The Fear of ‘Yellow Peril’ and the Emergence of European Federalist Movement

Abstract

As an outcome of the dialectical narrative of European superiority in the nineteenth century (expressed in racial terms), the military and economic development of Japan and China created anxieties that have been shown to have a place in the history of Europe from the 1890s to the late 1930s. The term ‘yellow peril’ gave descriptive value to this anxiety. This essay argues that fear of the ‘yellow peril’ contributed to the emergence of the European federalist movement between the early 1900s and the 1930s. Fear of the ‘yellow peril’ was not the only factor responsible for the emergence of federalist movements, but operated alongside numerous other influences and discourses, many of which historians have identified. My concentration on the ‘yellow peril’ is due to its complete neglect by historians to date.

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The Fear of ‘Yellow Peril’ and the Emergence of
European Federalist Movement
Michael Odijie
To cite this article: Michael Odijie (2018) The Fear of ‘Yellow Peril’ and the Emergence
of European Federalist Movement, The International History Review, 40:2, 358-375, DOI:
10.1080/07075332.2017.1329751
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The Fear of ‘Yellow Peril’and the Emergence of European
Federalist Movement
Michael Odijie
ABSTRACT
As an outcome of the dialectical narrative of European superiority in
the nineteenth century (expressed in racial terms), the military and
economic development of Japan and China created anxieties that
have been shown to have a place in the history of Europe from the
1890s to the late 1930s. The term ‘yellow peril’gave descriptive
value to this anxiety. This essay argues that fear of the ‘yellow peril’
contributed to the emergence of the European federalist
movement between the early 1900s and the 1930s. Fear of the
‘yellow peril’was not the only factor responsible for the emergence
of federalist movements, but operated alongside numerous other
influences and discourses, many of which historians have identified.
My concentration on the ‘yellow peril’is due to its complete neglect
by historians to date.
KEYWORDS
European integration; yellow
peril; origin of European
integration
I.
The history of European integration has been written as a process driven by state or gov-
ernment initiatives, but also as a process driven by pro-European federalist movements
and ideas. Writers oriented towards state-led explanations tend to leave out the backdrop
of pro-federalist movements and ideas by investigating official documents alone,
1
while
writers emphasizing the role of federalist movements in integration tend to pay excessive
attention to intellectuals, societal movements and public discourse.
2
The German historian
Walter Lipgens made the first attempt to bridge this divide by showing how the integra-
tion movement influenced government decisions.
3
Following Lipgens, a number of important recent studies have directed scholarly atten-
tion to the importance of federalist movements and integration plans between 1910 and
the outbreak of the Second World War, and how they contributed to European integration
after 1945.
4
The American historian Carl Hamilton Pegg, for example, argued that interwar
ideas about integration (public debate and movements for federal Europe) came into fru-
ition with the establishment of the European Economic Community in 1957.
5
In a review
of Pegg’s study, the British historian Alan Milward cautioned that federalist movements
and the ideas behind them were understood variously: for example, the federalization of
Europe was understood as a means of preventing the reconstruction of German empire in
France; as an attempt to defend the conservative value of ruling elites; as a means of pro-
moting European peace, especially between France and Germany; as an anti-Soviet front;
CONTACT Michael Odijie meodijie2@sheffield.ac.uk
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW, 2018
VOL. 40, NO. 2, 358–375
https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2017.1329751

as a liberal customs union that would allow German industries to dominate European mar-
kets; as a means of effecting collective colonialism in Africa; as a scheme promoting Euro-
pean interests against America or creating a bloc capable of withstanding America; as a
response to European economic and political decline; and so forth.
6
As a few historians
have already shown, multiple and competing ideas and themes drove European federalist
movements, some of which were much more prominent at certain points in history than
at others, as some of the problems for which European unity was proposed as a solution
in the first quarter of the twentieth century were no longer in evidence after 1945, and
the solutions proposed for the ones that persisted had changed.
7
The purpose of this essay is to reintroduce to the historiographical literature an early
theme that contributed to the emergence of the European federalist movement/idea/dis-
course from the early 1900s to about the 1930s, but which has not been adequately rec-
ognized by historians: that of the ‘yellow peril’, which connoted an existential threat to
white people from ‘lower races’, especially the inhabitants of East Asia. European anxieties
about the ‘yellow peril’from the early 1900s were due to the perceived military economic
and technological progress of Japan and East Asia, which was conceived as a threat to
white nations and to white people in general. Europe’s fascination with skin pigmentation
in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was in part produced by the twin systems
of colonialism and Darwinism. The latter induced social scientists to view different ‘races’
on a hierarchical continuum and as engaged in a hidden struggle for survival, so that the
perceived technological and material progress of non-white people was immediately read
as a threat. The development of Japan was seen as a menace to the existence of the white
race, in response to which, as the political scientist Rudolf Kjell
en put it, Europeans had
only one option for survival: to ‘organize themselves as the United States of Europe’.
8
With the aid of various secondary materials, this essay shows that the early European
federalist movement was seen as a means of averting the ‘yellow peril’in Europe, but the
fear of the ‘yellow peril’was not the only factor contributing to the emergence of federal-
ist movements; instead, it existed side by side with numerous other influences. My con-
centration on the anxieties surrounding the ‘yellow peril’is due to the complete neglect
of this theme by historians. Fear of the ‘yellow peril’contributed to the early stages of the
movement for European federation in the following two ways. First, the perceived military
and economic progress of Japan led to anxiety that Japan would someday control China
and seek global supremacy. Second, and relatedly, conflict between white nations (such
as the First World War) was felt to indirectly strengthen the ‘yellow peril’, leading to an
urgent need for European integration to prevent internecine conflict that might lead to
the decline of the race. This line of argument was taken by many prominent pacifists,
such as Alfred Hermann Fried (1864–1921), Georg Friedrich Nicolai (1874–1964), Wilhelm
Schallmayer (1857–1919), Sir Max Waechter (1837–1924) and Helene Stocker (1869–1943).
The remainder of this article is divided into four parts. Section II introduces the fear of
the ‘yellow peril’in Europe in the early twentieth century. Section III focuses on the signifi-
cance of the ‘yellow peril’to the emergence of the early European federalist movement
and related arguments from 1909 to 1919. The racial language of a ‘yellow peril’was
adopted by the Congress of the European Federation in Rome from 16 to 20 May, 1909;
by Sir Max Waechter’s European Unity League; by intellectuals such as Rudolf Kjell
en, who
had a considerable influence on integrationists in the 1920s; by First World War pacifists
(who saw the war as weakening the white race relative to the yellow race and thus called
THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 359

