada—­Battle of Tsushima—­The Peace of Portsmouth—­The Effect on China

To the Chinese the retrospect of these five wars left little room for those pompous pretensions which appeared to be their vital breath.

Beaten by Western powers and by the new power of the East, their capital taken a second time after forty years’ opportunity to fortify it, and their fugitive court recalled a second time to reign on sufferance or during good behaviour, what had they left to boast of except the antiquity of their country and the number of their people?  Dazed and paralysed, most of them gave way to a sullen resignation that differed little from despair.

There were, indeed, a few who, before things came to the worst, saw that China’s misfortunes were due to folly, not fate.  Ignorant conservatism had made her weak; vigorous reform might make her strong.  But another war was required to turn the feeling of the few into a conviction of the many.  This change was [Page 182] accomplished by a war waged within their borders but to which they were not a party—­a war which was not an act in their national drama, but a spectacle for which they furnished the stage.  That spectacle calls for notice in the present work on account of its influence on the destinies of China.