and the United States, was in favor of the recognition. But President Wilson ruled that there must be unanimity, so the Japanese move failed. This failure, however, made inevitable a Japanese success on the next matter introduced, namely, the retention of Kiaochao. The British were by no means averse to seeing the defeat of Japan on the race question brought about in large measure by American influence, but they did not desire a Chinese victory over Japan gained by American-trained Chinese. Moreover, President Wilson, in gaining one victory, had lessened his chances of gaining a second. He was much worried over the possible failure of the Covenant, seeing that the Italian representative had just before walked out of the Conference. Japan had no intention of following suit, but the rumor that this might happen was noised abroad. Thus, when Baron Makino expressed amid the general sympathy of the lesser peoples his regret that the Conference had failed to accept the principle of race equality, he was at the same time preparing the ground for the rejection of China's plea. The question was a delicate one. But when the final decision as to how Versailles should deal with the Shantung affair came up, Wilson threw in his lot with the rest of the Big Four, hoping that Japan and China might yet settle the matter justly outside the Conference. It was clear that the action taken at Versailles could not be final, either for China or for Japan. American opinion ran strongly in favor of China, though it is a little difficult to separate what was sincerely pro-Chinese from what was partisan hostility now beginning to show itself in the United States Senate - against President Wilson and the League of Nations.

CHAPTER XX

THE AFTERMATH OF THE GREAT WAR IN ASIA

UNDOUBTEDLY one of the most far-reaching pronouncements ever made was President Wilson's declaration concerning the rights of small nations to "self-determination." The expression awoke all sorts of latent aspirations, from Ireland to Korea. To follow the reverberations of the saying would be to recount most of the national history of Europe and Asia in the years between the Treaty of Versailles and the Washington Conference. Yet it may be stated with reasonable accuracy that President Wilson's saying was in one way but the expression of much that had been inarticulate among masses of men for many years.

In Asia this only half-articulate desire for self-determination turned out to be a force which occasionally got out of hand and lent itself to exploitation by visionary and unscrupulous leaders. During 1920 and 1921 the Soviet activities of Russia, assisted by such agents as Enver Pasha and others of opportunistic proclivity, made the most prodigious efforts to wage war against all the imperialistic nations by gaining control of the governments of Asia. The members of the International were glad to use any tools that came to hand glad even to form a working partnership with one so little communistic in his leanings as Mustapha Kemal-in order to gain a victory over the Western Powers. So an organized effort was made to plan an armed expedition into India with Soviet troops, inspired by Hindu agitators and trained in Turkestan and Afghanistan. A school of propaganda was established in Samarkand, which attracted

pupils from near and far. In Persia, in Turkey, and eastward even to China, there was room everywhere for the "Red" missionary. But the campaign in the west, costly as it was to the Soviet funds, failed. The Indian expedition had to be postponed; a pro-British Persian vizier proved a fatal obstacle to their plans in the Kingdom of the Lion; and the trend of the Anatolian Government was in quite another than the Communistic direction.

It may be said here that the birth of the Anatolian Government was in large measure due to the nationalistic feeling which followed upon the Allies' award of Smyrna and Thrace to Greece. When in May 1919 a Greek force undertook the occupation of Smyrna, the spark was set to some very inflammable material. The leading spirit in the new Turkish nationalism was Kemal Pasha. The success of this individual was so instant that by August a provisional government was set up in Erzeroum,' pledged to the maintenance of the territorial integrity of Turkey and to the upholding of the Khalifate. Later, the centre of government was changed to Angora;2 so Asia Minor became the new rallying-point of the Ottoman, as it had been the cradle of its dominion. Kemal made abundant use of the prevailing Pan-Islamic sentiment. From India to North Africa incentive was given to the resurgence of Moslem hope. In India the feeling even brought about-miraculous as it seemed fraternizing between Hindu and Muhammadan. Gandhi and his Islamic "brothers" represented for the nonce a common hostility against the west. The Khilafat Committee, pledged to support the authority of the Sultan of Turkey as Khalif, had branches in London itself.

