THE CHINESE IMBROGLIO BECOMES COMPLICATED

While Feng dismisses President Tsao Koun, Ou Pei Fu resumes the offensive against Tchang Tso Lin

General Feng's coup d'état produced its immediate results in Peking, inevitably the same in similar circumstances: President Tsao Koun resigned, as had President Hsou Chi Tchang after the great victory won in April 1922 by Ou Pei Fu over Tchang Tso Lin. A provisional government is being formed at the head of which Feng has placed Mr. Wang, his coreligionist, who, like him, is a fervent supporter of American culture.
If General Feng is linked to Tchang Tso Lin, as certain dispatches suggest, the Japanese influence exercised through the dictator of Manchuria will therefore be counterbalanced by the pro-American tendencies of his new allies in Peking.

While the central government was organizing itself, the situation remained uncertain. Everything depended on how Marshal Ou Pei Fou would take his dismissal. Indeed, while President Tsao Koun was in Peking at the mercy of Feng's two divisions, Marshal Ou Pei Fou was in Chang-Hai-Kouan, where he had just inflicted a serious check on Tchang Tso Lin to whom the coup d'état brought salvation.

Ou Pei Fou now found himself between two fires, but if he was in contact with Tchang Tso Lin's army, a distance of 500 kilometers by rail still separated him from the 40,000 men at General Feng's disposal. He was a man to use this respite and he was considered, in British military circles, the only Chinese general who knew how to maneuver and was not content to oppose one mass of troops to another mass of troops. It was by a flanking attack that he routed Tchang Tso Lin in 1922. It is also fair to say that the lieutenant to whom he entrusted the execution of the flank attack was General Feng.

Finally, if for three days, General Feng has had Tchang Tso Lin and Sun Yat Sen as allies, Manchuria and South China, Ou Pei Fu still counts on the support of his friends, the Tukiouns of Kou-ang-Sou, Fou-Kien, Hovan, Upé and Shantoung, that is to say the leaders of the majority of the Chinese provinces.
The outcome of the fight will therefore depend on the strategic skill of Ou Pei Fu and... the loyalty of his troops and his friends the Tukiouns, because China is the country of surprises.
It is therefore still impossible to predict how the Chinese crisis will evolve. It is simply permissible, for the moment, to note that it has become a little more complicated.

OU PEI FOU ATTACKS

Peking, October 25 (Havas dept.) We learn from an authorized source that Ou Pei Fou launched a violent attack this morning on the Chang-Hai-Kouan front, in an attempt to turn the right flank of the Manchu forces.
Ou Pei Fou is said to be determined to arrive quickly at a final decision by taking the offensive rather than by carrying out a strategic withdrawal of troops. His men are obviously unaware of the recent events in Peking, and their morale is, it seems, excellent.

IN PEKING, THE RUMOR IS CIRCLING THAT OU PEI FOU WOULD BE DEFEATED

London, October 25 (Petit Parisien dept.) Various messages from Peking announce that the Manchu armies have cut off the retreat of a body of twenty-five thousand men of the government army between Shanghai Kouan and Chinwangtao.
General Ou Pei Fou, according to some rumors circulating in Beijing, took refuge on board an Italian gunboat which was in the port of Chinwangtao.

AT THE CHINESE LEGATION

While the Middle Empire resounds with the clash of arms, the din of collapsing governments, peaceful, deserted, mute, the little hotel on the Rue de Babylone where the Chinese Legation is installed resembles the palace of Sleeping Beauty. Finally Mr. Shen Hi, secretary of the legation, appears, with the most discerning eye in a round adolescent face. No reply has yet arrived to our telegrams asking for explanations, he tells me. So we are reduced to the news coming from London and published in your newspapers. Do you know Mr. C. T. Wang who is said to have been appointed president of the provisional government?
Not personally. But no one is unaware of the important role he played as president of the Council, minister of foreign affairs and delegate to the peace conference... He doubtless belongs to the same political party as General Feng?
Is it really a party? There would rather be between them a sympathy of ideas and religion, because both are Protestants, as are a certain number of our politicians. Until now, they belonged to the same group as Ou Pei Fou and Tsao Koun. But General Feng was known only as a military leader, a leader who was moreover highly esteemed and whose troops were particularly disciplined. What happened? Did he act on his own initiative, moved by his conscience? Was there a disagreement with his hierarchical superior Ou Pei Fou? Does he represent other military leaders, politicians? We are reduced to hypotheses... Let us wait!