re the
close of the period. It was a project whose political aims outweighed
its commercial aims. And it provided a warning of the gigantic designs
which Germany was beginning to work out. But as yet, in 1900, the
magnitude of these designs was unperceived. And the problems of the
Middle East were not yet very disturbing. The Turkish Empire remained
intact; so did the Persian Empire, though both were becoming more
helpless, partly owing to the decrepitude of their governments, partly
owing to the pressure of European financial and trading interests. As
yet the empires of the Middle East seemed to form a region
comparatively free from European influence. But this was only seeming.
The influence of Europe was at work in them; and it was probably
inevitable that some degree of European political tutelage should
follow as the only means of preventing the disintegration which must
result from the pouring of new wine into the old bottles.

In the Far East--in the vast empire of China--this result seemed to be
coming about inevitably and rapidly. The ancient pot-bound civilisation
of China had withstood the impact of the West in the mid-nineteenth
century without breaking down; but China had made no attempt, such as
Japan had triumphantly carried out, to adapt herself to the new
conditions, and her system was slowly crumbling under the influence of
the European traders, teachers, and missionaries whom she had been
compelled to admit. The first of the powers to take advantage of this
situation was France, who already possessed a footing in Cochin-China,
and was tempted during the colonial enthusiasm of the 'eighties to
transform it into a general supremacy over Annam and Tonking. As early
as 1874 she had obtained from the King of Annam a treaty which she
interpreted as giving her suzerain powers. The King of Annam himself
repudiated this interpretation, and maintained that he was a vassal of
China. China took the same view; and after long negotiations a war
between France and China broke out. It lasted for four years, and
demanded a large expenditure of strength. But it ended (1885) with the
formal recognition of French suzerainty over Annam, and a further
decline of Chinese prestige.

Ten years later a still more striking proof of Chinese weakness was
afforded by the rapid and complete defeat of the vast, ill-organised
empire by Japan, the youngest of the great powers. The war gave to
Japan Formosa and the Pescadores Islands