for European federalism); and by political scientists writing on the decline of Europe after
the First World War. Section IV focuses on Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europa
movement and related movements of the 1920s. References to the ‘yellow peril’were
absent from Coudenhove-Kalergi’sinfluential Pan-Europa discourse –due, I suggest, to
the fact that Coudenhove-Kalergi was partly Japanese –but the general idea of white self-
destruction was prominent. Section V concludes the paper.
II.
The precise meaning of the phrase ‘yellow peril’is difficult to capture. The term broadly
describes an existential threat to the white race and white people not with a specific
source or from any one country or one people, but from nameless hordes of barbarous
yellow people invading the European continent.
9
The geographical application of the
term is also somewhat disordered: it was sometimes applied to China alone, and at other
times to Japan. Most frequently, however, it was applied to East Asia with Japan as the fig-
urehead; and in a few cases it was applied to non-white races in general. Before the term
was coined, anxiety about the concept had already been expressed in the British/Austra-
lian historian Charles Henry Pearson’sinfluential book National Life and Character: A Fore-
cast. Pearson argued that East Asians (which to him primarily meant the Chinese) would
control the world and dominate the white race.
10
After its coinage in 1895, ‘yellow peril’
was the preferred blanket term for such threats. The literature on the ‘yellow peril’is
diverse: the term has thus been analysed as a mere racist colour-metaphor, as a racist
myth, as a media event, as a discourse, as a trope in other discourses, as a catchphrase
informing political and social debate, and as a serious threat informing government
policies.
11
In essence, as the English historian Thoralf Klein observed, fear of the ‘yellow peril’had
several dimensions.
12
First, economic and demographic: the former represented anxieties
that industrialization in Japan and China would displace European economic strength,
while the latter connoted fear about the growth of the Asian population and increased
immigration to white countries. The third dimension was political: the peril was conceived
in terms of a military and political threat by inviting speculation about the future align-
ment of global power in which Europe would lose its dominant position. Examination of
the political dimension of the ‘yellow peril’invites us to consider the context of the late
nineteenth century from which such a fear emerged.
As observed in many studies, race in late nineteenth century Europe was not only cen-
tral to the European conception of the self, through the ideology of imperialism and the
‘civilizing’mission, for example; far more importantly, various intellectual submissions
drew on biological conceptions of the survival of the fittest race and human sociology in
general.
13
Whites of European descent were considered to make up the superior race –a
view grounded materially in technological progress (economic and military). However,
their superiority was not essential but dialectical: the perceived progress of another, ‘infe-
rior’race necessarily posed a threat to the white race.
Indeed, the fear of the ‘yellow peril’flourished in Europe (and in the United States and
Australia) in direct response to episodes of perceived political and military development
by East Asian countries.
14
Three of these events stand out. The first was the Sino-Japanese
war of 1894–1895, in which Japan overwhelmed Chinese resistance and thereby displayed
360 M. ODIJIE

an advanced military capability. This demonstration led to the dissemination of propa-
ganda centring on the ‘yellow peril’. The Sino-Japanese war ended with the Treaty of Shi-
monoseki on 17 April 1875, in which China made a major territory concession in the
Liaodong Peninsula and Formosa. But only six days after the treaty was signed, Russia,
Germany and France delivered a joint ultimatum to Tokyo, backed by the threat of military
force, urging Japan to renounce its new territorial possessions.
15
The tripartite interven-
tion was intended not simply to check the imperial ambition of Japan, but also to maintain
the status quo.The Sino-Japanese war inspired Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany (‘the Kai-
ser’) to commission the famous ‘yellow peril’painting shown in Figure 1 (1895), which
became a symbol of the threat posed to the white race by the yellow race.
This painting outlines the danger posed by the yellow race, specifically Japan at this
point in history, to European civilization. The nations of Europe, represented by armoured
Genii, are gathered on a precipice overlooking a broad but receding valley. Germania
stands at the front while Britannia holds back, uncertain whether to join in. In the fore-
ground, European cities are burning. At the end of the bluff, a vibrant male –the Archan-
gel Michael –gestures into the distance, urging the nations of Europe to fight. The figure
of Buddha approaches in the distance from the east, surrounded by smoke. This piece
was originally named Vo€lker Europas, Wahrt Eure Heiligsten G€
uter (which loosely translates
as Nations of Europe! Defend Your Sacred Possessions).
16
The Kaiser sent the original paint-
ing to the Russian Tsar, with the following commentary. ‘The power of Europe represented
by their respective Genii called together by the Arch-Angel Michael –sent from Heaven –
to unite in resisting the inroad of Buddhism, heathenism and barbarism for the defence of
the cross. Stress is laid on the united resistance of all European powers’.
17
The Kaiser also
Figure 1. ‘The Yellow Peril’, a 1895 drawing based on a sketch by Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany
aimed to encourage Europe to Unite and fight the approaching Eastern threat.
THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 361

sent the painting to statesmen and popular magazines across Europe; it appeared in the
New York Times in 1898 with the title ‘The Yellow Peril’.
18
On some occasions, both the Kaiser and the very concept of the ‘yellow peril’were
mocked;
19
for example, the historian Lamar Cecil pointed out that the ‘yellow peril’was
no more concerning than the ‘Slavic danger’that the Kaiser also perceived to be on the
verge of destroying Europe.
20
Others argued that the ‘yellow peril’was an instrument for
diplomatic diversion, to redirect Russian gaze away from the Reich’s Eastern border
towards East Asia, as claimed by Phillip Gassert,
21
or part of Weltpolitik, Germany’s version
of imperialism.
22
Nevertheless, the imagined threat posed by the ‘yellow peril’is incontest-
able, and the Kaiser succeeded in raising widespread awareness of this threat with the dis-
semination of his painting.
The second major event contributing to the burgeoning fear of the ‘yellow peril’was
the Boxer Rebellion (1900–1901), an anti-imperialist nationalist uprising that took place in
China between 1899 and 1901, and was seen in Europe as a manifestation of the yellow
peril.
23
As a result, eight states (Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Russia and the United States) intervened to crush the rebellion. As Naomi Greene
observed, this event led to the inclusion of ‘yellow peril’in the 1901 edition of the Oxford
English Dictionary.
24
Perceptions of the threat of the ‘yellow peril’flourished during the
rebellion –despite the fact that Japan, which had been the subject of anxiety in 1885, was
part of the international coalition responsible for suppressing the Boxer Rebellion.
The third decisive event was the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–1905, or more accurately,
Japan’s victory against Russia. As the Japanese historian Matsumura Masayoshi argued, at
the beginning of the Russo-Japanese war, the Tokyo government was worried about an
outbreak of ‘yellow peril’hysteria in Europe and America, and also feared a joint military
intervention by Western powers if Japan won the war against Russia.
25
Before the war,
therefore, the government of Japan sent two emissaries, Suematsu Kencho and Kaneko
Kentaro, to Europe and America respectively, with the task of averting an outbreak of anti-
yellow sentiment.
26
Although public opinion in European countries was not well disposed
towards Russia in general (Russia was sometimes considered Asiatic in the French, German
and British media), a new wave of ‘yellow peril’broke out in Europe as the war went in
Japan’s favour.
27
After the Japanese victory, the theme of the ‘yellow peril’was expressed in a copious
amount of fiction writing
28
and other forms of popular literature (notably postcards).
29
Japan was seen in journalistic articles as anti-Christian, with the long-term goal of uniting
the yellow races against Europe. Journalistic articles and political books published in
France and Germany also warned of the ‘yellow peril’.
30
Most of these texts summoned
the image of a future controlled by the yellow race. A particularly influential example was
a book by the German Christian Spielmann, Arier Und Mongolen (Aryan and Mongols),
which appeared just after the war. Spielmann placed the Russo-Japanese war in the larger
context of forthcoming conflict between ‘whites’and ‘yellows’in which the latter sought
world domination. According to Spielmann, Japan and China would eventually collaborate
against Europe. His solution was contained in the following words: ‘Band together, Aryan
peoples of Europe, to defend your race and Lord; make your preparation before it is too
late’.
31
Similarly, most contemporary political texts calling attention to the ‘yellow peril’
generally contained arguments for unification and integration between the white nations
to stem the ‘yellow peril’.
32
For example, after the war Robert Stein wrote the following in
362 M. ODIJIE

