Otherwise there was nothing but a tacit
endorsement of the very policy which has been tearing the entrails
out of Europe--namely militarism. That was the fine fruit which
was offered to a hopeful nation--something that would wither on
the branch or poison the people as they plucked it. They were
taught to believe that political instinct was the ability to
misrepresent in a convincing way the actions and arguments of your
opponents and to profit by their mistakes--not that it is a mighty
impulse which can re-make nations. The Republic was declared by
the actions of Western bureaucrats to be a Republic pour rire, not
a serious thing; and by this false and cruel assumption they
killed Yuan Shih-kai.
If that epitaph is written on his political tombstone, it will be
as full of blinding truth as is only possible with Last Things.
CHAPTER XIV
THE NEW REGIME,--FROM 1916 TO 1917
Within an hour of the death of Yuan Shih-kai, the veteran General
Tuan Chi-jui, in his capacity of Secretary of State, had called on
Vice-President Li Yuan-hung--the man whom years before he had
been sent to the Yangtsze to bring captive to Peking--and welcomed
him as President of the Republic. At one o'clock on the same day
the Ministers of the Allied Powers who had hastily assembled at
the Waichiaopu (Foreign Office), were informed that General Li
Yuan-hung had duly assumed office and that the peace and security
of the capital were fully guaranteed.
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