In the Appendices will be found every document of importance for the period of under examination,--1911 to 1917. The writer desires to record his indebtedness to the columns of The Peking Gazette, a newspaper which under the brilliant editorship of Eugene Ch'en--a pure Chinese born and educated under the British flag--has fought consistently and victoriously for Liberalism and Justice and has made the Republic a reality to countless thousands who otherwise would have refused to believe in it. PUTNAM WEALE. PEKING, June, 1917. CONTENTS I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION II. THE ENIGMA OF YUAN SHIH-KA III. THE DREAM REPUBLIC (From the Manchu Abdication to the dissolution of Parliament) IV. THE DICTATOR AT WORK (From the Coup d'etat of the 4th. Nov. 1913 to the outbreak of the World-war, 1. August, 1914) V. THE FACTOR OF JAPAN VI. THE TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS VII. THE ORIGIN OF THE TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS VIII. THE MONARCHIST PLOT 1 DEGREE The Pamphlet of Yang Tu IX. THE MONARCHY PLOT 2 DEGREES Dr. Goodnow's Memorandum X. THE MONARCHY MOVEMENT Is OPPOSED The Appeal of the Scholar Liang Chi-chao XI. THE DREAM EMPIRE ("The People's Voice" and the action of the Powers) XII. "THE THIRD REVOLUTION" The Revolt of Yunnan XIII. "THE THIRD REVOLUTION'" (CONTINUED) Downfall and Death of Yuan Shih-kai XIV. THE NEW REGIME--FROM 1916 TO 1917 XV. THE REPUBLIC IN COLLISION WITH REALITY: Two TYPICAL INSTANCES OF "FOREIGN AGGRESSION" XVI. CHINA AND THE WAR XVII. THE FINAL PROBLEM:--REMODELLING THE POLITICO-ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHINA AND THE WORLD APPENDICES--DOCUMENTS AND MEMORANDA THE FIGHT FOR THE REPUBLIC IN CHINA CHAPTER I GENERAL INTRODUCTION The revolution which broke out in China on the 10th October, 1911, and which was completed with the abdication of the Manchu Dynasty on the 12th February, 1912, though acclaimed as highly successful, was in its practical aspects something very different. With the proclamation of the Republic, the fiction of autocratic rule had truly enough vanished; yet the tradition survived and with it sufficient of the essential machinery of Imperialism to defeat the nominal victors until the death of Yuan Shih-kai.