The Advocate for Peace:‘[j]ust now the French and German press is ringing with alarm at
the “yellow peril”, which in Britain…is largely treated as a Bogey. Bogey or no bogey, the
peril will vanish the moment France and Germany clasp hands, because their union, as
has been explained will necessarily led to the Triple alliance (including Britain)’.
33
He went
on to state that such a triple alliance would open the door to integration in the form of a
European federal system, at which point the ‘yellow peril’would no longer threaten
Europe.
It is pertinent to note, however, that a number of authors were convinced that the ‘yel-
low peril’was nothing but a crude exaggeration. Some writers mocked the idea, notably
Anatole France.
34
The British press generally ridiculed the peril from 1904 and supported
Japan during the war –notably The Spectator (which had, however, raised alarms regard-
ing the peril in 1899) and The Times.
35
This may be due to the general Russophobia in Brit-
ain at the time, or perhaps to the 1902 British–Japanese Alliance (in which both parties
promised to declare neutrality if either signatory became involved in war and to support
the other if either signatory became involved in war with more than one power; this alli-
ance may have deterred Germany and France from supporting Russia during the Russo-
Japanese War, because such a move would have induced Britain to back Japan). Despite
conceding the rise of Japan, The Spectator noted that ‘[n]o one with any claim to be heard
has ever alleged that the Japanese, even if they controlled the entire resources of China,
would have any motive in conquering Europe, or, unless they invented some unheard-of
weapon—an asphyxiating shell, for example –would have any means of accomplishing
the task’.
36
A similar view ran through the British media, with few exceptions.
The split between the British press and that of France and Germany was clear (as
shown above). The British intellectual Demetrius C. Boulger observed that ‘there is no
more popular theme in the Continental press and periodicals today than the alleged
approaching combination of the yellow races, welded and led on by Japan, the magician
of the Far East, for the purpose of defying, humiliating, and in the end menacing
Europe’.
37
The Kaiser also noted this split, which he blamed on ‘the ninnies who run the
government’in Britain, writing in his diary that ‘England is in the position of a traitor to
this white man’s cause, and England is outside any programme which other western coun-
tries devise to meet the conditions which the awakening of the East has produced’.
38
III.
Like many other writers at the time, the Kaiser saw the victory of Japan over Russia as a
step towards the fulfilment of his prophecy; for him, this victory made the peril ‘the great-
est danger threatening the white race, Christendom and Europe’.
39
The Kaiser’s proposal
was similar to that of Spielmann, who called (albeit in vague terms) for the unification of
the white race as a solution to the yellow peril. The Kaiser’s solution appeared on the front
page of The New York Times in September 1905, entitled ‘Kaiser says Japan will control
China: Wants the powers to unite against the yellow peril’.
40
The argument is outlined in
the title and summarized in another interview in which the Kaiser declared that ‘it is nec-
essary for the white nations to stem the yellow peril by uniting’.
41
In short, as I have
already noted, after Japan’s victory, most writers who gave expression to the anxieties of
the ‘yellow peril’also called for unity, integration, federalization, etc.
THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 363

The promotion of white unity to stem the ‘yellow peril’, although vague and unfocused,
became an emerging theme in the early federalist movement after the Japan/Russia war.
The Kaiser was seen by some as a symbol of both the danger of the ‘yellow peril’and the
necessity of unity among European countries. For example, the Kaiser was invoked as an
advocate of European integration in the face of the ‘yellow peril’by the Austrian Nobel
laureate Alfred Hermann Fried, who co-founded the German peace movement (and
served as secretary of the International Conciliation for Central Europe and secretary-gen-
eral of the Union internationale de la presse pour la paix). Fried argued in his journals, enti-
tled Annuaire de la Vie Internationale that the success of the Hague conferences (1899 and
1907) reflected a progression towards international bonds of cooperation, and recom-
mended the United States as a model for Europe’s unification.
42
It was he [the Emperor] who painted a prophetic picture, “The Yellow Peril,”which was so
scoffed at ten years ago. It is a matter of common knowledge that the picture bore the inscrip-
tion: ‘Nations of Europe! Unite to protect your most cherished possessions!’Today that peril is
more apparent than it was a decade ago and the unity of European nations has therefore
become all the more necessary.
43
Fried’s connection between the ‘yellow peril’and the unity of Europe was a common
theme after 1906, because as Sidney L. Gulick argued in 1914 (although in a book written
much earlier), ‘Japan’s amazing victory over Russia has raised doubts among white nations
[…] In the not distant future Asia, armed, drilled, and united, will surpass in power, they
aver, any single white people,and it is accordingly a peril to the rest of the world’.
44
The
key phrase in the above excerpt is ‘any single white people’; according to this logic, white
people needed to unite. Gulick pointed out that a new plan for safety was already being
conceived, with several suggestions that converged on two points: first, that no single
white people could deal with the ‘yellow peril’alone; and second, therefore, that white
nations needed to unite.
45
The premise of one approach, she wrote, is ‘to keep each race
to the territories they now hold. Chinese and Japanese must stay in Asia, however many
they are and whatever may be their needs; while the white races may possess and exploit
the rest of the earth’.
46
Again, it is important to contextualize the views that produced
such racial anxieties: it was believed (with the support of centuries of European settlement
in America, Australia and Africa) that once a race or civilization had attained a certain level
of development, it must seek expansion and in the process displace others. Needless to
say, fear of the ‘yellow peril’was also prominent in the United States and Australia, as
expressed in societal movements for the restriction of Asian immigration.
But to return to the issue: as well as underpinning more vaguely expressed intellectual
arguments for European unity, the ‘yellow peril’featured in what was reported in 1909 as
‘the first Congress for the promotion of European Federation in a practical way’.
47
The
ideas of and discourse on European unity, federation, integration, unification, etc., had a
long history; however, the movement took concrete form before 1914, notably in 1909.
Before establishing the European Unity League in 1913 to lay the foundations for a federal
Europe, the Anglo-German Sir Max Waechter teamed up with Prince de Cassano of Italy to
organize the Congress of the European Federation in Rome from 16 to 20 May 1909.
48
The congress received patronage from the Kaiser and other European statesmen, and
became a short-lived movement. The congress clearly identified the need to avert future
war among European countries as the rationale for the movement; however, the ‘yellow
364 M. ODIJIE

