lly and
socially Belgium felt itself closely allied to France, economically
its interests were much greater with Germany. If one can speak at
all of Belgium's foreign politics previous to the outbreak of the
war, one must say that they were influenced by sentiments rather
than anything else.

CHAPTER VIII

JAPAN

The awakening of modern Japan may be said to be coincident with
Commodore Perry's mission to the Far East in 1859. His was not only
the first of a long series of foreign embassies, but it resulted in
a treaty between Japan and the United States, and aroused the
curiosity of the Japanese sufficiently to send special ambassadors
of their own to the United States, and later to other countries.
This interest in western affairs at first found considerable
opposition at home on the part of the conservative element,
opposition which even resulted in civil war. The more liberal
attitude, however, carried the day. By 1879 Tokyo had been made the
capital and western laws had been introduced. At the same time that
Tokyo was made the capital the present form of imperial government
was adopted and the new emperor promised on his oath to give to his
people a constitution. This latter was proclaimed in 1889 and the
diet met for the first time in 1891.

Only three years later the Chino-Japanese War began. Its cause was
Chinese oppression of Korea. In one short year the ancient empire of
China was thoroughly beaten by its new rival for supremacy in the
Far East. As a result Japan received at the conclusion of peace in
1895 Formosa, a huge indemnity, and independence was granted to
Korea. This was a wonderful achievement for the young empire, and
the entire world's attention was centered on Japan. Some of the
European powers interested in China began to fear for their
interests and Germany, Russia, and France combined to restrain Japan
and moderate its terms to China. This aroused considerable ill
feeling in Japan against the three powers whose influences were said
to have deprived Japan of some of the fruits of its dearly bought
victory. Especially was this feeling directed against Russia whose
interests in China clashed directly with those of Japan. However, in
1898, these two countries concluded a treaty in which they both
acknowledged Korea's independence and promised to respect it.

As soon as commercial interests of the various foreign countries had
grown, Japan had to suffer the installment of consular cou