The nineteenth century had been pre-eminently an era of the development of rapid and easy communication between distant parts of the world, particularly between Europe and Asia.  So long as these two continents remained far apart the condition of Asia was unchanged and stationary; if there was any change it had been latterly retrogressive, for in India at any rate the eighteenth century was a period of abnormal and extensive political confusion.  In Europe, on the other hand, national wealth, scientific discoveries, the arts of war and peace, had made extraordinary progress.  Population had increased and multiplied; and partly by territorial conquests, partly by pacific penetration, the Western nations overflowed politically into Asia during the nineteenth century.  They brought with them larger knowledge, novel ideas and manners, which have opened the Asiatic mind to new influences and aspirations, to the sense of needs and grievances not previously felt or even imagined.  The effect, as can now be clearly perceived, has been to produce an abrupt transition from old to new ways, from the antique order of society towards fresh models; and to this may be ascribed the general unsettlement, the uneasy stir, that pervade Asia at the present moment.  Its equilibrium has been disturbed by the high speed at which Europe has been pushing eastward; and the principal points of contact and penetration are in India.

Moreover, towards the latter end of the nineteenth century and in the first years of the present century came events which materially altered the attitude of Asiatic nations towards European predominance.  The defeat of the Italians by the Abyssinians in 1896 may indeed be noted as the first decisive victory gained by troops that may be reckoned Oriental over a European army in the open field, for at least three centuries.  The Japanese war, in which Russia lost battles not only by land, but also at sea, was even a more significant and striking warning that the era of facile victories in Asia had ended; since never before in all history had an Asiatic navy won a great sea-fight against European fleets.  That the unquiet spirit, which from these general causes has been spreading over the Eastern Continent, should be particularly manifest in countries under European Governments is not unnatural; it inevitably roused the latent dislike of foreign rule, with which a whole people is never entirely content.  Precisely similar symptoms are to be observed in the Asiatic possessions of France, and in Egypt; nor is Algeria yet altogether reconciled to the regime of its conquerors.