peril’and the progress of the ‘lower race’were also noted as serious threats that unifica-
tion would serve to avert.
49
One of the lectures held that without a definite movement
towards peace among European nations, the ‘higher races’would remain unable to
‘defend themselves against the more rapidly increasing lower races’.
50
However, Sir Max Waechter, who was central to the congress and the most conspicu-
ous promoter of European federalism between 1909 and the outbreak of the First World
War, was motivated not explicitly by race or by fear of the ‘yellow peril’but by peace-
related and economic considerations.
51
Sir Waechter was an industrialist who was fond of
comparing the sums spent by European countries on armaments with those spent on
social services. According to a report in the journal Suffragette,‘Sir Max Waechter who has
had long conversations with the Sovereigns and the leading statement of Europe on this
subject, tells that Europe spends on armaments far more than it does on education, sanita-
tion and social reform combined …If the same amount of brain, energy and half of the
money were devoted to the development of international law and the making of friends
between nations, the federation of Europe would be firmly established and armaments
would gradually disappear’.
52
But Sir Waechter’s eagerness to avert war and promote a
more economically prosperous Europe had the backing of the ‘yellow peril’thesis. Carl H.
Pegg, for example, reported that the Kaiser was a major patron of Sir Waechter.
53
There is
also evidence that Sir Waechter invoked the threat of the ‘yellow peril’and the decreasing
influence of the white race in journalistic articles to support his movement.
54
Another high-level supporter of Sir Waechter’s movement and the 1909 conference
was the political scientist Rudolf Kjell
en, who argued as follows. ‘The European Federation
has not been fully appreciated on the agenda. .what used to be a vague idea is now
emerging as a necessity in the interest of Europe’s self preservation [for] only through
union can the present European State preserve their stamina towards rapidly growing
adversaries which already count their territories in double and their population in triple
digit million…We can already witness the shadows of […] Yellow perils being cast over
our continent’.
55
Kjell
en was the founder of geopolitical analysis, coining the term ‘geopol-
itics’, and a prominent supporter of the federalization of Europe before 1914. He was also
a student of the German geographer and ethnographer Friedrich Ratzel, who developed
the concept of lebensraum or living space, which later became central to the ideology of
the Nazi Party.
56
Lebensraum is based on an organismic theory of state according to
which all organisms are engaged in a struggle for living space, with the strongest seeking
to expel the weakest. Rudolf Kjell
en’s book The State as a Living Form, published in 1916,
invested Ratzel’s theory with a racial identity for the state.
57
The struggle for living space
emerged between different races, and his call for the unification of European countries
was by no means incidental. Indeed, as observed by Tobias Hübinette, Kjell
en admired
Japan but was also true to the times, regarding the ‘yellow peril’as ‘nothing less that the
approaching struggle for world hegemony between the whites and the yellow people’.
58
For Kjell
en, Europeans had only one option for survival: to ‘organize themselves as the
United States of Europe’.
59
The minor progress made by the Congress of the European Federation and Waechter’s
European Unity League (along with other small-scale movements) was lost with the out-
break of the First World War. The historian Patrick Pasture argued that Sir Max Waechter
had managed to convince King Edward VII and other European statesmen of the necessity
of forming a United States of Europe, but that this goal dissipated with the outbreak of
THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 365

war in 1914.
60
Despite, crucially, a new enthusiasm for European federalism with the out-
break of the First World War, as argued by the First World War historian David Stevenson,
this new outburst of pro-European integration enthusiasm in France and Germany
advanced national as opposed to regional integration agenda: both Germany and France
conceived of an ambitious integration scheme.
61
The ‘September Programme’offers a
useful example: in September 1914, when Germany felt sure of victory, Chancellor Theo-
bald von Bethmann-Hollweg set out a plan for central European integration (initially to
include France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria-Hungary, Poland, Italy, Sweden and
Norway) as part of Germany’s demands in a peace negotiation after the war.
62
French offi-
cials produced a similar but less studied or impressive integration scheme. Writers orien-
tated towards state-driven explanations tend to start their histories of modern European
integration/federalism in 1914, precisely with these ambitious programmes. However,
only against a backdrop of intellectual and popular debate and movements were these
states able to imagine their ambitious nationally led integration schemes.
The outbreak of the war also created a new stream of ideas on and movements for
European federation, beginning with the peace/pacifist movement. As Richard Olson
argued, virtually all of the French and German peace movements to occur during the First
World War, with their promotion of a European federation, were grounded in scientific
pacifism.
63
Scientific pacifism calls attention to the dysgenic nature of war, and its use in
this context stressed the potential for war to injure Europe relative to other regions, often
expressed in racial terms. Some of the First World War pacifists thus proposed federalism
and argued against war on the basis that it constituted an internecine conflict capable of
strengthening the so-called yellow race.
64
Leading public intellectuals such as Georg Frie-
drich Nicolai (1874–1964), Wilhelm Schallmayer (1857–1919) and Helene Stocker (1869-
1943) fell into this category.
Georg Friedrich Nicolai, author of the ‘Manifesto to the Europeans’, argued against the
war for its ‘contraselective’nature in white countries, which he believed to weaken white
nations relative to East Asians. He called for the federalization of Europe as the means of
preventing such a decline.
65
Similarly, Wilhelm Schallmayer, who had earlier regarded war
as an agent in the human struggle for existence and written that war between unequal
races was beneficial, especially if this led to the extermination of ‘lower’races,
66
was par-
ticularly frightened of Asia and its potential to overcome the white race. At the beginning
of the war, he warned of the ‘yellow peril’and developed a plan for unifying Europe to cre-
ate a supranational European state as a way of pacifying the Continent and preventing the
decline of the white race.
67
Although Schallmayer himself considered this plan to be uto-
pian, he is today known as one of the earliest champions of European unification (espe-
cially in Germany and Austria), due to his influential 1915 essay ‘Unzeitgem€
aße Gedanken
€
uber Europas Zukunft’(‘Untimely Thoughts on the Future of Europe’), during which he
argued for ‘the creation of a large federal state comprising the majority of the European
states, with only one commonwealth of states (‘Schaffung eines großen, die Mehrzahl der
europ€
aischen Staaten umfassenden Bundesstaates mit nur einer’.
68
Clemens Jesenitschnig
and others have pointed out the ideational and linguistic resemblances between Schall-
mayer’s European programme and later integration plans in the 1950s.
69
In 1915, a US member of the House of Representatives, Frank Smith, took up Schall-
mayer’s peace programme (which offered a first step toward integration) to initiate a
eugenics-based peace initiative supported by scholars like Edward Rosa and Irving Fisher.
366 M. ODIJIE

