The present position in the Far East is not the result of a gradual chain of events, but of the absolute surprise created by the unexpected results of the Chino-Japanese War. No doubt the collapse of China in 1894 was only the last act in a long drama of decadence, but it revealed to astonished Europe the utter incapacity of China either to reform or to defend herself, a fact for which we were quite unprepared. Japan alone knew the truth, and profited by her knowledge of her colossal neighbour’s almost incredible weakness. Russia had suspected it, but was not sufficiently convinced to venture on carrying her conviction into effect. Thanks to the astuteness of the Chinese and their remarkable aptitude in all arts of deception, and the effect mentally created by the prodigious multitude of her population—between three and four hundred million souls—China had systematically fooled both Governments and public alike, who shared the same illusion as to her power. Certain events had, it must be confessed, conspired to maintain this illusion, notably the bold resistance which the French army had met in Tongking, under, no doubt, peculiar circumstances, but, nevertheless, such as induced people to forget, at least for the time, the facile victories of the Allies in 1860. Certain far-seeing writers—Mr. Henry Norman and Mr. Curzon, the latter one of the most brilliant young statesmen of the United Kingdom—had indeed realized that under a smooth surface there existed in China amazing weakness and corruption. But they preached in the desert. The war had only just broken out, when one of the best-informed organs of the English press, the _Spectator_, stated: ‘We think the weight of opinion is with those who believe, as we do, that, if necessary, China could organize a most formidable army.’ This was the illusion universally entertained in Europe, and, strange to relate, shared by the majority of foreigners living in the Far East.