Then at last they were free to
declare war. It was thus that China entered the war for democracy and
against militarism.
Of course China helped little, if at all, towards the winning of the
war, but that was not what the Allies expected of her. The objects of
the European Allies are disclosed in the French Note quoted above. We
wished to confiscate German property in China, to expel Germans living
in China, and to prevent, as far as possible, the revival of German
trade in China after the war. The confiscation of German property was
duly carried out--not only public property, but private property also,
so that the Germans in China were suddenly reduced to beggary. Owing to
the claims on shipping, the expulsion of the Germans had to wait till
after the Armistice. They were sent home through the Tropics in
overcrowded ships, sometimes with only 24 hours' notice; no degree of
hardship was sufficient to secure exemption. The British authorities
insisted on expelling delicate pregnant women, whom they officially knew
to be very likely to die on the voyage. All this was done after the
Armistice, for the sake of British trade. The kindly Chinese often took
upon themselves to hide Germans, in hard cases, from the merciless
persecution of the Allies; otherwise, the miseries inflicted would have
been much greater.
The confiscation of private property during the war and by the Treaty of
Versailles was a new departure, showing that on this point all the
belligerents agreed with the Bolsheviks.
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