The initiative was expressly intended to bring the warring countries together and ‘spread
the superior men further’.
70
In a speech delivered at the House of Representatives, Smith
warned that the war was making the whites kill their best and thereby making the yellow
race stronger. Only ‘a union of the white race’, Smith argued, could mediate all conflict in
the interests of Western Europe. He warned of the Asiatic threat and called for a union
that could ‘insure universal peace and the union and supremacy of the white race’.
71
Finally, the feminist Helene Stocker invoked the ‘yellow peril’in her argument for peace
and integration. ‘This war of the white races among themselves’, she wrote, ‘immensely
threatens the domination of the white race in relation to the yellow and black races. If
before the war we could hear so often about the dangers of the yellow race, since then
this danger has multiplied tremendously’.
72
It is impossible to neatly characterize the ways in which future federalist movements
were influenced by these pacifist writers, and by many more who warned of the ‘yellow
peril’and the threat to the white race caused by the war and called for unity or a federal
system to prevent decline.
73
However, the arguments of influential political scientists par-
alleled those of pacifists with race-based scientific interests during and after the war –
mostly on the subject of the decline of the white race and the rise of the ‘yellow peril’.
74
Some political studies were geo-political and economic in method, but underpinned by
a strong racial tone. For example, the prominent French geographer Albert Demangeon
published a book entitled Le D
eclin de l’Europe (The Decline of Europe), in which he theo-
rized the decline of Europe’s industrial output and market in relation to those of Japan.
The book relied extensively on a statistical methodology, but concluded that Japan was
on the verge of driving white people out of Asia by uniting the yellow race and propound-
ing the doctrine of ‘Asia for Asians’.
75
Demangeon warned explicitly of the threat of the ris-
ing yellow power, but did not propose a solution in Le D
eclin de l’Europe. But as Brian
Blouet observed, Demangeon was later to join the call for European integration to avert
decline.
76
Another prominent political voice in the post-First World War period was
Oswald Spengler. Spengler was not at first explicit in his warnings about the yellow peril
or the growing Japanese threat. His 1917 publication –Decline of the West –simply out-
lined the inevitable decline of Europe, with occasional mention of the rise of Japan.
77
In a
subsequent publication, however, he defined the decline purely in racial terms and in rela-
tion to what he called ‘Yellow Japan’. He warned in The Hour of Decision that the Japanese
‘Yellow Peril’was about to engulf the white man’s civilization.
78
I am able to identify the above writers, both pacifist and political, as part of a single dis-
course due to their warnings about the decline of the white race and the rise of the yellow
race, and in some cases their call for federalization as a means of reversing these trends.
Other prominent intellectuals in this period include the French bibliographer C. E. Curinier,
the economist Charles Gide, the historian Gabriel Hanotaux, the Dutch politician Christian
Cornelissen and many others (see C. Pegg), all of whom based their integration arguments
on the argument that European war represented the self-destruction of the white race.
79
The establishment of the League of Nations was implicitly seen as a remedy by propo-
nents of the peace argument, but some proponents of the federal movement (most nota-
bly Attilio Cabiati and Luigi Einaudi) argued against the League of Nations altogether,
which they regarded as impotent and inimical to European federalism.
80
Max Waechter
returned after the First World War with two publications in which he argued that only a
THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 367

European federation would prevent another war or the inevitable decline of Europe rela-
tive to other regions.
81
IV.
We now come to the 1920s, and Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europa movement, which is
usually the starting point for pre-1945 studies in this field. The 1920s saw the emergence
of several movements for European federation (sometimes conflicting)
82
; the most promi-
nent was Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europa movement, which held its first
congress in Vienna in 1926 (preceded by his book Pan-Europa book in 1923). In April
1924, Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the influential journal Paneuropa, which published
pro-federalist articles until 1938. Although race featured in Coudenhove-Kalergi’s move-
ment, anti-Asian/anti-yellow sentiment and the ‘yellow peril’were conspicuously absent
from his entire publication output. A possible explanation is that the theme of the ‘yellow
peril’was less prominent in the 1920s due to other perceived threats (such as that from
Russia) that the federalization of Europe was argued to combat. However, this explanation
may be inadequate, because other movements (albeit less prominent than Coudenhove-
Kalergi’s) clearly offered the ‘yellow peril’as a rationale. Another possible explanation is
the fact that Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, the son of a very influential Austrian diplo-
mat, was himself partly Japanese (with a Japanese mother, Mitsuko Aoyama).
Nevertheless, the general theme of white self-destruction certainly featured in Couden-
hove-Kalergi’s movement, and some of his supporters raised the alarm regarding the ‘yel-
low peril’via other platforms. Indeed, the specific event to precipitate the creation of a
pan-European organization was France’s stationing of African troops in Germany.
83
In the
struggle that attended the early enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles (which ended the
state of war between Germany and the allied powers), France mobilized race as a psycho-
logical weapon against Germany.
84
Troops from the French colonies –mostly Algerians,
Moroccans, Tunisians and Senegalese –were stationed in the Rhineland. The presence of
non-white troops on German soil elicited widespread criticism across Europe and renewed
the self-destruction thesis: that is, the argument that conflict between European countries
was weakening the white race. Terms like ‘the black peril’,‘the black horror’,‘the black dis-
grace’and ‘the black shame’appeared in the European press. Condemnation was sharp
and across the board, and the language used was emphatically racial. The Chancellor of
the Social Democratic Party of Germany considered this both an abomination and a viola-
tion of white civilization. The German president Friedrich Ebert stated that ‘the deploy-
ment of coloured troops of the most inferior culture as overseers of a population of such
high spiritual and economic importance as the Rhinelanders is an intolerable violation of
the law of European civilization’.
85
In Britain, the progressive E. D. Morel, who had once
campaigned against colonial violence in the Congo, led a Europe-wide campaign against
the stationing of black troops in Germany. Fifty thousand Swedish women signed a state-
ment supporting Morel’s views. Similar campaigns were organized in Norway, Austria, Italy
and even France.
86
According to Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson, the stationing of black troops in the
heart of Europe directly supported the argument of European/white self-destruction,
which led directly to Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europa movement.
87
The novelist Hein-
rich Mann and Coudenhove-Kalergi himself, the son of an Austro-Hungarian diplomat,
368 M. ODIJIE

