ABSTRACT
Of a sudden, in August 1914, came the great boon for the Island Empire, still struggling to consolidate her position on the mainland, in Korea and Manchuria, and still intriguing to extend her privileges and claims over other domains of the Chinese, in the same manner as she had made Korea and South Manchuria subservient to her wishes. The European War seemed destined, in large measure, not only to solve Japan’s pressing financial problems but likewise to make easy, while her Western rivals were engaged in butchering one another, Japan’s intervention policies on the mainland.
