Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/73

 on paper—survived although the men were entirely worthless and unequipped. Japan, who had just beaten Russia in her Manchurian war, began to realize anew that China was not really a negligible quantity, and that given an army and navy of even moderate efficiency China could re-establish the Far Eastern situation which had existed prior to the Korean war of 1894. The writer believes that a portion of the astonishing diplomatic story which has been enacted in Peking in the period 1914-18 is due to this one fact—namely, the Japanese fear of a militant China.

Had the revolution of 1911 not created an interregnum, the modern Chinese army would have reached its full authorized establishment (thirty-six field divisions with a peace-footing of half-a-million men and a war-footing of something over a million) at about the time of the commencement of the World War. But the revolution broke up the reorganization scheme long before it was completed; mixed the old-style and the new troops; and by lowering the standard and introducing politics into the army destroyed unity and discipline.

What Gambetta found in clericalism republican China indeed soon discovered in her militarists. The army, reinforced by myriads