responded to the ‘black horror’by arguing for an immediate union between France and
Germany. Mann argued that France and Germany held the key to Europe’s future and
claimed that competition between France and Germany would inevitably bring down
Europe unless something were done.
88
Remarkably, in his contribution to Coudenhove-
Kalergi’s movement, Mann never mentioned the ‘yellow peril’; but as Ernest Schonfield
pointed out, Mann constantly expressed the fear of Europe being overwhelmed by what
he called the ‘irrational Asia continent’.
89
David Gross was much more to the point in his
assessment of Heinrich Mann’s support for European integration, stating that ‘without
using the term “yellow peril,”Mann conjured up all the associations the phrase implies’.
90
It seems, therefore, that Mann purposely avoided the term ‘yellow peril’due to his close
and intimate friendship with Coudenhove-Kalergi, as did some of the latter’s patrons.
The Pan-Europa movement attracted funding and support from financial experts, aris-
tocrats and statesmen across the European continent. After launching the movement in
1923, Coudenhove-Kalergi was introduced by Baron Louis Nathaniel de Rothschild to Max
Warburg, who offered him 60,000 gold marks in funding. Max Warburg in turn introduced
Coudenhove-Kalergi to his brothers Felix and Paul Warburg, and then to Bernard Baruch.
91
The German industrialist Robert Bosch then set up a pan-European development
fund to sponsor Coudenhove-Kalergi’s efforts. The Austrian Chancellor Ignaz Seipel
provided the movement with a headquarters, and a conference was held from 1926
onward. Coudenhove-Kalergi’s movement received intellectual support from the likes of
Heinrich Mann and his brother Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein, Selma Lagerl€
of and Joseph
Caillaux, as well as statesmen such as Konard Adenauer, Winston Churchill, Karl Renner,
Aristide Briand and Joseph Caillaux and much more.
92
Some of these patrons had previ-
ously called for the federalization of Europe to prevent the ‘yellow peril’.
Coudenhove-Kalergi was notable for introducing a new theme to the European integra-
tion movement: the common use or collective colonization of African colonies; or in his
words, ‘sav[ing] Europe by way of Africa’.
93
In his first publication, Coudenhove-Kalergi
argued that ‘the Africa problem thus brings us back to Europe. Africa cannot be made
available if Europe does not unite’.
94
In a 1929 article, he argued that ‘Africa could provide
Europe with raw material for its industry, nutrition for its population, land for its overpopu-
lation, labour for its unemployed and market for its products’.
95
Article 13 of the draft for a
pan-European pact in 1930 read as follows: ‘All European citizens shall enjoy equal eco-
nomic right in the tropical colonies of Africa’.
96
In other plans for the federalization of Europe in the 1920s, the theme of the collective
use of African colonies featured alongside that of the ‘yellow peril’. For example, in his
book Grandeur et servitude coloniales, Albert Sarraut used Lothrop Stoddard’s racial argu-
ment to highlight the threat of a ‘yellow peril’and argue for European federalism (accom-
panied by a collective colonialism of Africa) to prevent European economic, military and
racial decline.
97
The Italian integrationist Paolo Orsini di Camerota, the German socialist
Wladimir Woytinsky in his book Die Vereinigten Staaten von Europa, and French integra-
tionists such as Eugene Guernier, Joseph Caillaux, Paul Reynaud and Albert Thomas (most
of whom were patrons of Coudenhove-Kalergi) all based their arguments for European
federalism on the use of Africa and the suppression of the ‘yellow peril’. I am able to iden-
tify them as part of a single discourse separate from that of Coudenhove-Kalergi due to
their twin emphases on the yellow peril and the common use of Africa in Europe’s
federalism.
THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 369

In the 1920s, a detailed plan along these lines was proposed by the German architect
Herman S€
orgel; the plan is today known as Atlantropa. S€
orgel copied Coudenhove-Kaler-
gi’s strategy of establishing a journal, movement and even a political party. His proposal
for Atlantropa envisioned a tightly linked Europe–Africa formed by damming the Strait of
Gibraltar and the Bosporus and constructing several transcontinental routes. The central
theme was the creation of a huge hydroelectric dam across the Strait of Gibraltar to pro-
vide vast quantities of hydroelectricity and open up new land for European settlement by
lowering the sea level of the Mediterranean by about 660 ft. This was expected to federal-
ize Europe and open Africa to the continent. A brief outline of the project was published
in four languages and evaluated alongside other proposals for European integration. In
his publications, S€
orgel argued that the political contribution of the project would be to
position European civilization as a superpower and to bolster European culture against
the ‘yellow peril’.
98
As Kees Gispen argued, ‘[t]he theme that inspired S€
orgel’s vision was
unbounded technological optimism wedded to deep cultural pessimism –geopolitical,
demographic, racial –about Europe’s future in the aftermath of World War I. S€
orgel
believed that the war had fatally undermined Europe’s position in the world, threatening
it from the east with teeming Asiatic hordes –a“yellow peril”about to engulf Europe’.
99
A notable feature of all of the arguments and movements of the 1920s
100
was their imme-
diate adoption of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s proposal for the collective colonization of Africa. Cou-
denhove-Kalergi’s movement was conspicuous for the omission of an argument based on the
‘yellow peril’or fear of Asia in any of its copious publications and pronouncements. Couden-
hove-Kalergi’s refusal to use the term ‘yellow peril’may have contributed to the amnesia in
the literature, because his movement was definitely the most influential in the 1920s, and
some historians restrict the history of pre-1945 federalist movements to Coudenhove-Kalergi’s
Pan-Europa union. It is also worth noting, following the observation made by the British histo-
rian Mark Hewitson, that the French government developed a concurrent but hidden plan for
some form of European federation to restrain Germany in the 1920s, just as Germany had
planned a federation scheme in 1914.
101
This was clearly outside the purview of the European
federalist movement. When the French Prime Minister Aristide Briand made comments
favouring the establishment of a European Union in the League of Nations in 1929, and in his
‘Memorandum on the Organization of a Regime of European Federal Union’in 1930, they
were interpreted by supporters of European federalization as the first translation of their ideas
into practical politics. However, the German government privately saw these comments as a
device implemented by France to impose restrictions on Germany; the Secretary of State
Bernhard Wilhelm von B€
ulow, for example, assessed Briand’splanasareflection of France’s
desire ‘to impose new fetters on us’.
102
Although Briand himself warned of the ‘yellow peril’in
a different context, this threat was not referenced in his official proposal.
The coming to power of the Nazi political party in Germany in 1933 stunted some of
the above-mentioned pan-European movements. Remarkably, the Nazi Party banned the
use of the phrase ‘yellow peril’in Germany two years after coming to power.
103
But until
the late 1930s, statesmen and intellectuals elsewhere in Europe were still calling for the
integration of Europe to avert the ‘yellow peril’. For example, the French statesman Paul
Reynaud, who became France’s Prime Minister in 1940 and was central to the post-Second
World War integration movement, warned in 1936 that ‘[i]f Europe does not get together
within the next two or three decades it will be devoured by the Japanese and their yellow
allies’.
104
Similar sentiments were echoed right up to the beginning of the Second World
370 M. ODIJIE

