This was the position up
till the early days of December, 1918.
Just about this time the fact that Germany was beaten began to take
shape in the Japanese military mind, and the fact was hammered home by
the terms of the Armistice. For some days the Japanese Mission at Omsk
flatly refused to believe the cables; their national pride refused to
admit that they had so far misunderstood the power of Britain and her
Allies. It was a terrible awakening to the self-styled "Lords of the
East" that all their schemes should be brought to nought, that British
and American squadrons might be expected to cruise in the Sea of Japan,
and perhaps hold the scales fair between her and her temporarily
helpless neighbour. I do not suppose it will ever come to that, but such
was her fear. From this time on, while the objects of Japan in Siberia
were still the same, she pursued them by quite different methods.
The first sign of change was that Japanese soldiers were allowed to
salute British officers and were no longer allowed to use the butts of
their rifles on inoffensive Russian citizens. Their military trains no
longer conveyed contraband goods to their compatriots who had
_acquired_ the Russian business houses in the main trading centres along
the railway. The Staff no longer commandeered the best buildings in the
towns for alleged military purposes and immediately sub-let them to
private traders.
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