In Japan the news was received with delighted surprise. There were great rejoicings in the island kingdom, and when General Barnardiston reached Tokio he was accorded a welcome such as had never before been given to any stranger. He was greeted by parades of troops and thousands of cheering school children. The whole Japanese nation made holiday to rejoice in its victory, and the capital was gloriously decorated and illuminated. The National Assembly was called together, and the greatest enthusiasm prevailed. The German officers had been allowed to retain their swords, and the people showed them the utmost kindness.
The rapid fall of the fortress was a great blow to German pride. One of the newspapers wrote as follows:—
"Tsing-tau has fallen. The history of the German leased territory is henceforth at an end. It was short but glorious. From a decayed Chinese fishing village had been made a shining testimony to German culture. That the most beautiful, the cleanest, and the most progressive town in the Far East had sprung up in a couple of years from the soil was calculated to awake the jealousy of the slit-eyed people of the East. Never shall we forget the bold deed of violence of the yellow robbers or of England that set them on to do it. We know that we cannot yet settle with Japan for years to come. Perhaps she will rejoice over her cowardly robbery. Here our mills can grind but slowly. Even if years pass, however, we shall certainly not often speak of it, but as certainly always think of it. And if eventually the time of reckoning arrives, then as unanimously as what is now a cry of pain will a great shout of rejoicing ring through Germany. 'Woe to Nippon.'"[150]
The city of Warsaw looking north-west across the Vistula, which here flows under the three bridges connecting the city proper with its suburb, Praga.
Warsaw is beautifully situated on the left bank of the Vistula, which is here about as wide as the Thames at Gravesend. Most of the city is built on a low hill which rises from the broad plain to a terrace 120 feet above the river-level. Though dating from the Middle Ages, Warsaw is very modern in appearance. It is a large manufacturing centre, but has none of the smoke and grime which characterize most industrial towns. There is no livelier or gayer city in the east of Europe. Its buildings are fine, and its well-laid-out public gardens are a great attraction. In Sigismund Square is the former royal castle, round which the life of the city is centred. Four main thoroughfares radiate from it, and on or near these are the chief public buildings, churches, and statues. The Church of the Holy Ghost contains the heart and monument of the great Polish musician Chopin. The population of Warsaw in 1911 was 872,478, one-third of the people being Jews. Praga is the junction of six great trunk lines which converge from Vienna, Berlin, and Danzig on the one side of the frontier, and from Petrograd, Moscow, and Kiev (South Russia) on the other.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE FIRST ATTACK ON WARSAW.
It is high time that we returned to the Eastern theatre of war. In Chapter XXXIV. of Volume II. you were told that at the end of September 1914 the Russians, after their crushing defeats of the Austrians, had advanced through Galicia to within a hundred miles of Cracow. At that time it seemed to us in the West that the Russian left would be almost certain to capture the great Galician fortress, and advance into Silesia and across the Carpathians towards Vienna within the next few weeks. Meanwhile we believed that the Russian right would be over the German frontier in full march for Berlin. It was rumoured—falsely, as we now know—that the Austrians shared our belief, and that their Government had decided to leave Vienna for Salzburg[151] or Innsbruck.[152] Though the Allies in the West were held up by the Germans on the Aisne, the prospects of their rapid and complete success in the East seemed very bright indeed.