War.
105
Notably, Paul Reynaud omitted the term ‘yellow peril’in his post-1945 rationale for
European integration, as he represented France in the Council of Europe and argued for
immediate integration in his 1951 ‘Unite or Perish’address.
106
This is due in part, of course,
to the existence of other rationales; nevertheless, anxiety surrounding the ‘yellow peril’
certainly contributed to the emergence of the early European federation movement.
V.
To conclude, the following question needs to be asked: why is there no mention of the
‘yellow peril’in the extant literature on the pre-1945 history of European integration? First,
this may be due to the on-going conflict between historiographical accounts that empha-
size government-led processes and those stressing the role of federalist movements. As
the theme of a ‘yellow peril’arose only within public debate and federalist movements,
writers using official accounts (such as that of Germany’s‘September Programme’of 1914
or the French ‘Memorandum on the Organization of a Regime of European Federal Union’
of 1929) are likely to miss it. Second, the most influential pre-1945 movement did not use
the ‘yellow peril’argument. As I have already speculated, Coudenhove-Kalergi may have
avoided using anti-Asia language due to his own Japanese heritage. Remarkably, with the
sole exception of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s movement, every forum, assembly and detailed
academic proposal for European federation between 1909 and 1930 either explicitly refer-
enced the ‘yellow peril’or used general racial language pointing to the rise of Asia.
Third, however, it remains possible that historians have displayed a deliberate amnesia in
their failure to register the ‘yellow peril’, similar to their failure to register the collective colo-
nialism introduced by Coudenhove-Kalergi (which was adopted as part of the state-led inte-
gration process in the 1950s and led to the creation of a trade system between the EU and
African ex-colonies), as this initiative does not place the EU in good light. Yet reintroducing
European anxieties over the ‘yellow peril’to the historiography of European federalist move-
ments is especially relevant today, given the emergence of new anxieties regarding a ‘yellow
peril’in several European countries, most conspicuously the fear of being overrun by non-
white immigrants. Ironically (from a historical perspective), this fear is currently fuelling an
anti-European Union nationalist movement. Investigating the fear of a ‘yellow peril’in the
early twentieth century may help us to understand this new anti-European Union movement.
Notes
1. C. Strikwerda, ‘The Troubled Origins of European Economic Integration: International Iron and
Steel and Labour Migration in the Era of World War I’,American Historical Review, xcviii (1993),
1106–42; Derek W. Urwin, The Community of Europe: A History of European Integration since
1945 (London: Routledge, 2014); Gillingham John, European Integration, 1950–2003: Superstate
or New Market Economy? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
2. Carl Pegg, Evolution of the European Idea 1914–1932. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1983).
3. L. Walter, ‘European Federation in the Political Thought of Resistance Movements during
World War II’,Central European History, i (1968), 5–19; L. Walter, A History of European
Integration: 1945–1947 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).
4. Peter Stirk, A History of European Integration since 1914 (London: Pinter Publishers Limited,
1996); P. Stirk, ‘Integration and Disintegration before 1914’in D. Dinan (ed), Origins and Evolution
THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 371

of the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014; 2006); Carl Pegg, Evolution of the
European Idea 1914–1932 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983); D. Stevenson,
‘The First World War and European Integration’,The International History Review, xxxiv (2012),
841–63; Sidney Pollard, The Integration of the European Economy, 1815–1970 (London: Thames
& Hudson Publishing, 1974), 73; Lee Craig, The Integration of the European Economy, 1850–1913
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997).
5. C. Pegg, Evolution of the European Idea 1914–1932.7.
6. A. Milward, ‘Evolution of the European Idea 1914-1932 Carl H. Pegg.’(1985).
7. See C. Pegg, Evolution of the European Idea; P. Stirk, A History of European Integration since 1914;
S. Pollard, The Integration of the European Economy, 1815–1970.
8. Rudolf Kjelle
́n, Den stora Orinten: Resestudier i o
̈
sterva
̈
g (The Great Orient: Travel StudiesEastward)
(Gothenburg: A
̊
hle
́n and A
̊
kerlund, 1911), 267.
9. Gollwitzer, Die Gelbe Gefahr (G€
ottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962); I. Akira, ‘The ‘Yellow
Peril’and its Influence on Japanese-German Relations’in Spang, C.W. and Wippich, R.H. (eds),
Japanese-German Relations, 1895-1945: War, Diplomacy and Public Opinion (London: Routledge,
2006), 81;Thoralf Klein, The “Yellow Peril”,inPaulmann, J. (eds), European History Online (EGO)
(Mainz: Leibniz Institute of European History, 2015) 80.
10. Charles Henry Pearson, National Life and Character: A Forecast (London: Macmillan And Co. Ltd,
1894); I. Akira, ‘The Precursors of the Yellow Peril Theories: Mikhail Bakunin and Charles Pearson.’
RIAD Bulletin, iii (1995), 257–92;I.Akira,‘The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Question of Race,’in
O’Brien, P. (eds), The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922 (London: Routledge, 2003), 222.
11. See Thoralf, The “Yellow Peril”; Akira, ‘The ‘Yellow Peril’and its Influence on Japanese-German
Relations’; Hashimoto, Yorimitsu, ed. Yellow Peril: Collection of British novels, 1895-1913. ii (Lon-
don: Synapse Publishing, 2007); G. Blue, ‘Gobineau on China: Race Theory, the “Yellow Peril”
and the Critique of Modernity’,Journal of World History, (1999), 93–139; Jennifer Clegg, Fu Man-
chu and the Yellow Peril: The Making of a Racist Myth (London: Trentham Books, 1994); Anne K
Mellor, ‘Frankenstein, Racial Science, and the Yellow Peril.’Nineteenth Century Contexts, xxiii, 1–
28; Stanford M Lyman, ‘The “Yellow Peril”Mystique: Origins and Vicissitudes of a Racist Dis-
course’,International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, xiii (2000), 683–747; John Kuo Wei
Tchen and Dylan Yeats, Yellow Peril!: An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear (London: Verso Book, 2014).
12. Klein ‘The Yellow Peril; 4.
13. See John M. Hobson, The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory,
1760–2010. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) Part I and Part II; Mike Hawkins,
Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860--1945: Nature as Model and Nature as
Threat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
14. Akira, “The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Question of Race,”229.
15. Akira, ‘The ‘Yellow Peril’and its Influence on Japanese-German Relations’in Spang, C.W. and
Wippich, R.H. (eds), Japanese-German Relations, 1895-1945: War, Diplomacy and Public Opinion
(London: Routledge, 2006), 81.
16. John Rohl and John R€
ohl, The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 203.
17. Frank Tipton, A History of Modern Germany Since 1815 (London: A & C Black, 2003), 225.
18. Jing Tsu, Failure, Nationalism, and Literature: The Making of Modern Chinese Identity, 1895--1937
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 80.
19. Jing Tsu, Failure, Nationalism, and Literature: The Making of Modern Chinese Identity, 1895--1937
(California: Stanford University Press, 2005), 80; Lamar Cecil, Wilhelm II: Volume 2, Emperor and
Exile, 1900--1941 (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 176.
20. L. Cecil, Wilhelm II: Volume 2, Emperor and Exile, 1900--1941 (North Carolina: University of North
Carolina Press, 2000), 176.
21. Gassert Philipp, “V€
olker Europas, wahrt Eure heiligsten Güter’: Die Alte Welt und die japanische Her-
ausforderung, in: Maik-Hendrik Sprotte / Wolfgang Seifert / Heinz L€
owe (eds.), Der Russisch-Japani-
sche Krieg 1904/05.Anbruch einer neuen Zeit? (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007), 277–93.
22. An, Chen, The Voice from China: An CHEN on International Economic Law (London: Springer,
2014), 55.
372 M. ODIJIE

