# Chapter Two — West Against East

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## Japan Re-Opens

Far across the world, another island empire lay. But this empire didn’t want to spread across the world. It wanted to keep the rest of the world out.

The four islands of Japan were ruled by a *shogun*, a military general who inherited his position. For two hundred years, that shogun had been from the Tokugawa family. The Tokugawa shoguns were afraid that Christian missionaries, coming into Japan, would convert the Japanese to Christianity and destroy the traditional Buddhist faith. They were even more afraid that foreign armies would follow the missionaries in and take over Japan.

The Tokugawa shoguns decided that it would be best to keep all Christians out of Japan. As a matter of fact, it would be even safer to keep anyone from Western countries (countries in Europe or the Americas) out. The Japanese had everything that they needed to live. They did not need Western ideas, or Western missionaries, or Western goods.

So the shoguns passed laws, forbidding the Japanese to travel to foreign lands. A Japanese fisherman who was blown off course and landed on a foreign shore could never come home. Western merchants could not come to Japanese ports. Only a few Dutch ships were allowed to land on an artificial island in Japan’s most important harbor—and they were only allowed to do this once per year.

For almost two hundred years, the Japanese followed their own customs, fished off their own shores, and had nothing to do with the West. But even though merchants and missionaries from the West couldn’t get into Japan, Western books were translated into Japanese and brought into the country. The shogun, the warriors who obeyed him (the *samurai*), and other educated people in Japan knew about Western ideas such as democracy (governments in which the people of a country rule themselves, instead of obeying a king or queen). They heard about Western technology (scientific discoveries used to make machines and other inventions). As time went by, more and more Japanese began to think that perhaps keeping Japan separate from the rest of the world wasn’t such a good idea.

But before the Japanese could open their own doors to the West, the United States of America decided to break the doors down.

One hot August afternoon in 1853, the Japanese who lived near Edo Bay stood along the shores of the bay, staring out to sea. They had heard alarming rumors of four huge ships from the United States, loaded with guns, sailing their way. The ships had already been nicknamed the “Black Ships” by the Japanese fishermen who had seen them pass by.

Soon, four black specks showed themselves at the edge of the bay. As the Japanese watched, the ships grew nearer—and bigger. Two of them were brand-new, powerful steamships. The Japanese had never seen steamships before. They whispered to each other, “Two of the ships are burning!”

All four ships, bristling with cannon, dropped their anchors and lay with their guns pointing at the shores. The American sailors lined the decks, ready for action, armed with muskets and cutlasses.

What did these foreigners want? Slowly, nervously, a few Japanese boats pushed off from shore and approached the ships. But the Americans allowed no one on board. Several brave Japanese tried to swing up onto the chains that stretched down from the ships into the water, but the Americans waved their cutlasses to keep them away.

Meanwhile, the leader of the expedition, Commodore Matthew Perry, was down in his cabin, waiting.

Matthew Perry had been given a difficult job. American merchants wanted to buy fine Japanese silks and ceramics, and something even more important: coal. Steam engines needed coal to keep running, and the islands of Japan had plenty of natural coal. So the president of the United States, Millard Fillmore, sent Matthew Perry to Japan with a letter, asking Japan to open its ports to American ships.

Once before, the United States had asked Japan to trade with America. But the American captain who brought the request to Japan had been very friendly—so friendly that the Japanese decided he was too weak to take seriously. They refused to listen to him and sent him away.

Matthew Perry didn’t intend to make the same mistake. He told his men to keep the Japanese away from the ships until they sent a truly important official out to see him. So the Americans told the Japanese who tried to board, “We bring a letter from the president of the United States to the Emperor of Japan. But we can only give it to a high official of the Emperor.”

The Japanese went back to the shore to talk this over. They could see that the Americans did not understand how Japan was governed. Japan did have an emperor, but although the Japanese believed that the emperor was almost divine, he didn’t actually rule in Japan. The shogun had all the power.

Finally, the Japanese decided to write a letter assuring Matthew Perry that the governor of a nearby town, a man named Toda, was the emperor’s high official. They signed the letter in the emperor’s name, and gave it to the Americans. When the Americans saw this forged paper, they agreed to come ashore and give the president’s letter to Toda.

So Matthew Perry came ashore with his officers and a military band. The Japanese escorted him into a room hung with purple cloth and gauze curtains, where Toda sat, looking very serious. Matthew Perry handed over the president’s letter, enclosed in a rosewood box with gold hinges. And then the Americans marched away, with their band playing “Yankee Doodle.”

Toda thought the whole scene was very funny. But he and the other Japanese knew that the letter from the president was serious. Before he left, Matthew Perry warned the Japanese that he would return in one year for an answer—and that the answer had better be yes.

The Japanese knew that they could not fight back against Matthew Perry and his Black Ships. Japan had only a few cannon along the shores, and some of them no longer worked. The samurai, the warriors of Japan, were no longer the fierce soldiers they had once been. They had been taught to be government officials, not warriors. One samurai school even allowed its students to practice horseback riding indoors on wooden horses on rainy days, so that they wouldn’t have to get wet!

When Matthew Perry came back to Japan in 1854, the Japanese agreed to sign a trade treaty with them. Not too long after, France, Spain, and other European countries signed their own treaties with Japan. Japan was closed to the West no more.

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## The Crimean War

In the same year that Matthew Perry sailed from the West to the East, a war broke out halfway between East and West.

