Page:Diplomacy and the War (Andrassy 1921).djvu/30

 because the interests of all the great powers were involved, and there was least justification, from the point of view of civilization, for such a policy, as he was faced here by the most cultured nations of the East.

At a later stage of this competition, England and Germany came closer together, when the Boxer Rising had been successfully put down by the mixed standing army, led by Germans, and when Russia, in taking China under her protection, had acquired an excessively good business. In 1900 England and Germany made an agreement which was directed against Russia for the maintenance of the status quo in China. But even this rapprochement only led to further opposition between England and Germany, because England interpreted this agreement to mean that Germany must prevent Russian expansion in Manchuria, and Germany refused to recognize this interpretation (1902) and approached Russia once more. At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Germany was therefore the friend of Russia, without being able to split the Franco-Russian Alliance, while England had become the ally of Japan.

Their opposition became so acute during the war that England declared to the German Ambassador that she would be forced to support Japan, even if the latter declared war against Germany, on account of the arms which had been supplied by Germany to Russia. In other words, England supported the yellow race against her German brother.

At the time of the Spanish-American War (1898) the trend of public opinion in England was strongly