23. Jing Tsu, Failure, Nationalism, and Literature , 20; Lanxin Xiang, The Origins of the Boxer War: A
Multinational Study (London: Routledge, 2014), 7; Sabine Doran, The Culture of Yellow: Or, The
Visual Politics of Late Modernity (New York: 2013), 124.
24. Naomi Greene, From Fu Manchu to Kung Fu Panda: Images of China in American Film. i. (Hono-
lulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2014), 221.
25. Masayoshi Matsumura, Baron Kaneko and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05): A Study in the Pub-
lic Diplomacy of Japan (North Carolina: Lulu Press, 2009), 193.
26. Akira, ‘The ‘Yellow Peril’and its Influence on Japanese-German’, 90.
27. David Starr Jordan, ‘Results of the War Between Russia and Japan’,The Advocate of Peace (1894-
1920), lxviii (1906), 59–61.
28. Jack London, The Unparalleled Invasion (London: 1910); Capitaine Danrit, The Yellow Invasion
(Paris, 1905).
29. For a collection of “Yellow peril “postcards in early 1900s see Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology “The Yellow Peril”Accessible at https://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/yellow_promi
se_yellow_peril/yp_essay04.html
30. Greenberry G Rupert, The Yellow Peril: Or, the Orient vs. the Occident as Viewed by Modern States-
men and Ancient Prophets (Oklahoma: Union Publishing Company, 1911); Marsden Manson, The
Yellow Peril in Action: A Possible Chapter in History (San Francisco: Britton & Rey, Printers, 1907);
Marcus Lorenzo, The Yellow Peril (New York: Eaton and Mains, 1905); Hans Schmidt-Kestner, Der
fliegende Tod: Die gelbe Gefahr. Von e. dt. Offizier (Westdt: Verlag-Ges, 1911); Alexander von
Peez, Die gelbe Gefahr in der Geschichte Europas: Text von Alexander von Peez, Karte von Friedrich
Ritter von Wiser (Lumen, 1908); von Lignitz, Friedrich Wilhelm Albrecht Victor, Deutschlands
Interessen in Ostasien, und die gelbe Gefahr. (Berlin: Vossische Buchhandlung, 1907).
31. Christian Spielmann, Arier und Mongolen: Weckruf an die europa€ischen Kontinentalen unter his-
torischer und politischer Beleuchtung der gelben Gefahr (Halle: Gesenius, 1905), 4.
32. Paul S. Reinsch, ‘Japan and Asiatic Leadership’,The North American Review, clxxx (1905), 48–57;
Robert Stein, ‘Anglo-Franco-German Alliance—A Guarantee of Peace’,The Advocate of Peace
(1894-1920), lxvii (1905), 147–51.
33. Robert Stein, ‘Anglo-Franco-German Alliance—A Guarantee of Peace’,The Advocate of Peace
(1894-1920), lxvii (1905), 147–51; 150.
34. Anatole France, The White Stone (London: John Lane, 1905), 167.
35. Parker (Ed.), The Daily Mail ,Year Book for 1905, pp. 134–35.
36. ‘The True “Yellow Peril”, Spectator, xcii, 1904.
37. Demetrius C. Boulger, ‘The “Yellow Peril”Bogey’, Nineteenth Century and After, lx (1904), 30.
38. Quoted in John C. G. R€
ohl, Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900–1941 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2014), 625.
39. J.C. R€
ohl, Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 272.
40. ‘KAISER SAYS JAPAN WILL CONTROL CHINA; Wants the Powers to Unite Against the Yellow
Peril’,New York Times, 1905, 1.
41. Akira, ‘The ‘Yellow Peril’91.
42. Irwin Abrams, The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates: An Illustrated Biographical History, 1901-
1987 (Boston: Science History Publications, 1988), 78.
43. Alfred Fried, The German Emperor and the Peace of the World (London: Hodder and Stoughton,
1912), 53.
44. Sidney Lewis Gulick, The American Japanese Problem: A Study of the Racial Relations of the East
and the West (New York: Scribner’s sons, 1914), 225.
45. Lewis, The American Japanese Problem (225–31).
46. Ibid, 225.
47. The Advocate of Peace (1894-1920), lxxi (1909), 227–9.
48. C. Pegg, Evolution of the European Idea, (1914–1932), 7.
49. S. Cortesi, ‘The Federation of Europe’,Oamaru Mail, xxxviv (1909).
50. P. Casano, ‘European Federation’,The Advocate of Peace, lxxi (1894–1920)(1909), 229–32.
51. Max Waechter, European Federation: A Lecture Delivered at the London Institution on the 25th
February 1909 (London: Jordan & Sons Limited, 1909), 15.
THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 373

52. Quoted in Sybil Oldfield, International Woman Suffrage: July 1913-October 1914. i (London: Tay-
lor & Francis, 2003), 215.
53. C. Pegg, Evolution of the European Idea, (1914–1932), 7.
54. The Economist, lxxviii (1503), 1914.
55. Quoted in Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson, Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration
and Colonialism (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014), 42.
56. Mark Levene, Genocide in the Age of the Nation State: Volume 2: The Rise of the West and Coming
Genocide (London: IB Tauris, 2005), 188.
57. Rudolf Kjell
en, Der Staat als Lebensform (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1917).
58. Tobias H€
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to offer any merit that this article may possess to Professor John M. Hobson.
The entire article builds on a series of exchange between professor Hobson and the author. The
author is also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers and the editors of The International History
Review (RINH) for patiently reading and improving the manuscript.
THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW 375