ure all North China to Christendom and enslave the cunning old
Empress Dowager, and do everything as arranged in Europe. It was,
above all, necessary not to cause an imbroglio in Europe.

Of course, the very opposite has happened, and everybody is now as
discontented and jealous as before the siege. Waldersee is in Tientsin
and has been there for weeks for some new decision to be made. The
grand advance is finished and done with, but now some column
commanders wish to push down into the south of the province and
isolate the Court, if possible. Meetings are being held the whole
time, but as Waldersee is coming up, nothing is to be done until his
arrival. By one ingenious stroke--the sudden flight of the Court--the
Chinese have turned the tables on allied Europe and made us all
ridiculous. Any one might have anticipated something of this--there is
a precedent in the histories. Yet history is only made to be
immediately forgotten.

XIV

PUNITIVE EXPEDITIONS

October, 1900.

* * * * *

At length Waldersee has arrived. He made a sort of entry which seemed
to me farcical. I only noticed that he was very old, and that the hats
that have been served out to the special German expeditionary corps
are absurd. They are made of straw and are shaped after the manner of
the Colonial hats used in South Africa. They have also a cockade of
the German colours sewn to the turned-up edge. This must be some
Berlin tailor's idea of an appropriate head-dress for a summer and
autumn campaign in the East. The hat is quite useless, and had it been
a month earlier all the men would certainly have died of sunstroke.

Of course, now with Waldersee in Peking, something more has to be
done, and the rumour is to-day that the Court has begun fleeing yet
farther to the West. The rulers of China are being kept accurately
informed of every move by some one, and any indication of a pursuit
will see them penetrate farther and farther towards the vast regions
of Central Asia. It seems to me that it would be almost amusing (would
not the consequences be so tragic) to begin this pursuit and really to
attempt to push the Court so far away that it finally lost touch with
all the rest of China. Then something beneficial to everyone might
come. An ultimatum, to which attention would be paid, might be
served, and guarantees exacted which would do service for a number of
years. At present the flight has done no harm wha