In pursuit of her aim of an outlet to Siberia, Russia assisted China in the payment of the Japanese war indemnity, and obtained the right to carry the Siberian railway to Vladivostock, this giving her a grasp on Northern Manchuria. By a secret arrangement with Germany, Russia subsequently obtained a "lease" of the Liao-tung Peninsula, giving the assurance that Port Arthur would be an "open port" for the trade of all nations; but as it transpired that Port Arthur was unsuited to mercantile trade, it became solely a naval base and the "open port" was established at Dalny. On the 20th June, 1895, France entered into a convention with China under which she obtained certain railway and mining rights in Kiang-si and Yun-nan, and the signing of this convention brought China into conflict with Great Britain. Great Britain could hardly regard with equanimity the growth of Russian influence in the north; she therefore demanded and obtained a lease of Wei-hai-wei on the Shantung Peninsula, occupied Wei-hai-wei immediately upon its evacuation by the Japanese, and threw the port open to outside trade. In the meantime Germany considered that she had received no reward for her share in supporting France and Russia in compelling the retrocession of Liao-tung; in fact China could not be brought to see that Germany's place in "world politics" entitled her to annex any portion of the Chinese Empire. On 1st November, 1897, however, two Roman Catholic missionaries, who were German subjects, were most conveniently murdered near Kiau-Chau, and, ostensibly to get compensation for this outrage on German _kultur_, Germany proceeded to seize Kiau-Chau. This port was claimed by Russia, but on the face of it the synchronical cession of Port Arthur to Russia points to the two countries having come to an arrangement mutually satisfactory under the secret agreement concluded by them, while Russian action respecting Port Arthur and German action in regard to Kiau-Chau tallied at every point. The proceedings in regard to Kiau-Chau were Hohenzollern to the last degree--arrogant and theatrical. Three German warships were dispatched to China and they landed marines at Kiau-Chau while preparations for sending out reinforcements were hurried on in Germany. The squadron was placed under the command of the German Emperor's brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, whom the Kaiser designated, in a farewell speech at Kiel, as the "mailed fist" of Germany. The German Emperor thus furnished a pleasing fancy for humoristic journalists and caricaturists, for the comic side prevailed and the mission rocked the world in the gentle throes of laughter rather than stirred it with the tremulous quaking of dread.