Germany had only one other possession besides those which I have mentioned. This was Kiao-chau, on the east coast of the Chinese province of Shan-tung. Germany obtained it by force and fraud, as you shall hear. In the autumn of 1895 Japan emerged as victor from a war with China, and by the treaty of peace she was to hold certain parts of the Liao-tung peninsula. The Kaiser professed to fear the growing power of Japan, and he had a picture[133] painted to point a moral to the Powers of Europe. It showed the European nations confronted with what is called the "Yellow Peril," and called upon them to defend their holiest possessions. The German view of the Japanese has been put as follows: "It is for Europe to look continually eastward. There is a yellow cloud rising there which betokens a coming storm. Who are these Japanese who desire to control the teeming millions of China? The Japanese are highly-educated barbarians. They have fresh minds, and they are the most imitative beings on earth if one excepts the smaller species of monkeys; they are not a civilized people. You may put a clever savage into a European dress or into a European-built battleship, but he remains a savage. Races do not become civilized in twenty years. Europe cannot allow the Japanese to control the Chinese millions, for the Japanese are without a soul." Well might the Japanese retort that if the Germans represent civilization with a soul, it would be to the benefit of the world if mankind remained savage. [Illustration: Landing of British Forces on Tsing-tau Peninsula, September 23, 1914. _Photo, The Sphere._] Professing to stand forth as the champion of soulful civilization, the Kaiser persuaded France and Russia to join with him in robbing the Japanese of the fruits of their victory. He only needed an excuse to interfere, and an excuse is easily found if you set yourself to look for it. In the autumn of 1897 two persons, said to be German missionaries, were murdered somewhere in the heart of China. At once the Kaiser was filled with righteous indignation; he shook his "mailed fist," and sending his brother, Prince Henry, to China with a couple of old ships which broke down on the voyage, bade him "declare the gospel of your Majesty's hallowed person." With these ancient craft the Kaiser seized a piece of Chinese territory for himself, and demanded that it should be leased to him with sovereign rights for ninety-nine years. In this way he obtained Kiao-chau, his Asiatic "place in the sun."