The Sultan, however, was for the moment only a puppet.5

1 See Curtis, Around the Black Sea, p. 35.

2 The ancient Ancyra, captured by the Ottoman Turks in 1360. Muhammad and Shau-kat Ali.

The same as "Khalifate."

'After Mustapha Kemal had used the Khalifate question to his own advantage, he deposed the Sultan on November 2, 1922 and deprived the Khalif of all temporal authority; on March 3, 1923 the Khalifate was abolished by the Grand National Council at Angora, with only two dissentient votes.

Imperial edicts launched from Constantinople were quite ineffectual in checking the activities of Kemal. The Allies, too, were powerless to enforce the terms decided upon at the Treaty of Sevres, April 1920. Yet, with a Greek army present in Asia Minor and in Thrace, the Ottoman delegates found it the better part of wisdom to sign the treaty. It seemed a perfectly natural thing for Kemal at this time to make common cause with the Russian Bolshevists, without the smallest intention of reducing Turkey to the condition of her northern neighbor. When the Soviet agents found in 1921 that they had but slight opportunity for success on the western frontier, they began to betray interest in the Far East. Very soon, too, they had reason to congratulate themselves on the result. The Omsk Government, organized by Koltchak, collapsed, as we have seen, in the fall of 1919. On its ruins there arose in the transbaikal provinces what was known as the Far Eastern Republic, with its capital at Chita. It was pink rather than red in its complexion, but soon began to show an understanding with Moscow. When the Maritime Province, of which Vladivostok was the capital, revolted, the Soviet agent loudly denounced Japan as the cause, and called for the Japanese evacuation of Siberia. What is known as the Chicherin 2 Note was not satisfied with addressing a warning to Japan, but even accused Great Britain, France, and Italy of being generally responsible for the campaign against the Soviets.

Long before the settlement of the Siberian question, new complications arose during the summer of 1921 in Mongolia. Reference has been made to the turmoil created by the reactionary Cossack, Ataman Semenoff, in 1919, and of Semenoff's connection with the fall of Koltchak. The ensuing confusion seemed sufficiently promising to induce somewhat tardy intervention on the part of China. Hsu Shu-tseng ("Little Hsu") came marching to Urga with his frontier defense force, and soon procured from the khans and lamas a repudiation of any desire

1 In Eastern Siberia, 500 miles east of Irkhutsk.

2 Or Tchitcherin, Bolshevist agent and Foreign Minister.

for autonomy. He then went further and imprisoned the Living Buddha of Mongolia - a piece of sacrilege which sent a thrill of horror throughout Buddhist Asia. After this he inaugurated a reign of terror such as rapidly convinced the population that the Reds were no worse enemies than their former masters, the Chinese. At this juncture, "Little Hsu” was summoned home to oppose Wu Pei-fu's drive upon Peking. Events followed hard upon the heels of his departure. Almost as he went out from Urga, entered the mad Russian reactionary adventurer, Ungern-Sternberg, a former officer of Ataman Semenoff. He at once rallied the Mongols and started upon an almost indiscriminate massacre of Chinese, Jews, and Russian Reds. Urga was captured and the Chinese garrison slaughtered. Then Sternberg proceeded to the coronation of the Living Buddha as Lord Supreme over all the "Buddhist Empire of Asia."

It was but a short-lived interlude of reactionism. Soon came the forces of the Moscow Soviets, took again the muchenduring Urga, and once more a hideous massacre was perpetrated. The mad baron, whose troops were guilty of as many atrocities as they found opportunity of committing, was captured, sent to Siberia, tried, and hung.

So came into being the Red "Mongolian People's Revolutionary Soviet Republican Government," under which Russiantrained Mongols were the figures, moved largely from Moscow. Severe restrictions on foreign trade were at once introduced, and all foreign traders were expelled. This state of things brought about retaliation from the Chinese side. The Chinese placed an embargo on the frontier trade, which worked even more hardship on foreigners than the other. It was in trying to run this blockade that the American, Charles Coltman, lost his life.

The Red officials were in time replaced by officials and regular troops from Moscow, and these made a vigorous but eventually futile effort to reduce everything to the proletarian level. When this effort extended to interference with the ram's-horn headdress of the Mongolian women, opposition began to gather.