The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 57, December 9, 1897 A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls

Excerpt

Germany is furnishing us with some interesting news this week.

She has successfully accomplished something which, to simple folks who are not diplomatists, seems like a plain, every-day case of robbery.

Here is the story of it, and you can judge for yourselves.

Some German missionaries have been killed in China, and Germany has seized a Chinese port in revenge.

Missionaries are, as you know, holy and devoted men who go to far countries to spread the knowledge of the Gospel among heathen and unenlightened people.

These good men have always suffered much for their faith. They go wherever their duty calls, and even carry their message of peace to the terrible cannibals who kill and eat men.

In the early annals of our own country we have records of the terrible sufferings endured by these good men in their missionary work among the redskins.

Missionaries count their perils and their privations as nothing if they can but do the work of God.

Every government is particularly careful to do all that it can to protect its missionaries, and if ignorant savages do them harm, an attempt is always made to punish the wrongdoers, to teach them that these servants of God are well protected.

The German Catholic Church some time ago established a mission in Shantung Province, China. Recently the sad news was received in Berlin that the mission at Yen Chu Fu had been attacked, and two missionaries killed.

The shameful deed was at first attributed to pirates, but later it was found that it had been planned by the governor of the province in revenge for some old grievance.

Following this outrage came news that the captain of a German gunboat had been attacked by a Chinese mob, which also insulted the German flag by throwing stones at it.

The Government was extremely angry at this, and immediately demanded an explanation from China.

The Chinese Government expressed its sorrow for the occurrence, and sent orders to the governor of Shantung to arrest and punish the offenders.

Germany was informed of the action taken by the Chinese Government, which, it is said, used all possible diligence and haste to bring the offenders to justice; so much diligence, in fact, that on the 15th of the month the governor of Shantung telegraphed that he had arrested four of the culprits.

Germany, however, went right ahead in her own way, without paying any heed to the efforts China was making to appease her; and to the intense surprise of the world, simultaneously with the news of the arrests came word that Germany had seized one of the Chinese harbors in the Yellow Sea.

The Yellow Sea is on the east of China, and is formed by the peninsula of Korea. Shantung, where the missionaries were killed, is a province bordering on the Yellow Sea, and the fortified bay captured by the Germans is called Kiao Chou, and is an excellent harbor on the Shantung Coast, with the town of Kiao lying at its head.

This harbor was guarded by three forts, which were manned by fifteen hundred Chinese soldiers.

Without word or warning the German admiral entered the bay, steamed up opposite the forts, and ranged his ships in line of battle....