As A Matter Of Fact, Nothing Had Been
Accomplished, When, In 1897, A Blow Fell Which Brought The Middle Kingdom
Face To Face With The Prospect Of Immediate Partition.
In November of that
year, without any preliminary notice or warning to the Pekin government,
two German men-of-war entered the harbor of Kiao Chou, and ordered the
commandant to give up the place in reparation for the murder of two German
missionaries in the province of Shantung.
Germany refused to evacuate Kiao
Chou unless due reparation should be made for the outrage on the
missionaries, and unless, further, China would cede to her the exclusive
right to construct railways and work mines throughout the extensive and
populous province of Shantung. This, of course, was equivalent to the
demarcation of a sphere of influence. For a time, the Pekin government
showed itself recalcitrant, but, in January, 1898, it consented to lease
Kiao Chou to Germany for ninety-nine years, and to make the required
additional concession of exclusive rights in Shantung. Russia, on her
part, did not wait long after the German seizure of Kiao Chou, to put
forward her claim for compensation on account of the services rendered in
the matter of the revision of the Shimonoseki Treaty. The terms of the
Cassini agreement were now gradually revealed. In December, 1897, the St.
Petersburg government announced that the Chinese had given permission to
the Russian fleet to winter at Port Arthur; in February, 1898, Russia
added Talienwan to Port Arthur, but essayed to disarm criticism by
declaring that the first-named port would be opened to the ships of all
the great powers like other ports on the Chinese mainland.
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