The war started when two countries quarreled over the keys to a church. Of course, the church keys didn’t actually *begin* the war. They were more like a lit match. A tiny match can’t do much damage on its own—but if you shove it under a stack of dry firewood, you’ll end up with a huge bonfire. The war that began in 1853 flared up because the countries involved were ready to fight with each other; there were plenty of pieces of “dry firewood” waiting to be lit.

The first piece of “firewood” was tossed onto the stack by the Turks. The Ottoman Turks ruled over the land of Palestine, where the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem lay, and also over the city of Constantinople (which the Turks had renamed Istanbul). All three of these cities were important to Christians. And although the Turks were Muslims, they didn’t want to make the Christian nations of Europe angry by keeping Christians away from holy places. So the ruler of Turkey gave England, France, and several other countries permission to take care of different holy places in Palestine.

The second piece of “firewood” was laid down by Nicholas I, the *czar* (ruler) of Russia. Nicholas I was determined to capture the city of Istanbul (which the Russians still called Constantinople) for Russia. Russia had no way to send ships down into the Mediterranean Sea. But if Russia owned Constantinople, Russian ships could sail down from the southern coast of Russia, through the Black Sea, past Constantinople, and into the Mediterranean. Those ships could carry Russian goods—and Russian soldiers! Nicholas I was looking for any excuse to attack the Turks and take Constantinople away.

The third piece of “firewood” was England’s fear of Russia. Nicholas I wanted the British to fight with him against the Turks, and he was willing to divide any land that he won with his British allies. But the English thought that Russians were wild and savage. Nicholas I visited Queen Victoria in London, hoping to impress her with his wisdom. (He was even careful to tell the Queen that Prince Albert had a “very noble air,” since he knew that Victoria liked to hear her husband praised.) But after he left, Queen Victoria snapped, “He has an uncivilized mind!” And one of her government officials warned, “I believe that if this barbarous nation \[of Russia\], the enemy of all progress … should once succeed in establishing itself in the heart of Europe, it would be the greatest calamity which could befall the human race.”

The fourth piece of “wood” was tossed onto the pile by France. France didn’t like the Turks—but at least the Turks were a weak and disorganized empire. Russia, on the other hand, had become a huge and threatening country, not very far away. If Russia attacked the Turks, perhaps France would be next! So the French also decided to try to make friends with the English. The king of France, Louis-Philippe, traveled to England to see Victoria, only two months after Nicholas I. The French and the English had been enemies for hundreds of years; Louis-Philippe was the first French king to visit the English monarch since 1356 (and in 1356, the French king had been dragged into England as a prisoner of war!). But Louis-Philippe managed to please Queen Victoria. She ordered a feast held for him, with the gold plates used for her favorite guests.

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Now the firewood was laid. The match was ready to be struck.

Russian and French Christians started to argue with each other about who should protect the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where they believed that Jesus had been born. The king of France told the ruler of Turkey that French warships would attack Constantinople if the French didn’t get the keys to the church. When Nicholas I heard about this, he retorted that he would march down and attack the Turks if the French *did* get the keys!

And that is exactly what he did. The Russian army invaded the northern part of the Turkish Empire. The French, afraid that Russia would grow bigger and even stronger, launched their own attack against the Russians. And the British joined with the French.

In the first year of fighting, the French and the British managed to drive the Russians back out of the Turkish Empire. But the two countries then decided to weaken Russia even more. Together, France and Britain were determined to capture the Russian city of Sevastopol.

Sevastopol lay in the north of the Black Sea, on a little chunk of land jutting down from Russia called the Crimean Peninsula. The Russians kept their warships at Sevastopol. If the French and British armies could capture Sevastopol, Russia would never be able to sail warships down into the Mediterranean Sea.

So the British and French armies marched towards Sevastopol. But the Russians fought back fiercely. The British and French soldiers had to dig trenches, fight a battle, push a little more forward, dig more trenches, fight another battle, and push a little more forward—for months and months. They spent so much time on the Crimean Peninsula that the whole war became known as the Crimean War. And as the Crimean War went on, the British army became more and more disorganized. No one seemed to be able to get food and clothing to the troops. Supplies sent to the Crimean Peninsula sat in piles, spoiling, only miles away from hungry soldiers who were wearing shreds of disintegrating uniforms. And in one of the most famous battles of the Crimean War, the Battle of Balaklava, British officers ordered mounted soldiers to charge forward into a much bigger Russian force, instead of waiting for reinforcements. The soldiers obeyed—and almost all of them were killed. Their charge was later made famous in the poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”:

> > Someone had blundered.\
> > Theirs not to make reply,\
> > Theirs not to reason why,\
> > Theirs but to do and die.\
> > Into the valley of Death\
> > Rode the six hundred.

But although the British weren’t very organized, the Russians didn’t do much better. Nicholas’s chief general made horrible mistake after horrible mistake. Finally, Nicholas’s son Alexander fired the general and appointed another one. When Nicholas I heard what his son had done, he had a stroke from anger—and died not long afterwards.

Only a few months after Alexander took control of Russia, the British and French finally managed to capture Sevastopol. More than one hundred thousand Russians had been killed or wounded defending it! Alexander knew that it was time for Russia to give up fighting. So in 1856, he agreed to sign a peace treaty called the Peace of Paris. Russia would get Sevastopol back, but only after returning Turkish land to the Turks. And Russia had to promise not to keep any warships in the Black Sea.

Russia could no longer dream of sailing a Russian fleet into the Mediterranean Sea. Russia’s ambitions had been quenched—for the moment.

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