d Japan, the paper strategists found
comfort in the thought that the Japanese successes on American soil were
only temporary and that their victorious career would soon come to an
end. The supposition that Japan had no money to carry on the war was
soon seen to lack all real foundation. Thus far the war had cost Japan
not even two hundred millions, for it was not Japan, but the Pacific
States that had borne the brunt of the expense. Japan had already levied
in the States occupied by her troops a sum larger by far than the total
amount of the indemnity which they had hoped to collect at Portsmouth
several years before.

The overwhelming defeat of the Army of the North at Hilgard had taken
the wind out of a great many sails. The terrible catastrophe even
succeeded in stirring up the nations of the Old World, who had been
watching developments at a safe distance, to a proper realization of the
seriousness and proximity of the yellow peril.

Even England began to edge quietly away from Japan, this change in
British policy being at once recognized in Tokio when, at Canada's
request, England refused to allow Japanese ships to continue to use the
docks and coal depots at Esquimault. Later, when after the victories of
the American fleet off Port Stanley and near the Straits of Magellan,
the governor of the Falkland Islands was made the scape-goat and
banished--he had at first intended exposing the cabinet of St. James by
publishing the instructions received from them in July, but finally
thought better of it--and when the governors of all the British colonies
were ordered to observe strict neutrality, Japan interpreted this action
correctly. But she was prepared for this emergency, and now came the
retribution for having fooled the Japanese nation with hopes of a
permanent alliance. Japan pressed a button, and Great Britain was made
to realize the danger of playing with the destiny of a nation.

Apparently without the slightest connection with the war in America, an
insurrection suddenly broke out in Bengal, at the foot of the Himalayas
and on the plateaus of Deccan, which threatened to shake the very
foundations of British sovereignty. It was as much as England could do
to dispatch enough troops to India in time to stop the flood from
bursting all the dams. At the same time an insurrection broke out in
French Indo-China, and while England and France were sending
transport-ships, escorted by cruisers, to the Far East, great u